by Knight
Let the killing party begin.
While watching the warehouse from the shadows, I frown when the tugging comes again, stronger than ever before. I push it away and lean farther back into the shadows as a car pulls away from outside, the same posh Ferrari that pulled up earlier. I had watched as they grabbed something from the boot and dragged it inside, with the man in the suit watching with a smile before he followed them in.
My guess is that he’s one of the men in charge so when he leaves, I relax a little. I don’t want to go for management yet. It’s more fun to make them sweat it out, plus after the council meeting today, I know I need to make this job last as long as I can.
Grinding my teeth, I ignore their warnings and laughter. They had decided that after this job they wanted to bring me back to the fold. They wanted to cage me more like.
So I will take the warehouse down tonight and let the bosses sweat it a bit before I hunt them too, because I’m betting this runs high up. To have this sort of money and security, it must.
Watching for an hour or so longer I decide to make my move, there is no use in me just sitting up here all night. It’s time to have some fun.
Bending down, I draw a gun, hiding my movement behind BB’s body. I grab her arm with my other hand, letting them see my harsh grip. She starts to fight me and I lean down farther. “Get behind the wall,” I warn, before hauling her to her feet. I throw her and she falls behind the wall as I take aim and pull the trigger. I hit the big guy right between the eyes and he goes down hard, with blood blooming from the hole, but the skinny guy must have suspected something because he dodges to the side and the bullet goes through his arm.
Swearing, I shoot again, raining down hell, but he slides behind the corner and before I know it my gun clicks and it’s empty. I toss it at the wall and grab the other one at my hip and wait, standing with my legs parted as I keep aim at the corner he’s hiding behind.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he shouts and I hear more yells, obviously other guards coming to see what the shots were about. I need to end this quickly. Striding around the corner, I come face to face with him and he yells and pulls the trigger. The bullet rips through my thigh as I squeeze the trigger, my bullet hitting home and going straight through his chest. He gasps and slumps over as blood starts to pool underneath him.
Guards flood the hallway, all with guns aimed my way. I hold mine to the side and drop it to the floor. “Calm down!” I yell.
“What the fuck happened?” one of them shouts, his eyes darting from me to the dead man at my feet.
Think, Dawn, think.
“They were letting the girls escape. I have nine back here with me. I caught them smuggling them out when I was taking one down below. When I questioned them, they told me they were going to sell them for themselves and invited me to join in.”
I stand completely still as they debate my words, and just then the other girls round the corner and I see the men relax, obviously believing my lie.
“Damn it, I knew I didn’t trust those two. Marco just had to bring in some greedy nobodies.” The man drops his gun, as does everyone else. “Good job Derrick. Get them back to their cells and take the one down like you were, we’ll clean up here.”
I nod and grab two of the girls’ arms, ignoring their gasp, and drag them back around the corner. The others rush after me and only when we’re back outside the cell room door do we relax.
“Well, now what do we do?” BB mutters, flickering her gaze back to the corner.
Blowing out a breath I open the door. “Get in.” I gesture at the others. They look at me, horrified. “I’ll be back, I’m not putting you in the cages, just get in until I can get those out downstairs first, then I’ll pick you lot up on our way out.” I pass them over the stolen guns. “Know how to shoot?” One of the girls nods and I hand it to her. “Just in case, but please don’t shoot me, it’s not fun.”
They bob their heads and shuffle through the door before I shut it in their faces and lock it. Turning to BB I grab her arm. “You ready to put on another performance?”
“Let’s get this shit over with,” she agrees, as we set off back down the corridor, the other way this time. I feel bad leaving the other girls behind, but it would raise suspicions if I brought them with me.
The hallway is quiet, and when we get to the end I spot the door leading to the staircase. It has another scanner, so I let go of BB and lay my hand on it, and let it read me until it pings green again and the door unlocks. Pulling it open, I check out the empty stairwell before jerking my head at BB.
She slips through and with one last look back at the empty hallway and the closed door of the cells, I shut the stairwell and start down the steps with BB at my back.
“So, what are you?” BB asks from behind me, sounding out of breath. I’m betting it’s been a while since she was out of that cage and it doesn’t look like they feed her much.
“Honestly, I don’t know. I have some guesses, but I have a friend who thinks he knows. I was supposed to be meeting him tonight for a dick appointment, and show and tell so we need to get this shit done,” I reply and she stumbles at dick appointment. I look back at her to see her leaning against the banister, laughing quietly.
“Erm, you okay? Like you deserve a mental breakdown, but could it wait until we escape?” I request, looking around to make sure no one is just going to pop up.
“Dick appointment,” she wheezes through her laughter, and I stare awkwardly as tears start to run down her dirty cheeks. “Damn, I can’t remember the last time I laughed like that.”
“How long have you been here?” I inquire softly and she sighs, her laughter stopping.
“What month is it?” she asks sadly.
“September.”
Her eyes widen in shock. “Four months,” she whispers almost to herself and I wince. Four months is a long time. Four months stuck here in a cage as the guards’ entertainment? It’s a surprise she’s still walking, never mind functioning.
