" Julian is the one who broke me" Alex replied Nikita's question with grave voice.
" What are you talking about?" Nikita asked confused because she didn't know Alex's story in the brothel.
" You don't want to hear this story, Nikita. Just let it go." Alex said seriously.
" I want to hear your story, Alex. Please, do it for me." Nikita pleaded.
" Nikita, please." Alex said scared. She didn't want to tell that story to Nikita.
" I am here, Alex. You have to let it out. Please. If you ever loved me, you will do it for me." Nikita replied firmly.
" I do love you, Nikita" Alex said annoyed of Nikita's blackmail.
" Then you will let it out." Nikita replied calmly. She didn't like blackmailing the younger girl but she needed to know what was going on in Alex's mind, she needed to know why she was so upset. She needed to know what she could do to help her.
" I don't appreciate being blackmailed but I am not going to let you believe that I don't love you just because I have some issues lately and now I am denying to share this story. I will tell you the short version but with one condition; If you start blaming yourself again, I will stop. It is not your fault." Alex warned Nikita not to beat herself up for what she is going to hear.
" Ok, Alex. Just let it out." Nikita agreed unwillingly and scared for what she was about to learn.
Alex turned her face back to the moon, she couldn't stand to look at Nikita. She felt ashamed.
" Julian was my supervisor when I was a sex slave. He .. he was my first. The first day they lead me to his office and he raped me on the wall. He left and ordered his men to take rounds with me. He said that they don't have every day the chance to taste a 13years old girl and that they had to take it. I don't know how many people raped me that day. After hours, he returned. I didn't have any more tears to let down, I was exhausted and bleeding. He came and he asked me to make him enjoy it. I refused and he beat me up before he raped me again. After a week, I was still refusing to play along and he gave me heroine in order to break me." Alex started her story. She paused and took a deep breathe trying to control her feelings.
Nikita moved closer and hugged her from the behind. Alex struggled.
" Stop fighting me, Alex. I am not doing anything. I am just here holding you." Nikita argued and after awhile Alex gave in and let Nikita hugged her from behind.
" He was pissed off. He had never failed to break a girl and he promised me that he will break me. For months, I was stuck in a solitary hole with no food, only water and drugs. Everytime that the door opened, I knew that I was about to get raped or tortured. But I didn't care. I didn't want to give up. I didn't want to do it with my will. I didn't want to become their little bitch." Alex said and Nikita hugged her harder feeling her own eyes burning with tears.
" But I didn't know what was coming next... Julian got more creative. Gang rape, two or three of his men were taken me at the same time and then they were tortured me again and again for months. One day, I just broke." Alex said with shaking voice.
Nikita turned her around and took her face in her hands.
" I am not letting you complete this story with your back turned on me. I am here and I am proud of you. I would have given up from the first days. I am proud Alex. Please don't push me away, not now." Nikita pleaded softly.
Alex nodded softly and let her head rest on Nikita.
" After 10 months. I couldn't take it anymore. That day I have already been raped and tortured, when Julian came and told me that it was time for the gang. I couldn't take it anymore, Nikita. I couldn't. I told him that he won, that I would do anything that he wanted if he stopped it. I couldn't take it anymore. I made him enjoy it and he asked me to beg him and tell that I love him. I obeyed Nikita. I did whatever he wanted." Alex said and started sobbing without making any sounds.
" You did what you had to do, Alex." Nikita tried to calm her.
" I begged him, Nikita. I begged him and I told him that I loved him" Alex shouted frustated and ashamed.
" Relax, Alex. It is ok. You survived and that was the only way." Nikita tried to calm her down.
" Relax? Do you have any idea how it feels to have your humaniy ripped away from you? To get raped and tortured every single day of your life and then begged your torturor to stop it? Have you ever begged anyone to stop, Nikita? Have you said to your torturor that you love them or that you liked being raped?" Alex said calmly but angrily and hot tears fell down.
" No, Alex. I don't know how it feels but I have broken too, I have begged too." Nikita said softly.
" Do you want to hear my story?" Nikita asked when she saw Alex staring at her surprised.
" Only if you want to share it." Alex replied not wanting to press Nikita to share something so personal if she didn't really want to.
" I made you tell me your story, it is only fair if I tell you mine. And beside that, my story is nothing in front of what you went through" Nikita said honestly.
" I don't want you to tell me your story only because you heard mine, Nikita." Alex replied calmly. She was curious but she didn't want to make Nikita tell her something if she didn't want to.
" Alex, I want to tell you my story." Nikita said firmly and smiled to Alex.
" Then, I am listening." Alex said and took Nikita's head on her lap, brushing her hair with her fingers. Nikita took a deep breathe before started.
" My story is nothing compared what you went through in order to break. You might laugh." Nikita said softly.
" I will never laugh with something that caused you pain, Nikita." Alex replied in a caring tone that Nikita had missed so mch, the feeling of having Alex back with her was unimaginable and she smiled.
" Well, it was my first year as field agent. I was on a mission, undercover. I played the role of a gang member. Someone gave me away to the leader. He captured me and he interrogated me." Nikita said and she paused to take a deep breathe when she felt her eyes burning with tears.
" You know Amanda's opinio about her operatives, everyone is disposable. So I was alone, until Michael came to rescue me three weeks later. Anyway, he used every known torture technique on me. Electrocutes, beating, waterboarding, anything. He wanted to know who sent me and why. At that time I was a fellow Division's agent and I didn't want to give them away. But he broke me. One day, he moved me in a room, he threw me on the floor and he tied me up. Hands above my head and legs open." Nikita said and her tears started falling.
