THE TRUCK

When you make yourself an enemy, you'll never find a friend in anybody, sweetheart.

***

CHAPTER LXIII

*****

I DIDN'T KNOW if I had been out for minutes or hours, but by the time I had woken up, I had no idea where I was. The first thing I took notice off was how it was absolutely freezing wherever the fuck I was.

The second thing I noticed was the fact that I wasn't alone.

After opening both of my eyes and rubbing the sleep out of them, I could tell that I was in some kind of rectangular box. From the way it bumped and jiggled occasionally, I knew it was most likely a large truck.

My hands were tied together behind me, but the rope that restrained me was the same rope that restrained the girl sitting beside me. And the girl sitting beside her. In fact it restrained everyone in the box. My toes wiggled freely ahead of me, displaying my bare feet like all the other girls in there with me.

I looked at them all, noting how they were all of different ages and ethnicities. The youngest girl looking as if she was no older than six and the oldest girl being either me or the girl next to me. If there was one thing all the people shared in common, though, it was the fact that they were all exceptionally pretty.

And that gave me my answer.

They were being trafficked. I was being trafficked.

I wanted to scream and shout or call for help, but my mouth was taped shut and I couldn't get any words out. I looked around my surroundings, trying to find a way out because I knew what happened to girls that were trafficked but the doors were sealed shut and my hands were tied completely. And there was no way I could wiggle myself out of my restraints because we were all packed in like sardines.

My stomach turned at the thought of that and I begged myself not to puke because with the tape over my mouth, it would be a nasty situation. No matter how much I tried to think of a possible way to get myself out, there was just nothing I could do.

The only thing that could possibly yield some results was sitting there and waiting.

***

The people driving the truck were men.

They didn't keep their voices down and occasionally, there loud yells and laughs would filter into the truck. It made my eyes prick with tears because I felt more helpless then ever.

I didn't know what I was expecting. Of course it was being driven by men. I was just clinging on to the last bit of hope I had.

And now even that was gone.

We were probably on the road for hours, but there were no stops being made. I had no idea what time of day it was because in the back of the truck, it was dark. That's what it was at every hour. There was no difference.

The six-year-old had started to cry and while at first I felt pity, it was starting to piss me off after a couple minutes. I didn't blame her though. I understood how she felt.

Unfortunately, the men at the front didn't. I could hear his loud voice shouting at the driver to pull the truck over at the side of the road in Spanish. This caused for an argument about how they were going to be late if they stopped moving and both their loud voices boomed into the back.

The girl cried louder, making me want to tell her to shut up. The man most likely was asking the driver to pull up because of her incessant crying, but I didn't expect her to understand that.

She was only six and she was most likely scared out of her mind.

Despite the many times that tears had threatened to fall out of my eyes, I didn't let them because there were much younger girls in there and I wasn't going to cry in front of them. I wasn't calling myself someone that they looked up to, but believing that they would feel hopeless if I started crying was the only thing that calmed me down.

The truck suddenly came to a stop and I felt my heart lurch out of my chest at the sound of one of the doors opening. I waited for the person to slam it shut so I could anticipate when they would reach the back doors, but before the sound reached me, the doors were already being pulled open.

The girl started screaming as best she could through the tape, her legs kicking out as she stared at the skinny, bald man in absolute fear. He set his eyes on her, the brown colour in them looking dead as he stepped into the van and made his way over to where she was sitting.

“If you don't shut that mouth of yours up, I'll give you something to really cry about,” he said, hunching down to her level. I saw him raise his hand but before I could watch him slap her, I turned away, letting my eyes focus on the outside.

It was day time and we seemed to be in the middle of nowhere with desert land stretching on for miles and miles. My hopelessness only increased.

A shrill scream broke me out of my daydreaming and I turned around to see the man with his hand around the girls neck. He banged her head on the floor repeatedly, only seeming to hit her harder the more she screamed.

The girl beside me started struggling in her restraints, making the rope pull and burn my skin. She looked like she was crying, her eyes filled with pain as she watched the little girl slowly lose consciousness in the man's arms.

Her words were being muffled, but I could only assume that she was cussing him out. It was only then after properly looking at her that I saw the resemblance between her and the unconscious girl. They had the same brown hair and brown eyes although, the younger girls skin tone was slightly more pale.

The man whipped around, his eyes narrowing on the girl beside me as I felt my stomach drop to my ass. I wasn't even scared for myself, I was scared for her.