“You’re seriously fucking strong,” I admit freely, observing her in a new light. She eyes me like I might be lying to her, but when I don’t add anything else she smiles sadly.
“I had no choice but to be.”
I nod, looking back down the stairs. “You got somewhere to go after this?”
She looks down at the stairs. “No, my dad sold me to the bastards to cover his gaming debt.”
“Fucking prick. Want me to cut off his balls and use them for target practice?”
She laughs again. “Yup.”
“Look BB, there’s a shelter not far from here. It would be a good place to start.”
She frowns and looks away. “I don’t want people to think I’m broken, I don’t want their fucking sympathy. I want to make a new life. I want the bastards to pay.”
I grin. “What did I tell you? Big fucking balls.”
We hear a noise up top and our bonding moment is over. I start back down the stairs with her on my heels.
When we reach the bottom I frown at the steel door. It looks like a prison, not a basement. There’s a small slot at the top of the door, covered in three bars. The door itself looks like it could withstand a nuclear blast and it’s an awful blue colour, with the paint peeling in places and rusting in others.
“You ready?” I inquire, knowing whatever we find down here won’t be good.
She nods and I grab her arm and drag her to my side. I can feel myself tiring, my body wanting to change back, so I need to get in and out. Scanning my palm, I wait but it blinks red. I swear and hammer my fists on the door and wait with bated breath. Every second it takes seems to make me even more tired, the effort of staying in this form is draining me.
Eventually, the door swings open to show me a bulky guy in a lab coat. He looks like he should be bench pressing cars, not taking blood and experimenting on women. His blue eyes leave mine and when they center on BB something akin to hunger enters his eyes, except it’s not for her body but what he
thinks it holds.
“Another one? Great, bring her through.” He gestures, and I walk past him and let him shut the door before he carries on. “What can she do? Or do we know what she is?” he asks excitedly, before clearing his throat and starting to walk, but he keeps throwing BB looks every now and again, making her cower into my side.
“Not sure, one of the others asked me to bring her down. She royally fucked him up though.” I grin at him, pretending to love this as much as him, when in fact I want to gouge out his eyeballs and make them into earrings.
I make sure to keep my looking around discreet, nodding along as he talks while I observe where we are. It’s one long hallway with a few rooms going off of it, but they look like cell doors. At the end, the hallway seems to open up and that’s where he’s leading us. When he walks into the open room, he heads straight to a clipboard as I gawk.
It’s dark, musty, and depressing as hell. The room is a giant square with a command hub in the middle filled with computers, paperwork, and monitoring equipment. He’s the only man in here at the moment.
To the left and right are what look like more cells, but this time they have a glass front and I spot two women cowering in each, trying to blend into the dark stone walls at the back of the cell.
On the other end of the room is a glass separator. In the room beyond sits what looks like a dentist chair, but with straps for restraints on it. Medical equipment, x-rays, tools, tables, microscopes, and much more line the walls and cabinets behind it, and I have to swallow hard. What the hell are they doing down here to bring out their ‘freak?’
“Okay, put her in the chair. We have a gap in the schedule at the moment because Ki had to run upstairs and help with something,” he mutters, staring at the clipboard with crazy intensity.
Nodding, I walk BB through the glass door and to the chair, then I push her gently. She sucks in a breath but slowly clambers into the chair, her face pale and worried and her eyes darting everywhere. Once there, with my back to the man, I smile and raise my finger to my lips. She nods and it seems to settle her a little.
I pretend to do up the restraints, but I leave them undone in case she needs to escape quickly. I won’t get her hurt anymore than she already has been. Stepping back, I grimace when the guy comes in and I spot the blood on the right side of his lab coat that was previously hidden from me.
“You get any sells today?” I ask. I know I’m pushing my luck, but I need to know who’s buying these people. If they are like me, surely someone should be stopping this? Monsters just can’t be roaming the earth with no government or justice system, right?
He eyes me strangely as he goes over to the cabinet, and starts pulling stuff down and adding it to a tray. “What, you grunts got bored fucking the freaks? Now you wanna talk?”
Well shit.
“Just fucking curious,” I mutter and he rolls his eyes, grumbling to himself about idiot help.
He grabs a roller and adds the tray to the top, and moves it over to the chair. I spot a needle and what looks like some pliers and a scalpel. The rest I have no idea what it is.
“Hold her, will you? We don’t know what she can do and they never react well to the blood the first time.” He jerks his head and I walk over and grip her legs, watching her.
“I’ve always wondered, who buys them anyway?” I mumble, and grin down at BB for good measure.
I can feel him staring at me so I reach down and push on the cut on her arm, making her yelp.
“Some rich fucking exclusive cult if you ask me, or maybe some of the freaks’ fucking owners. Hell, it could even be more freaks.”
He lines up the needle at her arm after adding a tourniquet. When he punctures the skin, her legs come up automatically and he looks down with a frown to see them not strapped in.
“What the—” He starts, looking back at me just as an alarm blares overhead.
