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Holiday 2014 / 2015 Tempus-Magazine.com 56 feed a hunger, there to purchase children and rape them. Past the glass, in the adjoin- ing room, an old TV showing a kids' cartoon fickered and hummed in a corner. Watch- ing the TV were several young girls. Young meaning maybe thirteen, maybe twelve, maybe even eleven; it was hard for Morris to tell. Each wore a red dress with a number pinned to one shoulder. Tese girls didn't even have names; they were being sold by the number. Te girls stared blankly at the TV. Zombies in waiting. Teir eyes lifeless, defeated, completely devoid of any emo- tion. But the predators' eyes were alive, and they surveyed the girls like cuts of meat in a butcher shop. Morris has children of his own, six alto- gether, including a daughter from Vietnam. Tese girls looked like his daughter. Tese girls were people's daughters. And right then, in that room, the ferocity of a protec- tive father began to rise in him. He wanted to smash through the glass and scoop up as many girls as he could and bring them to safety. He wanted to put his bare hands around the necks of these predators stand- ing just inches from him and snuff out their desire. He wanted the world to be safe. He wanted to give these girls their childhoods back. He wanted to right this wrong more than anything he had ever wanted before. Ten suddenly, he remembered the words of the investigator, the words about de- stroying an ongoing investigation, and forced down his rage. It took everything in him not to react, because he knew that once he left that room the girls behind the glass would be repeatedly raped, this night, the next night, and so on, and so on. No, Rob Morris was not a naive man—he had seen the cruelty of the world, but this was a world he never knew existed. Staring through the glass Morris noticed one girl looking back at him. She was the only one not watching the TV. Te only one who stared out at these men, many of whom were eyeing her like a meal to be de- voured then expelled, then devoured again, each time leaving less and less behind. Mor- ris noticed her eyes. Yes, those eyes. Tey were not like the eyes of the other girls. Tese eyes still had life in them. Tese eyes refected hope. Tese eyes showed that some fght was still inside this child. Tese eyes belonged to a young girl who was not Morris's daughter, but she was someone's daughter. Morris looked at the number pinned to her dress. It was 146. Some time later, after sufcient evidence was collected, the brothel was raided and the children present at the time were res- cued. Te girl with number 146 pinned to her dress was no longer there. Morris doesn't know what happened to her. "Tis is not a charitable cause to be sup- ported," a young woman says in a video on the Love146 website. "Tis is an emer- gency." Morris, with his gray hair spiked toward the heavens and his tattoos and his deep, contagious laugh, always speaks with passion and authority. He's a short man, but he's solid. If he were a dog, he'd be a mixed breed, a mutt with the tenacity of a pit bull blended with the loyalty of a Labrador re- triever. Morris is a force, but don't dare call him a hero. "We're not heroes," he says. "We're just ordinary people trying to do the right thing." Since looking through that pane of glass twelve years ago, Morris has made it his full-time mission to fght this fght. He is the president and cofounder of Love146, an organization with a concise vision: "Te abolition of child trafcking and exploita- tion. Nothing less." Love146 works toward that vision through survivor care, preven- tion education, professional training, and empowerment. It supports and expands safe houses and trains caregivers in how to prop- " This is not a charitable cause to b e supp or te d," a young woman says in a vide o on the Love146 web site. " This is an e me r ge ncy." L O V E 1 4 6