// discussion of organised sexual abuse
"We ran the DNA test. She is his daughter. We will try to identify a mother, but..."
"Come in," she said with a flat tone.
She was sitting on her bed, eyes looking down at the floor. She was wearing shorts and an oversized t-shirt, a combo I would almost never see her wearing again. She looked incredibly meek, almost emaciated, and deathly pale where her body wasn't covered in bandages. An IV was stuck into her left arm.
Lúcia, age 14, 1.50m, 40kg.
"Hey," I tried to greet her with a smile.
She didn't look up. "Hello."
"I feel sick." She sounded sick too. Her voice was incredibly raspy.
"That's understandable. You lost a lot of blood."
I tried to touch her cheek, but she grabbed my arm, her nails so sharp and grip so strong that she drew blood. Not as weak as she looked.
"Don't touch me." was all she said before letting go.
She licked the blood off her fingers. I grabbed a chair and sat down across from her.
She was silent for a while. Then she asked: "So that wasn't a dream? And I'm not dead? This is real?"
"I wanna know. How many?"
"It's difficult to say, but... In total there were 46 found dead. A good number of them your work."
"Wow." She smirked. "I'd never held a gun before."
"It felt good. Powerful."
"Did you know you would survive?"
"No. Fuck no. I thought I was gonna die. I just didn't care. It would've been a mercy."
I wasn't sure what to say to that. "I... can't imagine what it must have been like."
"Whatever you're thinking, it's worse."
She looked at me, just for a moment, and once again I saw that look in those green eyes, the same one she had when I found her. Unimaginable horror mixed with determined, righteous anger.
"It's called rape, right? What they did to us."
There was a weight to that word when she said it, that made it sound wholly different from the countless reports I had read and written including it.
"My... He said it was love. Then he told me it was work. At the start he rewarded me for it. That was years ago."
"Your father? Francisco?"
"Would it... help you to know that he's-"
"Dead. I know. I shot him."
"The doctors said you told them you couldn't remember anything."
"I'm glad he's dead," she continued. "Is that bad?"
"I think it's very reasonable. What he did to you is worse than killing."
"Have you killed before?"
"Yes. I shot several people during that raid, and that wasn't the first time. This city is a warzone now."
"Really?" There was a sincerity to the question I didn't expect.
"Not literally, but... the organisation that... those people were a part of is... a very well-connected international group that managed to take over parts of the city. They're quickly falling now, but they've left a lot of chaos behind."
"Did... you ever wonder why nobody was coming to save you?"
A naive question, I know.
And yet the answer hit me like a punch to the stomach. No.
"I almost never thought about the outside world. As far as I was concerned, it didn't exist. All I saw of it were the clients that came in. Some of them were... gentle, but usually we were just treated like... toys. Not people. Just things to fuck. Like..."
"Dolls. Yes, they called us that, sometimes."
"Why do you always talk about "us"?"
"It wasn't just me. You know that, right?"
"We are trying to find their families and... return them home."
"You think they will be happy there?"
This seemed like a good opportunity to ask her.
"Do I have a family?" She got to it first.
I shook my head. "No. Your... father was your biological father. We don't know about the mother, but..."
"I saw her once..." For the first time in our conversation she seemed genuinely uncomfortable and like she was holding back tears. "He..."
"You don't have to say it."
Lúcia nodded, swallowed, shook her head like she was a wet dog, took a deep breath and straightened her back.
"So... usually, a child like you would enter the foster system, but... if you want... I could adopt you."
"You would legally become my daughter. I would be your mother."
"I... think I would like to know you more... if you're going to be... my mother."
"Of course. There's a whole process we need to go through..."
She reached out a hand and touched my arm. "Strong..."
"Yes. I'm pretty strong."
Poor girl. Adjusting to normal life won't be easy.
"A doll. What they called us. What is that?"
"A... doll is a figure, out of plastic or fabric or something else... that's made to look like a person, at least somewhat. Children sometimes play with them, or people collect them, or... you know..."
