Free Find A Way Or Make One by E. C. Kelley

worst my friend. Unfortunately, I know how animals like this think. Well, in this case I guess it is fortunately, because it gives us a better chance to get Nadeen back.”
    Yasser looked at me with surprising understanding. Clasping my shoulder he said gently, “My friend, I hate that you have had to be close enough to the dregs of society that you understand how they think. Even if it is helping my sister, I wish you could remain innocent to this side of life.” Obviously Yasser had never been told the story of how my mother and I came to live in Yemen when I was seventeen. Thank goodness.
    After finalizing our plans, I made my way to the back of the house and slowly climb up to the second story where a window has been left open. When I get to the window I look in and see that it is evidently a holding room where they keep the girls. As I scan the faces that I can see, they all seem completely spaced out. I can tell that they have all been roofied , probably GHB, so that they are more malleable and easier to control. As I climb inside I am completely repulsed by what I see, hear, and smell. I see women in various states of undress, huddled together for either warmth or protection. I can hear the muffled cries of a young girl, who can be no more than twelve or thirteen years of age, and I can smell the bodily waste in the chamber pots that have not been removed. As I slowly look around, I know that each of these women will be spending their last night here. This hell would end tonight.
    “Nadeen ? Nadeen, are you in here?” As I scan the faces in the room, looking for some sign or spark of life, I instantly become disheartened. I am too late, Yasser’s sister has already been sold.
    “Are you looking for the woman Nadeen that was sold to these dogs by her husband?” The voice is coming from the far corner of the room and as I scan over the huddled masses of bodies over there, I can’t make out who is speaking.
    “Yes, yes I am. Do you know where she is? Has she already been sold?”
    “No, she is to be sold later today. Right now the dogs have taken her to serve them. Right now she will probably only be serving them drinks, but in a few hours?” The figure slowly shrugs her shoulders. As I can make out more and more of her face, I can see she is beautiful, or would be if there was any life in her eyes. Long blond hair drapes her shoulders, and dark green eyes stare unseeingly at me.
    “What is your name? Will you help me?”
    “Look, you are no match for these dogs. Just pray that your friend is sold to one of the more diabolical customers who will kill her the first night.”
    “No! That is not how this is going to go down. I am going to get Nadeen and each of you out of this hell on Earth.”
    “Why? Nadeen has no family. Her husband sold her to these dogs because she dared to run away from his abuse. Many of the girls you see here come from similar circumstances. They enraged their fathers, their husbands, or some other man who controlled their lives. Or they simply needed money. Where would they go? From one whorehouse to another?”
    My heart bled for this girl and what she had suffered, but we had no time for that now. “No you will go and live with my family. My father and my brothers will protect you and you will never be forced to do anything you do not want to do ever again.”
    I cynical smile twisted the girls lips. “You really think your family will protect whores like us? Please, no man would want us around his family.”
    Time is running out and I know it. I have to get her to believe me. “Only a man who makes a girl his daughter because he likes her spirit, and brothers who stand by her even when her world is ripped apart by an ex-boyfriend who tries to sale her to pay off his debt to his drug dealer after taking what he wants from her would see the truth of girls and women who have lived through hell and have become stronger for it.”
    The shock in the girl’s eyes causes a small smile