After Anna’s arrival, the metal floor of our prison vibrated. A low, persistent drone shook the shipping container. Sometime later, hours maybe—It’s hard to tell how much time passes in here—a soft up and down, side to side, rolling motion confirms our fears. We’re being shipped to the next destination in our descent into hell.
The days pass with the relentless march of time. We can’t stop it, slow it, or reverse it.
Time is meaningless when minutes last hours, hours last days, and the world no longer makes sense. With only suffocating darkness to pass the time, each day I lose more and more of my sanity.
My fingers plait a tiny braid. I make one for each day, or at least I think the time between one opening of the shipper container and the next is one day. It’s when they feed us and water us like the chattel we’ve begun.
There are ten braids now.
A loud bang and I nearly jump out of my skin.
Men’s voices rumble outside.
It feels like a lifetime when they shoved me kicking and screaming into the darkness.
I scurry back, not wanting them to touch me. To hurt me. The girls who got too close were dragged out. Not all of them returned. Those who did, are shadows of their former selves. We lost three girls before Anna. She was the last to be shoved inside this box.
That was two days ago.
When the doors open, all we see is more darkness. Light from the moon penetrates the towers of stacked shipping containers, casting shadows upon shadows. I prefer the formless blackness to the shifting shadows. Not once do they open the door during the daytime. It’s always night.
Always dark.
A hand reaches in and takes the waste bucket. Footsteps recede while someone else places a large bowl of water just inside. We wait for the man with the bucket to return and toss it back inside.
Covered in filth and grime, the bucket no longer bothers me.
When water comes, no one touches it. We fear what might be in it more than dying of thirst.
We wait.
We wait until the doors close. Until the metallic thunk of the locking lugs tells us we’re safe, once again locked inside our stifling prison. Only then do we move.
One girl.
One girl finds the bowl in the blinding darkness.
One girl takes a sip.
And we wait.
If she doesn’t pass out from whatever drug they may have laced it with, we share the water. Small sips which do nothing to quench our thirst.
But it keeps us alive.
We survive together, thirteen strangers bonded by a nightmare.
Each girl takes her turn to test the water.
Today, it’s my turn.
I lift my head from my knees and reach for the bowl. Dipping my finger into its contents, I croak out a scratchy, “W-water.” There is no food. Gnawing hunger claws at my belly, but it’s thirst which drives me.
Sighs sound all around me in the dismal darkness. It’s been too long without water. The only thing carrying me through, the only reason I hold onto hope is that I believe we’re more valuable alive than dead. I know what fate awaits us. We all know. But it’s still better than death.
I take a long pull, swallowing water down a scratchy throat which still hurts from all the screaming during my abduction. It feels as if I broke something inside, because my voice is nothing but a breathy whisper now.
As the first girl, I’ll drink more than the rest. That way the drug, if it’s there, will be more likely to take effect on me, thus saving the others. I scoot back against the wall and slide the bowl to Bree. She came the day after I arrived. Our fingers interlock as I tip my head back to wait.
If nothing happens, Bree will take a sip and pass it to Chloe. Chloe will pass it to Dawn, and Dawn will pass it to Eve. On down the line, we’ll share until the last drop is gone.
Then we’ll wait for the door to open again.
We don’t have the strength to fight. Not that I’ll waste my energy on these men. I’m saving mine for the real monsters to come.
Not sure if my eyes are open or closed, fetid darkness folds around me. My thoughts wander, like they do every hour of every day, to the last moment I was happy. But I struggle to remember happier times.
I don’t focus on the men who snatched me off the street.
Instead, my thoughts go to brilliant blue skies and white sand beaches of Cancun. Crystal clear, tropical waters sparkle beneath a bright sun. The festive Spring Break party atmosphere lets a smart girl lower her guard. I lost my freedom in the span of a heartbeat, on my very first night in paradise.
I thought I could walk from the beach to our hotel by myself. I gave no thought to the vulnerability of a pretty young girl walking alone. But I didn’t think I was alone. People were all around me, partying, with far too much liquor flowing in their veins.
I felt safe.
But I was too easily separated from the crowd. They yanked me into a filthy van. Took me to a filthy house on a filthy street. There I was stripped, examined, and left to huddle on a filthy floor with a filthy flea-infested blanket. Then they shoved me inside a filthy shipping container twenty feet long with ten other girls.
Has it really been ten days? The braids in my hair don’t lie.
What are my friends doing now? Did they call the police? Do Mexican police even care about an American girl who disappeared? Or do they think I got drunk and passed out in some foreign bed with some nameless boy?
I’ll never know. What about my overly protective brother? Austin must be going ballistic, worrying about me? And my father? He must be out of his mind.
“How do you feel?” Bree keeps her breathy voice soft. We aren’t allowed to speak to one another. That freedom, among many things, was violently taken from us.
“Good so fa…” I struggle to complete my thought as darkness overtakes me. My eyes droop. My muscles relax.
