Trauma Bonding

The girls trip I waited months for was finally here! Growing up a southern girl in Mississippi, nature was indeed calling me! After Being in New York for so long I really had begun to miss the country life. I moved to NY fresh out of high school, because I was offered my dream job before I even graduated at a very popular I.T. company called "Logic I.T". One of the youngest CFO's the company has had. Who would have thought, me, Kita Chase, would be a CFO? That was 4 years ago. My parents hated the idea of me moving A 1,000 miles away to work, but they came to visit every chance they got. My mom even stayed with me the first 2 months until I was settled in.

Tiana, Alisha, and Cindy were my best friends from high school. Although we talked on the phone daily and video called each other sometimes, it just wasn't enough, so we put our heads together and came up with the awesome idea to take a trip to the cabin in Tennessee. The girls were traveling form Mississippi so they decided to drive since it was only 3 hours away. Myself on the other hand had to fly. Each one of us had become very successful with our careers and we were all extremely anxious to catch up. Tiana is a nurse. Alisha is a nail technician who owns and operates her own business. and Cindy followed in her sisters footsteps and had become a massage therapist and has done massages for some big named celebs as well as her regular clientele.

My flight had touched down and I was in my rental car headed up the mountain! I stopped at a store in town to get food and our adult beverages, so I knew they were going to be at the cabin way before me. I pulled up and stepped out of the car to inhale the nature that surrounded me and it smelled amazing... the aroma of dirt, pine, and campfires gave me a sudden rush of nostalgia. I had beat the girls there so it was the perfect time for me to make the place invited and set up the snacks and beverages. Just as I was place the last shot glass on the table I hear the door swing opening making screeching with rust, it was Alisha. Hugged her tightly trying to hold back tears because its been so long since I've seen my girls. I asked her where Tiana and Cindy were and she explained that they were about 20 minutes away she was on time because to had no stops to make which is probably why she hurried past me to get to the restroom.

About 15 minutes later the door swung open again and it was the rest of the crew, we embraced each other with tight hugs and tears. We were all drunk, full of laughter and food at this point as night fell and the air became a little more crisp after all it was October in the south, by day is warm with a cool breeze, and by night the temperature drops to the lower 50's. We all decided to grab our blankets and head outside to gather around our campfire we made 10 minutes beforehand. As we sat in our intoxication we all just stared at the campfire soaking in the moment, Tiana asks us if either one of us saw anything out of the ordinary on the way up, we all told her no and proceeded to ask her why she had asked. but she said it was nothing and that she was probably over exaggerating. The look on her face was that of pure worry. as we all staggered back in the cabin it no longer felt fun, but had become more eerie. We were all worried about what Tiana saw or experienced when she was on the way to the cabin. Cindy and Alisha were the firsts to fall asleep which gave me the perfect opportunity to question Tiana. She was standing by the window looking at the campfire slowly burn out and so I asked her what was on her mind and she proceeded to tell me she felt as though she was being followed the whole way here and I explained to her that our friends weren't that far behind here so its a reason why she would feel that way. She told me to forget about, and we should get some sleep. so we did just that. We left Cindy and Alisha down stairs and we got some shut eye in the vacant rooms upstairs I refused to sleep on the floor.

"Are you hungry?" a deep voice said softly. I jumped to my feet off the bed from which I was laying and demanded he tell me what was going on. He explained to me how he wasn't trying to bring harm to me or my friend, and when I looked over I saw Tiana in the bed beside me his name was Doug, ex boyfriend of Cindy. He told us both to calm down and explained that the cops were on the way. I was in so much shock that I couldn't ask the right questions and Tiana was just crying. He told us both to calm down while he explained. Doug told us that Cindy and Alisha were planning to kill us both Saturday night, " that's tonight!" I yelled. I told him he was full of shit and lying until he showed me evidence, text messages between 2 of my bestfriend. I asked him how he had gotten the messages and he said he found them when he thought Cindy was cheating last year. This has to be a joke we knew nothing about this trip last year only about 4 months prior. he handed me the phone, and my heart sunk into my chest.

"Cid: hey Lish! I'm so nervous about the trip just think next year these whores will be out of our lives for good!"

"Lish: OMG Cid! I'm beyond ready to get this over with the fact that they think they are better than us! we are gonna tie them up and watch them burn like the witches they are!"

I was in shock as I handed the phone to Tiana so she could see what I saw. Tiana asked Doug to go get her some water and he did just as she asked. She grabbed my arm and said that we had to leave because he is lying and that those text messages were not legit. I asked her how she knew they weren't and she said under the names were numbers phone numbers that weren't their friends numbers, she said she memorized one of them and that she was going to dial it from the cabin phone so that's what we did and on the other end was a mans voice assuming we were Doug asking if he had the girls. We knew it was time to go we were being trafficked! but before we could think of an escape plan he was walking back in so we stuck to the script I asked him when were the police coming he said they should be here in the next 5 minutes but we knew he was lying so Tiana dashed the water in his face and hit him on the back of the head with the cabin phone we ran out the front doors and up the pathway that led to the street only to see 2 black vans approaching, so we ran into the nearby woods so we wouldn't be spotted...we saw our cabin in the distance and headed there to see if Cindy and Alisha were ok but when we finally made it there they were gone, their cars were still there but they weren't we just knew they were dead or stuffed into the back of a van. we searched the cabin for our keys, any keys, but we couldn't find them so we headed out of the cabin and down the mountain on foot where we ran into a park ranger and explained to him what happened and he assured us that we would be just fine and we were going to be safe, until we saw those same two black vans from earlier and we told the ranger that those were the vans and he turned on his lights and pulled them over. just as he approached one of the vans we heard a gunshot and he fell to the ground. Two masked men jumped out, grabbed us and threw us in the back of the van it seemed like we were riding for hours before we were being tossed out at this abandoned warehouse. and tied to chairs the two masked men stood in front of us and removed their masks and it wasn't men at all! It was Cindy and Alisha. We were in shock! As they smiled at us with the most eerie smiles we had ever seen, Cindy says " Yall should have listened to Doug's snitch ass" as she turns on a tv off in the distance as cops were on there talking about some phone calls they got to come out to the cabins by some guy. That guy? Doug! he was telling the truth! we screamed as the fire...............

THE END...LITERALLY