Using the noise and flashing red light as a distraction, I grab the needle and hold it to his neck. He freezes and stares at me wide-eyed.
“You’re going to tell me everything. BB, get out of the chair and go see if you can let the others out,” I order.
She slips from the chair on wobbly legs and I grab him and lay him in it, strapping him in as I press the needle to him again.
“Now, start at the beginning and don’t take all day,” I command, my control on this form slipping until I nearly stagger into him.
“Now!” I shout, but it comes out slurred.
My head spins as the needle drops from my unresponsive grip. I fall back from the chair with a groan and land on the floor, hard, while my body contorts as the change comes back over me.
My mouth opens in a silent scream, my body arches from the floor, and the lights fade from my vision as everything blurs together.
It was all too easy to carve a bloodstained path through the humans. They were unprepared, and I can smell the alcohol and sex on most of them, leaving them slower than they should be. Instead of going in covertly, I went for kicking down the front door.
Four men rushed from the hallway beyond and started firing, so I turned into mist to avoid their bullets and popped up behind them. I shot one, and then broke one’s neck before turning and gutting the other two.
I made my way farther into the facility, dispatching the guards quickly as I went, following the stench of blood, tears, and fear. The warehouse is a maze of hallways until I find one with a hand scanned doorway. Leaning against it, I hear the whispering and terror behind the door of at least nine women.
Looks like I found my holding, though I thought there would have been more. I obviously just missed a sale or an order. I punch through the scanner and quickly hack the door, and it unlocks.
Cocking my head, I sift through the scents to figure out how many guards are inside. When all I smell is the women and the scent of gunpowder, I frown. I knock on the door to be polite and wait there until it swings open, and a small, bruised face peers out with a gun held in her grasp, her hands wavering.
“Who-who are you? Are you with her?” She jerks her head at a doorway at the end of the corridor.
Arching my brow in confusion, I look behind her at the other girls crowded there. I can just make out cages and a studio before she closes the door slightly. “Yes,” I reply.
She sighs and the door opens a bit farther as the weapon drops. I grab it quickly and chuck it down the hall as her and the other woman gasp and fall back with a scream. Rolling my eyes, I open the door and stride in. “You should be more careful who you trust, never drop your weapon unless you are a hundred percent sure,” I order, trying to impart some wisdom on the sheep.
“Where are the rest?” I ask, when no one replies to me. They dart a look at each other nervously while I look around at the twenty empty cages behind them. I notice a dead body of a naked male in one and it piques my interest as I glance back at the sheep, who might not be as stupid as they look.
“She, I don’t know her name, was brought in last night. She-she attacked one of the guards and, erm, then she changed into him?” the one who held the gun says, her voice shaking, but I can smell the truth in her words. Interesting, a skinwalker? Here? What are these humans up to?
“Yeah, then she got us all out but she killed two guards on the way and the others got suspicious, so she stuck us here and went below with another girl to try and get the freaks out,” another rushes out, nodding emphatically.
“Freaks? Below?” I query.
“The humans, they erm, they hurt us and if any sort of...freakiness or otherness comes out, they take us down below to experiment or kill us, I don’t know. If we don’t show any signs, they sell us after they’ve had their fun.”
I rub my head then hold my hand up to stop their nervous chattering. “Okay, she went below? There are others down there, other women with powers that your slavers are selling?” When they nod, I growl out, “To who?”
They back away slightly, cringing at my obvious power and I sigh. I need to r
emember they are innocent and have been hurt by males, but my tolerance and patience are wearing thin. This was supposed to be an easy job, and a skinwalker complicates things. As does the fact humans here know about supes and seem to be selling them.
“We don’t know, they will below,” the original woman who held the gun answers, and I nod and turn away, intending to leave.
“Hey, what about us? She told us to stay here,” she cries.
“You can leave, everyone outside this door is dead,” I reply, as I sweep through the door and head to the one at the end of the hallway.
They don’t move for a while, but eventually I hear them cry out before they rush from the room and away from me. Sheep.
There’s another hand scanner at this door, and with a roll of my eyes, I disable it the same way I did the other one. The door unlocks with a click and I barge it open. Stairs lead down, and I jump over the railing and land on the landing at the bottom outside—yes, you guessed it—another locked door. Whatever they are doing down here makes them very paranoid.
Forgoing the scanner, I decide to just kick this door open. Something tugs deep inside me, making me growl as I raise my leg and bust open the door. It flies inwards, smashing into the wall. I expect to hear yelling or screaming, but other than the siren going, which started when they first saw me, it’s deadly silent.
The tugging comes again, and I grit my teeth as I follow it into the basement. It’s dark and smells horrible down here. Wrinkling my nose I peer at the doors as I pass. I can sense movements behind a few but I’ll come back. First, I need to find out why the tugging of my mate is leading me farther into this human slaver’s basement.
The hallway opens up into a large circular room with computers and other shit in the middle. Two glass cages sit on either side and when I look in, the two women are too busy looking at the other side of the room to notice me. Their eyes are locked on something beyond.
Circling around, I gape at what I find.