by Dana Marton
“Have you met a man, Paco Molinero?” She’d only seen women here, but maybe there were men, too, and children, held at different locations. Maybe Paco had been sold, too, had escaped and had been shot for his bravery.
Nobody answered. She guessed that would be a no.
“What will they do to us?” she asked next.
“We don’t know, señora,” the girl said after a few seconds, her voice small. “The men come—they take three or four. The women never come back. They’re probably taken to work.”
Forced prostitution, Grace thought, but didn’t say anything.
She scooted back until she reached the wall and leaned her back against it. The small space smelled like sweat and dirt. “How long have you been here?”
“Two months.”
She swallowed hard. She couldn’t imagine two months in this dungeon, without light or fresh air, with barely enough room to move around.
“Is Paco your husband?” the girl asked her.
“Friend of a friend. I’m looking for his children, Miguel and Rosita.”
“Miguel y Rosita?” someone whispered from the corner, followed by a couple of other words Grace didn’t understand.
“Sí, los niños,” the English-speaking girl answered, then listened to a rushed explanation, before saying in English, “Marianna has seen them.”
Hope speared through Grace while the two women exchanged a few more sentences. “The children are at the train station. Marianna was first taken there before they brought her here.”
“Edinburg?” Hullett didn’t have a train station.
But the woman couldn’t give her an answer. She probably had no idea where exactly she’d been.
Grace rubbed her hands over her face in the darkness, doing her best to think. If the children had been at a train station that meant they were kept on the move. They could be anywhere by now. She tried not to get discouraged. “When?”
The question was translated, as was the answer. “Last week.”
More information came in Spanish, and that, too, was translated in whispers. “They’re waiting for their adoption papers to be forged. The man there told Marianna that older girls like her, only bring maybe five thousand dollars. But young children can be adopted out for as much as twenty or thirty thousand.”
And the twins, sold separately, would bring a small fortune, going to an unsuspecting American family who would think that they were dealing with a legitimate adoption organization. Anger rushed through Grace. She thought of Esperanza, desperately waiting for news on her family back at home, and felt sick to her stomach.
She tried to focus on her rage instead of the memories that being in a dark dungeon brought back. It worked for a while. But the claustrophobic darkness and heat, the smell of unwashed bodies, the nearly palpable fear in the air got to her eventually. Her nerves short-circuited.
Always at the worst time.
She curled into a ball as tremors shook her, breathless panic filling her, squeezing her chest. Don’t lose it now. Hold it together.
Sweat rolled down her face as gruesome images flashed through her brain. She could hear the women whispering to each other, as if from a distance. She did her best to slow her breathing, to fill her lungs, but her lungs were drawn too tight.
Do what you’re supposed to.
She’d been given tools to deal with this. So she tried to imagine her messed-up emotions as a rolling ocean, waves crashing violently, frighteningly on the surface. And she pictured herself, her core, as a whale deep below those waves. She was safe; she was peaceful under all that water. She could see the storm, but the storm couldn’t touch her.
She had no idea how much time passed before her mind finally quieted and her breathing evened. She felt limp with exhaustion. The flashbacks and the panic attack were worse than the beating she’d received. At least the beating didn’t make her feel as if something was wrong with her mind.
“Drink, señora.” The water was offered to her again.
They didn’t have enough water to start with. Seven women occupied the small cell. They had to ration that water, no doubt about it, make it last maybe as long as a full day. Yet when she politely refused, they urged her to drink.
So she did. The sooner she regained her strength a little, the sooner she could see about getting out of here. She drank, then assessed her injuries and stretched her limbs to keep her muscles from stiffening up.
Half an hour passed before she felt semirecovered. It was as good as she was going to get. The longer she stayed the better the chance for another beating, or worse. If she were to escape, now was the time to do something about it.
She drew a deep breath, hoping she could sound confident enough to convince the others. “We’re going to break out.”
Her interpreter translated.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Then she heard a quiet sobbing.
“We don’t want to go to prison,” the woman said. “If anyone finds out that we’re here, we go to prison. And if we don’t earn back the money the man paid for us, they’ll kill our families back home.” The fear was palpable in her voice.
