Chapter 1
I'm Going Home
This is it. I am hoping to hit the reset button. I can forever shed the label of Violet, the sex slave, the Chambermaid—or whatever I was for the last year—and become me again. Once I ring this doorbell I can resume my life as Brinley Avery Bishop. College student, daughter, aspiring actress, girlfriend? Maybe I will follow my agent's advice and dye my naturally blonde locks. I could do a vibrant red, or even a deep brown. Doesn't matter the color. The point is, if I look less like me, I will feel less like her.
My palms sweat as I reach for the doorbell. I haven't seen my mother in a year. She must be out of her mind with fear. I can't imagine what she has suffered, waking up one day to learn that her only daughter is missing. I'm sure by now she believes I'm dead. How else could she mentally survive?
I have no idea what to say to her. What will be too much for Mason? What will be enough for her?
Too much time has passed.
Still, I have to do this. This is my home and we are the only family each other has. With shaky hands I depress the bell and I wait.
It feels like forever.
My heart feels heavy. I am excited and scared at the same time. I can't imagine what her reaction to me at the door will be. Then the questions. How will I answer them? Mason was dead serious when he made his threat to us: "Breathe a word of your whereabouts, or what took place here, and suffer most heinously." It's not like I even know where I was. I was blindfolded on my arrival as well as my departure. Mason did his job well. No one used their real name in The Chamber, not even me. So what would I say? Nothing that could help anyone locate the place.
What Mason doesn't know is that he has nothing to worry about. All I want to do is forget about my year of being passed around from stranger to stranger, while they used my body for their own pleasure. I am the last person who would run around broadcasting what I went through. The sooner I can put it all behind me, the better—but somehow I know I will never forget.
When the door flies open my mother and I just stare into each other's eyes. Green to green. She looks older. Her eyes lack their usual brightness. Her blonde hair lacks its usual luster. While I probably look too good. During the last year I was kept in impeccable shape and condition. Regular spa treatments, my own personal groomer and masseur. Another thing to explain to my mother. Of course, one would expect an escaped kidnap victim to look beaten or bruised. Worse for wear, not like she just stepped off a photo shoot.
"Brinley." The word is a whisper. She gazes at me like a ghost from her past.
I grab my mother into my arms. She folds into them and we both sob in the doorway. I don't let my mother go for what feels like forever. I don't want to. She is home. Seeing her, holding her, is my only proof that I am home—that I am free.
"Come, let's get you inside, honey."
My mother takes my hand and doesn't let it go. I follow her inside on unsteady legs and take a seat on the sofa because I lack the strength to stand at the moment. On my long plane ride home, I thought of all the things I would say to my mother. Somehow all of those words have evaded me. I feel like a stranger, like a cloned version of myself. All of a sudden I am a sci-fi experiment. I look like Brinley. I sound like Brinley. I even have her memories. But something feels different, because a different me has returned home. Tarnished and forever changed, because of The Chamber. How can anyone experience an entire year at the hands of a cunning and sadistic monster, and not be changed? Not be ruined, broken. Even the strongest among the seven of us will struggle on this most dreadful and awaited homecoming.
I gaze around the house that I grew up in and it pretty much looks the same as it did a year ago. My mother has always preferred a minimalist approach to furnishings. One sofa. A television stand, with a smaller than necessary flat screen television. A bookshelf that she made out of recycled materials, and her abstract paintings plastered over the walls. I remember when she first picked up this hobby I teased her that just because you can purchase a blank canvas and acrylic paints, it doesn't make you an artist. But looking around at them now, after a year of missing her, and missing my home, I realize her paintings are masterpieces. They are to me, because this house, this sofa, my mother, and her art, all equal home.
My mom is a hippie in the truest form. My mother has always believed that a house is for eating and sleeping, and the outdoors are for living. Camping, hiking, biking, sightseeing, gardening. Anything that gives us the opportunity to convene with nature.
My mother returns with a glass of water. I hadn't even noticed that she'd left the room. I take my time with the water, tasting it. Savoring the simplicity of a glass of water in my home. I glance over at my mother and see that her face is wet with tears. Mine is too. Suddenly the water has to compete with the lump that has taken up residency in my throat.
After a long silence, my mother blurts out, "I can't believe you're here!" She takes me into her arms again. There is no coffee table to set my glass on, so I hold onto it and my mother. We cry onto each other's shoulders. Big, sorrowful, relief-filled tears. "I am never letting you out of my sight again. Do you hear me?" She breaks our hold and begins checking me in earnest. "Where have you been? Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
"Define hurt," I say, wiping my eyes.
"Please tell me what happened, Brinley. Where were you?" my mother asks, wiping her eyes.
I take a deep breath and begin to tell the last story I ever want to repeat. The worst part is that I know this won't be the last time I tell it. There will always be questions. The hardest part is figuring out the equal balance of telling her what I can without landing myself on Mason's hit list, coupled with what will satisfy a mother who has been without word from her child for a year. "I decided to go for a morning run near school. I know that I should have listened to Logan. He said it was not safe for me to be running alone, especially in Hollywood. But you know me. You always said stubborn was my middle name." I take a long draw of my water. "Mom, do you have anything stronger than water?" I need liquid courage.
"Sure, baby." My mom pops up and quickly returns with a bottle of Pinot and two wine glasses.
I guess we both need something extra right now. I take my full wine glass and practically down it. It only takes a couple of minutes before the effects of the alcohol hit me, making me feel less anxious.
"So like an idiot I leave the safety of my dorm, the company of my friends, and I innocently take off on a run toward the GPO."
"The what?" my mom asks.
"Seriously, Mom? The Griffith Park Observatory. I didn't think anything of it, really. I mean, I always thought the freaks came out at night, you know. But this is the day I learned the freaks never sleep." I take another long draw of my wine and finish it. My mother refills my glass. I don't hesitate to take another sip. "I make it to the GPO in record time. I'm feeling that high I get from running. Then I bend down to tie my shoe and before I can get back to my feet again, I see them coming for me. Three men. I didn't even have a chance to run, or scream, or fight. They were on me before I could process what was happening to me. A cloth to my face and that was it. Lights out for me."
My mother finishes her first glass and pours another. Tears are rolling freely down her cheeks. I can't visibly see that her hands are shaking, but I hear it when the bottle clanks repeatedly against her wine glass.
I continue. "When I wake up, I'm on an airplane."
"Where did they take you?"
"I have no idea. I thought for sure I was heading to my death. I had no reason to believe otherwise. I mean, only psychos kidnap perfect strangers—steal them from their lives. I just knew I would die and never see you again." I pause. I draw in two deep breaths. This is the tricky part. What I say from here on could get me into a lot of trouble. That is, if I believe Mason's threat, and I do. "What I learned after I got off the plane ride was that death would have been the easy way out for me, Mom. Death would have meant peace. But when I got off of that plane, I never thought I would know peace again."
My mother tries to stifle her heavy sobs as they rip through her, but I can tell she has never been more scared than this moment, hearing my words. My living nightmare.
"The place I was taken was a sex club for very rich and powerful men. I was forced to work there."
"Oh my god! Oh my god!" My mother pulls me into her arms. Her cries are loud and frightened. "We have to call the police." She squeezes me.