"A plaything... a toy. That looks like a person?" She tilted her head.
"Yes." I pulled up an image on my phone. "Like this."
She looked at it, almost transfixed. "A doll..."
"Did you ever have things to play with?"
"No." She shook her head. "Why would someone give toys to their doll?"
Astute question for someone who seemingly didn't know what a doll was until just now.
"Some other children I've rescued were treated with more... love, for lack of a better word, I guess."
"The only love I know is being fucked. - Raped," she corrected herself.
Another gut punch. Fuck. And she said it so matter-of-factly. "I'm sorry," was all I could say.
"What are you sorry for?"
"I'm sorry those things... happened to you."
"Why are you sorry? You didn't do it."
"It's... an expression. To express sympathy."
"I... do wonder if we couldn't have stopped it sooner, though."
"No way to change that now."
She said that like it was something she'd had to tell herself. Probably best not to probe that now.
14 years old. Stuck in that place for as long as she could remember...
"How do you know how old you are?"
"They told us. Clients have preferences with regards to age. If they asked us how old we were they wanted us to answer truthfully."
Clients. Preferences with regards to age. We had found children as young as four. Somehow I didn't think too much of it. Now it made me want to throw up.
"14-year-olds are the most desirable."
I was going to have some beer tonight. Or maybe something stronger. Maybe just pure vodka. That would taste appropriately clinical for the day.
"They... did something to me. They said that I wouldn't age anymore, and wouldn't die if they were... too rough with me. I didn't think they had actually made me immortal."
"I don't know what they did. I just remember how they experimented with me, and what they talked about. But they said they had ways to keep me in check. I was the first one, I think. I don't know what they did before when we got too old.""
I wasn't sure if I should dare to ask. "Did they... kill-"
"Yes. They'd kill you if you were too much of a problem." Her voice was monotone again. "They..." She was staring off into the distance. Dissociating.
"Hey, do you want some water?"
Again, she shook herself like a wet dog. I brought her a cup of water. She started crying, but she found back to reality.
"Okay. I think that's enough questions for now," I set the chair back where I'd taken it from.
"Okay. Do you have a phone?"
She looked at me like I was insane. "No? Where would I have gotten a phone?"
"Right... I will be around for the rest of the day. If you'd like to talk, just tell a nurse, okay? You know how to call for them?"
"Good. The door is unlocked, but everyone will knock before they come in. Get some rest, you deserve it."
"And make sure you get enough water!"
Good God, I was already acting like her mom.
"Yeah... You know, I never really talked to them, like this. That's someone else's job. And even then it's so... procedurised. You don't really feel it."
"Sal, you know that's not a word, right?"
"And yet you know exactly what I meant."
He didn't say anything to that.
"That girl is... something. There's a lot she doesn't know, but... she has a way with words. And she's bitter. I'd be willing to believe she survived by sheer force of will."
"You know, a few years ago this would've baffled me - but now? I'd believe it."
"She says it's something they did to her."
"She says they did something to her so she wouldn't age and wouldn't die, no matter what they did to her."
"Worked out well for them."
"I don't understand what drives these people. I mean, there's so many things you could be doing. Why risk all this to get to fuck some child?"
"It's about power. Any adult can see they don't have hearts. Hurting people is the only way they can feel like they're in control."
While we were waiting around at the hospital, I briefly excused myself to seek out the nearest electronics store and pick up a phone for her. I installed some things I thought she might find interesting, saved my number, that of the hospital, all emergency numbers were already pre-saved.
"If her condition continues to be stable we will transfer her to the psychiatric wing tomorrow. A psychiatrist has already had a look at her. She has authorised us to share her full medical information with you, but only as a private individual, not in your capacity as an officer of the law. Will you be able to maintain that separation? - Please sign here. - Alright. We're sending you the reports."
// by Chloe, Silvy and Lúcia