Emergence

Emergence Copy Adam J. Ridley Blake Allwood Publishing Copyright Emergence Copyright © 2023 by Adam J. Ridley. All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review. Cover designed by Samrat Acharjee This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Adam J. RidleyVisit my website at adamjridley.com Printed in the United States of AmericaBox Elder, SD First Printing: May 2023 Blake Allwood Publishing Ebook ISBN: 978-1-956727-48-7 Paperback ISBN: 978-1-956727-49-4Library of Congress Control Number: 2023908627 Content Warnings Bullying Depression Kidnapping Overcoming pedophilia PTSD Sex trafficking Surviving child sexual abuse Violence Join Adam’s email list to get advance notice of new books and receive his occasional newsletter: www.adamjridley.com Acknowledgments Special thanks to the following amazing people who helped me get this book finished and into your hands. Jo Bird: Editor Renee Mizar: Editor Ann Attwood: Proofreader And of course, a big thank you to my husband who puts up with my endless stories and handles the formatting and final publishing of all my books. Contents Part One Super College: Want it or Not 1. Prologue - Kaden 2. Lysander 3. Kaden 4. Lysander 5. Kaden 6. Lysander 7. Kaden 8. Lysander 9. Kaden 10. Lysander 11. Kaden 12. Lysander 13. Kaden 14. Lysander 15. Kaden 16. Lysander Part Two Bonding 17. Kaden 18. Lysander 19. Kaden 20. Kaden 21. Lysander 22. Kaden 23. Lysander 24. Kaden 25. Lysander 26. Kaden 27. Lysander 28. Kaden 29. Lysander 30. Kaden Part Three The Reckoning 31. Lysander 32. Kaden 33. Lysander 34. Kaden 35. Lysander 36. Kaden 37. Lysander 38. Kaden 39. Lysander 40. Kaden bibliopride.com Part One Super College: Want it or Not Chapter one Prologue - KadenThe dank smell of the rotting building mixed with the cries of the kids around me had become so routine I barely noticed it. Briggs, the hulking man in charge of keeping us compliant, had just left, and my nose was bleeding. He didn’t usually hit me in the face, the clients didn’t like it when our faces were messed up, but the drugs they used on us didn’t seem to work on me. Besides, the men who came into my room weren’t looking for kids. I was too big. The men who came into my room wanted to hurt me. That’s what they got off on.So, instead of using drugs, Briggs used his fists. No one cared much any longer where he hit me.I crawled into the corner—the same corner I occupied most of the time. We’d been here longer than any other place we’d stopped at. I’d heard them say something about local law enforcement being friendly.That was their way of saying they were clients—or at least some of them were. It was no surprise. Cops, judges, politicians, wealthy and poor who liked to… to use kids.The door opened, and I cringed. I didn’t mind the beatings as much as I minded the clients. It was too soon for Briggs to beat me again, so I started to prepare myself mentally for the inevitable.To my relief, Briggs stepped in. But to my horror, in front of him was a young girl, maybe five or six years old. It was hard to tell since the shadows in this room were so heavy. The only light came from the small window that faced away from the sun.“You’ll stay here,” Briggs said, pushing her inside. She fell to the floor crying silent tears. She wasn’t new here. The new ones screamed.Without acknowledging me, Briggs left, slamming the door behind him.I scooted closer to her and asked her name. She didn’t reply, just lay on the floor crying those silent tears. Finally, I moved back and leaned against the wall. Strangely, it felt good to have company even if she didn’t talk.I figured if she were here, her fate wasn’t good. Only one kid had been put with me in all the time I’d been in use, as Briggs put it. It was when I’d first arrived. I was eleven. The guard, the one before Briggs, called him the trainer. He was probably seventeen or eighteen, and when the drugs didn’t work on me, they used the boy to prepare me, as they’d put it. He’d beaten me daily as well as subjecting me to other, more horrible things.I’d lost count of the days and years I’d been here, but I guessed I was somewhere around the same age as the trainer had been. I assumed they thought I’d do the same to this girl. They were wrong. I had fought them since I first arrived. I’d fought, and even though I’d mostly lost, I’d won a few times. I swore as I looked at the dark bundle in front of me that I’d win this time too.Briggs starved us for two days. No food or water. The girl didn’t move for a full day. She just lay in a heap and cried. Finally, sometime while I’d slept, she’d gotten up and curled into a ball opposite me.We didn’t speak. Briggs came back at the end of the second night. I could smell food outside the door, but I’d been hungry before, and this was a regular tactic of theirs. Starvation often broke the other kids, causing them to do what our captors wanted.Briggs told me what I had to do to get the food. As soon as he gave me the gruesome directions, the girl whimpered.“No!” I said, waiting for the inevitable.I didn’t have to wait long. He grabbed me, flinging me across the room. “You’ll do it, or I’ll kill you.”“No!” Briggs stood staring at me. “Then, I’ll kill