“Do you want to say something, you little bitch?” he asked, his Spanish accent thick as he glared at her. She matched his stare, as if challenging him which made me shake my head.

There was no way she was going to win in a fight against him. He may have been smaller than average, but she was still tied up. He walked over to her, his hand reaching out to grab her face and probably do to her what he did to her sister when his eyes zeroed in on me.

The scowl fell off and a teasing smirk stretched across his lips as he forgot about her completely.

“My, my, my, if it isn't the highly acclaimed Venom.” My stomach dropped at his words, but I didn't say anything. I couldn't. “You and Daniel, you were something. And now look at where you are - among peasants. Among women who should be working for you.” I didn't look him in the eye because I knew not to. “The most sought after woman in the cartel,” he tutted, shaking his head as if he was regretful. “People will be paying good money just to get with you.” He walked to the doors again and stepped out, but not before looking at me. “It's such a shame that Daniel brought you into this world and didn't know how to protect you. Not even from himself.”

And then he closed the door.

***

The silence in the truck after the man's proclamation was heavier than the silence I was accustomed to. I could feel the confused, curious, maybe even hateful glares on my head.

They probably thought the worst of me. They probably thought I supported men who were like this.

The worst part about it was they weren't wrong to think that. Because at the end of the day, Daniel was just like every other mafia man I could name. He was evil, he was cruel and he was completely heartless.

And I was still so foolishly in love with him. My heart ached every time I thought about him.

It was obvious that he didn't love me; I knew from the beginning. He never loved me. But to have this happen and for me to see how little regard he gave to my health and safety, it made my heart cut and bleed all over my rational thinking.

I stared down at my legs, feeling a deep disappointment settle in my guts. I thought I made him happy. I thought we could pretend that everything was okay. He didn't need to love me; I was okay with him not loving me. I just needed him to be with me.

Every day, I did everything in my power to make sure he was happy, but he got tired of me. Was there something I did wrong? Was I not good enough?

My thoughts suddenly halted, my brows furrowing in confusion. I did everything in my power to make sure he was happy; and he still wasn't.

It wasn't my fault.

I noticed a pattern in the way I thought. In that moment, I noticed how I was so quick to blame myself for everything that happened to anybody. I noticed how I was quick to criticise and rip into myself without properly deliberating whether I was the one at fault or not.

The truth of the matter was that I loved Daniel and I did all I could to make him love me back, but I couldn't control how he felt about me. Daniel was broken. He was lost and unhappy and angry at the world and he wanted to stay that way. I couldn't change someone who didn't want to change. Most importantly, it wasn't my job to.

So why was I sitting there blaming myself for something I had no control over? How could I blame myself for him not loving me back when it was because he didn't want to love me back?

I was in a life or death situation and that was what I decided to do with my time and mental capacity?

I looked back on my past, realising that it wasn't the first instance where it was happening. Countless times, I had ripped into myself for something I had no control over because it was easier to join the crowd in hating me than to actually stand up for me.

In that moment, I realised that I hated myself.

Even through my obvious confidence, it was fake. I hated myself because, for years, nobody loved me. And that's how I measured my value as a person; by people loving me.

Daniel wasn't the only broken one. I was entirely fucked up. And in a weird way, I was thankful to him for making me realise this.

I had a problem. A massive one that I was only noticing now. I was my biggest enemy and that was sad because I was the only person that I could rely on.

Even if people died and many walked away, the one person that would always stand with me was myself and I hated her.

Well that was all about to change because right now, the only person u had to save me was myself. Daniel was a bust and probably so was Pablo and Anna. He most likely fed them some lie about where I was, the fucking asshole.

I was a one person team made entirely of myself and I was going to make sure I got out of this situation alive. I had so much more to live for and it was about damn time I started living for me instead of other ungrateful people that weasled there way into my life.

I was Araceli Constantine Cruz. No, I am Araceli Constantine Cruz. And I would survive.

*****

That change of tense was deliberate. I decided that I had done too much by now so I'll give yall that little bit of hope.

As we stand, there's only about 10-9 chapters left in this book. So that's 10-9 chapters left for me to resolve all the shit that I've pulled or 10-9 chapters left for me to continue pulling shit all the way into the second book.

Lets see what I'll do.

Fair warning that I guess yall deserve: from this point on, Daniel only exists in our thoughts. He will not be making an appearance until the second book.

Some shits going to happen and then you'll figure out why.