“It’s drugged.” Bree’s voice sounds far away and defeated.
Hands reach for me and drag me over a rough metal floor as I dream of a happy, vibrant girl who doesn’t believe in nightmares.
* * *
AXEL
“Alpha-one to Alpha-three,” Max’s voice crackles through the radio. “Axel, you gotta see this.” His tone makes my skin crawl.
“Copy that.” I hold my position, weapon leveled on four men lying face down on the dirty floor. Zip Ties bind their wrists at the small of their backs and tie their ankles together.
Legs bent. Backs painfully arched. Shoulders straining. They’re furious with my handiwork. Took less than thirty-seconds to truss them up, but I’ve been hogtying cattle all my life. For the record, humans are much easier to subdue than a calves.
“You got this?” My attention shifts to my teammate, Griff.
“Go ahead. I got this.” He spits into the eye of one of our prisoners. Bastard curses in Spanish. “Sorry bud, a little spit in your eye is the least of your worries.” Griff gives the shithole a love tap to the kidneys with the tip of his steel-toed boot.
Our angry friend’s thick muscles bunch. Fury darkens his face. He, and his buddies, aren’t going anywhere, and I think they’re finally figuring that out.
I don’t move until Griff gives the okay.
We’re a six-man team. Knox and Liam stand outside, guarding our retreat. Griff’s with me. Max and Wolfe moved through, looking for the target.
“Alpha-three to Alpha-one, headed to you.” My radio squawks as I radio my intention to move my position.
“Copy that.” Max sounds frustrated, it vibrates in his clipped reply.
Two days we’ve been on assignment while our target suffered at the hands of these men.
Our target? I grind my molars until my teeth throb and the muscles of my jaw ache.
Our target is my best friend’s little sister, an annoying little scrap of a girl who made my life miserable with her hopeless crush. Last year, I finally set Zoe straight. I was a dick about it.
Firm.
; Callous.
Mean.
I was an asshole about and broke her heart, but there was no other way. She needed to move on.
And now she’s been taken.
“Status.” That voice belongs to our mission commander.
CJ’s been at this game twice as long as any of us. Famous for bringing a serial killer down, along with his copycat wannabe, he freed half a dozen women while on vacation. In our community, CJ is a legend.
I work my way deeper into the building, knowing he follows our progress via the helmet and body cams streaming our every move. Our successes and failures are broadcast in realtime back to command.
It’s dark. We cut the electricity to the entire block. The flashlight mounted on my helmet provides all the light I need as it pierces the dimly lit hall.
“Do you have the package?” CJ’s voice crackles with impatience, locking my molars tighter together. We can’t afford to be late and this feels all kinds of too fucking late.
Cancun is famous for kidnapping rich Americans and pretty American girls. Zoe is exactly what they look for, a willowy blonde knockout with bright bottle green eyes. It’s her most striking feature.
I pass down a hall. Weapon up. Scanning left to right. Finger on the trigger guard.
Max and Griff cleared these rooms on their way in, but I never assume. Those who do don’t last long in our line of work.
Methodically, I scan the long hall, clear each room as I go, and make my way to the last room at the end of the hall. I meet Wolfe there with a lift of my chin. He responds in kind.
The room’s empty.
“Fucking hell.” My nose wrinkles at the smell of blood, sweat, and human excrement. The stench is enough to make me gag. Breathing through my mouth only makes it worse. Now I taste the foulness as it floods my senses.
Zoe was in this room.
Past tense.
Mission failure.
Ratty blankets form amorphous lumps on the dirty floor.
Lumps.
Pleural.
Not unexpected. We know the men who took Zoe are part of a human trafficking ring. That’s why we’re here. We’re the hostage rescue specialists paid very well to bring stolen girls home, preferably safe and sound. Although we were only hired to recover Zoe, we’ll save them all. Mr. Summers won’t have it any other way.
There’s easily a dozen or more blankets strewn about. A dozen lives taken. The foul taste of failure coats my tongue. I’m not used to the bitter tang.
Guardians never fail.
Tell that to Zoe. Tell her how this isn’t a colossal fucked up failure.
If she’s still alive.
My helmet light pierces the gloom, revealing dried blood and fetid urine stains. They kept the girls in here like animals. The blood comes in various forms, dried pools on the floor, stains on the blankets, and splatter marks on the wall. Urine stains are everywhere.
These men are sloppy. Damaging their merchandise cuts into their bottom line. By the looks of this place, all of the girls suffered. Some more than others. Zoe suffered.
In my six years as a team guy, I’ve seen a lot of fucked up shit. When I left the Navy, I thought the worst of human depravity was behind me. How wrong I was. This is some fucked up shit.
I used to hunt dangerous men, relieving them of the burden of their pathetic lives, or returning them to whichever prevailing authority waited to extract their pound of flesh.
