Young Innocents
Author: David Gonzalez
Series: Boys Club, Book One
Genre: Noir, LGBT, Social Issues
Length: Novella
Word count: 46329
e-book page count: 99
price: 2.99 USD
Cover art: Melody Pond
Buy from: Amazon Kindle|BN Nook|Kobo|Google Play
From filmmaker and author, David Gonzalez, director of the award-winning short film, “The Choice is Yours,” comes the first volume in his Boys Club series, now in English.
When Adrian is seventeen, his younger brother Max is kidnapped from their home. A masked stranger knocks Adrian unconscious as he tries to save his brother. Life goes from difficult but relatively normal to nightmarish overnight. Adrian’s only driving need is to find Max who, he learns, has been trafficked. Into the horrors of sex slavery where perverted clients can fulfill their most lurid, exploitive fantasies with beautiful young men who are helpless to stop them. Adrian must find Max before it’s too late. The odyssey into darkness has just begun…
Author’s note: This novel is based on actual events
Unfortunately, it’s a reality that happens all over the world.
Tags: young adult, human trafficking, sexual slavery, lgbt issues, social issues, noir, human trafficking fiction
Excerpt:
I breathe a sigh of relief and close the door. I start to head back to my room when someone grabs my neck and shoves me up against the wall, so hard, my feel lifts off the ground. A black mask hides his face. It looks like leather, with strange symbols painted on it, like ancient symbols. The rest of him is covered in a black suit and boots.
I’m gasping for breath and struggling against him. Instinctively, I knee him in the gut. It works. He releases me and I let out a scream of pain then rush toward Jack’s room.
“Jack! Jack! Help!” his door stays closed so he must be so drunk he can’t hear me or doesn’t care.
The masked intruder has recovered and grabs me again by my hair. He slams my face against the wall, breaking my nose. I fall to the ground and he stands over me. I see the blade of a small knife flash in the light from my room. I kick his leg hard, causing him to lose his balance and fall. Then I scramble to my feet and try to run. Before I can move and inch, he grabs my foot and makes me fall again. I try to drag myself away from him but he holds my foot in an iron grip and makes me fall to the ground. I try to run away, by crawling on the floor, but he pulls me towards him and I end up in his claws. He spins me over and while I fight him off, he grabs me by the hair, lifting my head, and slamming it against the floor. He then lets me go and I stop fighting him, feeling slightly dizzy and lightheaded. The stranger, on top of me, stares at me liking something that he sees because he pulls out a sharp knife and runs it over my neck, in a caressing and threatening manner to the rhythm of my descending and frantic breathing. He reaches for my nipple and punctures it slightly. He continues to move lower and when he reaches my pants, he tries to put his hand inside of them, but before he can go any further, after recovering slightly, I hit him with all my might in the groins. The man screams in pain and falls next to me. I get up, however I can, and run towards my brother’s room. Pretty soon, the masked man, jumps to his feet, cursing at me, and runs behind me. I panic completely. I dash to Max’s bedroom, open the door and lock it shut, immediately realizing that the stranger is only a few steps away. I turn on the light, panicking hysterically with my nerves on edge.
“Max!” I call to my brother who is now fully awake, sitting on the edge of his bed and looking completely petrified. “They broke into our house and they want to hurt us. Quick, go out the window and ask our neighbors for help. Hurry!”
I help him out of bed while the masked intruder begins to pound at the door with all his might. We dash to the window and I barely manage to open it. All of a sudden, the blade of the intruder’s knife goes through the door and we both jump on the spot, feeling terrified. In no time, the door is being torn apart with powerful stabs and deadly blows. Max carefully crawls out the window and jumps into the roof. Unexpectedly, the door swings open and I barely have time to pick up a lamp and throw it at the intruder’s head, but he is fast enough to elude my attack and dodges the projectile. The lamp ends up smashing against the wall behind him, breaking into a thousand pieces. The unknown assailant then grabs me by the arm and violently throws me against the bed. I fly over it and fall on the ground on the ground and on other side of the bed. The masked stranger looks out the window and sees his prey, standing on the roof and looking at him without knowing what to do.
“Max, run and jump! Save yourself!” I shout at Max.
My brother immediately comes to his senses and turns around. After a few seconds of hesitation, he closes his eyes, takes a leap of faith, bounces on the summer awning and rolls down until he finally hits the ground below. Max then lies on the floor, too shocked to move. The man, who saw it all, turns around, leaves the bedroom and runs to the bottom floor. I jump to my feet and look out the window. Outside, Max gets up slowly, too slowly. All of a sudden, the front door swings open and the stranger exists the house, heading straight for Max. Max gets frightened and he jumps to his feet, looking even more petrified than before. The man strides towards him, getting closer with each passing second. When he is a few steps away from Max, to the stranger’s surprise and to mine, I jump on top of him and we land on the floor, next to my brother. I’m completely stunned and I could swear that I have broken my arm or hand because it begins to hurt like hell.
With every bit of strength left, I get up, get a hold of my brother’s hand and kick the stranger in the head, making him twist on the floor. We need to get out of there and fast so we run to Jack’s car which is parked a few yards away. The moment we arrive at Jack’s car, I open the passenger door, sit my brother down, buckling his seatbelt, and close the door shut. I circle the car around, jump into the driver’s seat, closing the door shut and shaking nervously. I flip open the driver’s glove box, on the roof of the car, and the keys fall in my hand. I turn on the engine of the car, but all of a sudden, it goes off and the on. It is then that something hits the hood of the car and Max and I both scream in terror. A second later, I spot the masked man standing in front of us in a threatening manner. Even though he is wearing a mask, I could swear that there is some type of hate and fury behind his evil gaze. I floor the accelerator, and instead of moving forward, we move backwards and hit a tree. From the force of the impact, I hit my head on the steering wheel while Max crashes into the glove compartment, unconscious. Smoke comes out of the car while the windshield is completely shattered into a thousand pieces. The passenger door then swings open and a dark shadow reaches into the car. He grabs Max, takes off his seatbelt, and lifts him off his seat, carrying him away into the night. I stretch my arms out, calling for my brother, but I’m too weak to do anything and my vision begins to blur. My head hurts and I could feel my strength leaving my body. A tingling sensation begins at my feet and moves into my neck. As the tingling sensation makes its way into my face and reaches my eyes, I lose consciousness and everything goes black.
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