" Hey, it's ok." Alex said and cupped Nikita's face wiping away her tears.
" I understand what he was about to do, so I begged him not to do it. He ordered me to answer his question and I did, I told him whatever he wanted to know and for a second I thought that he wasn't going to rape me. But I was wrong. He lowered himself on me and raped me again and again for days. Everytime that he came to me, I begged him to stop it. He said that it was my reward for messing up with his business and that when he would have enough of me, when he would have gotten bored of my taste, he would kill me slowly and painfully. Michael came and rescued, several days later." Nikita said not trying to control her shaking voice or her tears.
" I am so sorry Nikita, so sorry. It is ok, now. It is ok." Alex reassured her and kissed gently her forehead.
" I begged him, I broke but he still wanted to break me more." Nikita replied frustated with herself.
" You didn't want to get raped Nikita and you did the only thing that you could." Alex tried to reason her.
" What happened to him?" Alex added curiously.
" Michael killed him when he rescued me and I cut off his balls" Nikita said coldly.
" That was really necessary Nikita?" Alex asked in shock.
" I hated him. I wanted to make him pay." Nikita said coldly.
" I guess that it was healthy and normal to feel this way." Alex commented thinking about how Nikita felt.
" Why? How did you feel about your break down after being raped and tortured again and again?" Nikita asked noticing the thoughtful gaze of Alex and worried that she called her reaction healthy.
Alex didn't respond. She shook her head softly and looked away from Nikita trying to hold her tears.
" Alex? How did you react?" Nikita asked seriously again and put herself in a sitting position staring at Alex.
" I am still working on that." Alex replied honestly.
" Alex, please. Tell me how you reacted." Nikita pleaded scared of Alex's denial to reply.
" I hated myself. I was ashamed for giving up. I hated every little piece of me and I thought that I deserved every torture, beating or rape that I endured after I broke. I used to say to myself that I deserved everything because I was their bitch. Somedays when I was too wounded from a client and I couldn't sell my body, I found myself thinking that I was glad that my father was dead and he couldn't see that I have broken, that I have given up, that I have left others control my life. I remember that I used to deny to take drugs because the drugs made me feel better and forget what was going on and I didn't want to forget, I didn't want the pain to go away. I wanted to suffer, I wanted to be in pain, I wanted to punish myself. I hated myself so much... I think that I still hate myself in some level." Alex replied honestly and revealed how her time in the brothel has affected her.
Nikita looked at her with teary eyes and wet face. She never have thought that under Alex's brave face, under Alex's enormous and forgiving heart, there was a scar so deep. A scar that made her hate herself, a scar that hasn't healed yet.
" Alex.." Nikita started with shaking voice. She didn't know what to say to her friend, she was lost.
" It is ok, Nikita. I learnt to live with that." Alex replied and smiled to Nikita trying to reassure her.
" Why did you start using?" Nikita asked trying to put all the pieces of the story together.
" Why do you think?" Alex returned the question.
" I always thought that you got addicted during your time as a sex slave, but you just say that you denied to take any drugs because you wanted to remember the pain." Nikita replied confused and felt like she was stabbed in the heart wwith every single word that she spilt out.
" I wasn't addicted during my time as sex slave." Alex said honestly and smiled softly when she saw Nikita's eyes widened from the surprise.
" As I said before I hated myself and I wanted to suffer. In the brothel, I suffered from the torture and the rapes, but I escaped. I wanted to suffer, yes, but I didn't want to let someone else control my life, my body, so I escaped. When I was out, I was out of any physical pain and I couldn't stand this. So I thought about every single technique that Julian used to break me. Drugs. It was the easiest and most effective way to cause me pain. I started using and forced myself to go through withdraw again and again. I liked the danger of hanging on with drug dealers, the danger of get beaten up or raped. I liked the fact that I could cause physical pain like that to myself. For me drugs always were a mean to punish myself, to cause pain to my body." Alex explained calmly.
" You are absolutely crazy!" Nikita shouted shocked. She didn't expect that answer at all.
" Pain was my best friend at that time, Nikita. It was a way to accept myself and start putting my pieces back together." Alex said softly, unaffected from Nikita's shouts.
" So what... you tried to kill yourself because I took the pain away from you?" Nikita shouted angrily. She was in so much shock at that moment that she didn't know how to react.
" No. I didn't try to kill myself because you got me clean and I couldn't physically suffer anymore." Alex said firmly and looked into Nikita's brown eyes.
" Then why?" Nikita whispered confused.
" You don't want to know." Alex replied seriously.
" Alex. Please" Nikita insisted.
" No. Nikita. You are going to kick my ass if I tell you and I am already bruised enough." Alex said firmly.
" Alex, I am going to kick your ass if you don't answer me my question right now." Nikita threatened seriously.
" Oh boy. I tried to kill myself because being with you was the most terryfying and weird thing that I have ever done in my life. I couldn't stand being around you! Happy now?" Alex shouted angry.
" I am sorry." Alex added after awhile when she noticed that Nikita's face darkened and her eyes got filled with new tears.
" You tried to kill yourself because of me?" Nikita gasped in shock and stood up walking away from Alex. She was the reason why her best friend had tried to terminate her life. How she was supposed to react at that?