Now, I retrieve the fallen, the broken; those who’ve been taken. I’m a Guardian, a hostage rescue specialist dealing with a catastrophic mission failure. The girls are gone. From the looks of it we’re hours late, maybe even a whole day late.
This job isn’t any easier than my team days. In many ways, it’s far worse. Revulsion coils in my gut, thinking about what these girls endured.
Girls. Young women. Innocent victims.
That’s not an emotion I ever felt for the targets I disposed of during my time in the Navy. I dispatched lives without a bit of compassion or lick of guilt cluttering my conscience.
“What did you want me to see?” I turn my attention to Max, our team leader. He could’ve told me about this shit instead of dragging me from my position.
“You tell me.” He gestures to another room. The door sits off its hinges, propped haphazardly against the wall. The low beam of his flashlight barely lights up the doorway. I push past and look inside.
“Christ!” My heart rate quickens before I can force it back to its slow plodding pace. The veins in my temples bulge as fury fills me. “Fucking pigs.”
Max follows me into the room. He ordered me to tell him what I see.
“It’s a procedure room.” My nose wrinkles at the stench. There’s more blood here than in the other rooms. Layers of dried blood pool on the floor beneath an examination table. It tells the tales of multiple victims enduring unspeakable acts.
“Well? What do you think?” Max watches me closely. Like the rest of the team, he’s aware of my personal connection to this mission.
“It’s a gynecologic exam table.”
“No shit Sherlock.”
As team medic, my medical skillset comes in handy in the rare instances when one of us needs a little patching up in the field, but there’s no reason for my medical skills here.
The back of the exam table is set at an incline. Two metal poles with heel cups extend from the end. Unlike a normal exam table, this one comes with shackles. Shackles bolted at the high end for the chest. Shackles to secure wrists a little lower down. Another runs across the hips to hold an unwilling patient as they thrash. Finally, there are two more straps at the feet.
“What were they doing? Rape?” Max growls, and I echo his rage.
“Could be. The table definitely places a woman in a vulnerable position, but I doubt their customers would pay for damaged goods.” I glance around the filthy room, looking for anything which might explain what they did in here. “Check the trash can.”
Max heads over to a waste container. Instead of checking, he picks it up and brings it back to me. I’m smart enough not to reach inside. Who knows what might prick me and transfer disease.
Disease?
My eyes narrow and I pull out my knife. Using that, I dig through the contents.
“You seeing this?” My question isn’t for Max, but for our Doc Summer watching from command.
“Yes.” Doc Summers’ crisp voice tightens. A tough cookie, nothing phases our indomitable lead physician.
“See what?” Max peers into the trash can.
“Those are STD kits. Tests for gonorrhea, chlamydia, and…” I sift through the contents. “IUDs? Doc, am I correct?”
Static over the coms crackles then clears. “Looks like they tested the girls for sexually transmitted diseases and inserted IUDs.” Her voice softens. “At least that answers one question.”
“What’s that?” Max turns the can over and dumps the contents on the floor spreading them out. He does this to send better pictures back to base.
I glance at the trash and count IUD wrappers. “Looks like thirteen.”
“Sixteen chlamydia swabs. Thirteen IUDs.” Doc Summers confirms. “I’d mark that at sixteen victims.”
“Not thirteen?”
“If some of the girls already had IUDs, they wouldn’t place a new one.”
“How fucking considerate.” My stomach twists. They want the pleasure of raping their victims without the unwanted side effects pregnancy brings.
“Search the place.” A new voice rumbles through our comm channels. Forest Summers’ deep baritone is unmistakable and elicits an ass-puckering gluteal clench.
What the fuck is the CJ’s boss’ boss doing on Overwatch?
My team worked with Forest Summers on an operation in the Philippines that went to hell in a handbasket in the blink of an eye.
That had definitely been a FUBAR moment. We lost the head of our organization. I’m surprised we weren’t all fired on the spot. A couple months later, we rescued him
in a brilliantly executed raid, but still that’s not something a person ever forgets.
Mr. Summers continues, thinking out loud. “There must be something which says where they took the girls. See what the prisoners have to say.”
“With pleasure.” Not a fan of torture, per se, I love a good interrogation.
“We’re on it, boss.” Max gives a nod. He’s our team leader. All final orders come from him. I tap the button for the team only comm channel. “Alpha-four, we need to know where they took the girls.”
With Forest Summers’ interest in the mission, need means necessity.
“Copy that.” Griff loves getting his hands dirty.
If we can get the intel we need, we might be able to salvage this operation.
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Military Romance
Guarding Zoe
Contemporary Romance
Mistletoe Mischief
Cocky Captain
(Vi Keeland & Penelope Ward’s Cocky Hero World)
Firestorm
(Kristy Bromberg’s Everyday Heroes World)
Romantic Suspense
each book is a standalone novel.
Twist of Fate
The Starling
Redemption
The One I Want Series
Forest's Fall (Captive Hearts Book 3) Page 42