And no matter what Grace said after that, she couldn’t convince the women to assist her in any kind of escape attempt. She couldn’t really blame them. They’d been thoroughly intimidated and abused. They weren’t trained soldiers.
But she was, still, in her heart, despite all her weaknesses. So she planned.
The faint line of light under the door had gone dark a while ago. The guard outside had probably gone back to sleep. The other one had left a while back, from what she could hear. Grace had to feel around in the dark to find the lock, memorize how high it was.
“I’m going to come back for you and get you out of here,” she promised in a low whisper.
Since she wouldn’t be able to deliver a strong enough kick while balancing on her bad leg, she reclined in front of the door and supported herself with a knee and her hands as she kicked as hard as possible.
And the door did bounce open, just a plain wood panel made of two-by-fours, old with age. The men probably never imagined that the women would have the temerity to try to break out.
She rolled to her feet with a battle cry. The element of surprise was on her side. She knew roughly where the recliner was and threw herself on it, on top of the man who must have been in the process of jumping up, because they smacked their heads together and swore in unison, one in English, the other one in Spanish.
She blindly searched for his weapon while her head swam from the impact. Knocked his hand aside. Found the gun. Brought it up hard, and it connected with something with a sickening crunch. Probably the man’s skull, as he suddenly went limp against her.
She shrugged him off.
“You’re free,” she called back to the women, searching for the light cord blindly, finding it by sheer luck. She yanked it hard and the light blinded her for a moment as it came on. She squinted her eyes. “Come on!”
The girls crowded up against the opening of the cell, but not one of them would set foot outside. They were holding their hands before their eyes.
She grabbed the interpreter by the arm. “Come on. Run!”
But they shrank back instead.
“Señora, no. We’ll be punished. Come back, señora.”
Their fear was too strong. They’d been so abused, they no longer believed that freedom was possible.
“This is not over. I’ll bring help.” She turned to run. “Don’t go anywhere with anyone until I come back.”
But as she reached the staircase, the door on top opened, the silhouette of a man filling it. Oh, God. Not again.
She lifted her weapon, but his was already drawn.
Chapter Nine
Finding her came down to sheer luck, a fact that scared the soul out of Ryder. He’d been searching the building and happened to see a scared Mexican woman scurrying down the hallway. If there was trouble in here, she’d seen it, he tho
ught.
The woman nearly fainted when Ryder confronted her, but he made her give up her story, and directions to the basement where she’d last seen Grace. Then he ran, ready to kill.
Except, the first person he saw when he kicked the door open, gun in hand, was Grace. “Don’t shoot! It’s me.”
She leaned against the wall in a way he didn’t like. Like they had hurt her. Hot fury pumped through his veins.
He raced down to her, taking the stairs two at a time. “Are you okay?”
“You have to call immediately. There are people here who need our help. I have some news on the children, too. They were last seen at a train station. Probably Edinburg.”
She explained everything in a rush. He called even as he ran up to lock the door from the inside. He went back down and brought up some boards he saw in a heap in the corner, barricaded the door before he returned to her.
She was tying up a half-conscious man. About a half-dozen scruffy young women peered from behind a door in the wall behind her.
“Take it easy. They’re scared to death,” Grace warned him.
He wanted to grab her and check over every inch of her, but she was standing, apparently without major injury, and knowing that had to be enough for him at the moment. They were far from safe.
He turned his attention to the women. Man, they looked to be in bad shape. The urge to kick the bastard on the ground came on pretty strong, but he resisted it. A display of violence wouldn’t be exactly reassuring for these people.
He took a second to calm his temper. “I’m with the United States government. I’m here to help you. Stay where you are. Stay down. Don’t be afraid,” he told the women in Spanish, the sight of them twisting his gut.
“You should go in there with them and close the door,” he told Grace. “Barricade it from the inside in case the bad guys get here before reinforcements,” he added, noticing suddenly that she was shaking. “Are you injured? Grace?”
“It’s this place.” Her voice was a strained whisper. She wrapped her arms around herself, a look of determination on her face.
“Did anyone hurt you?” Cold anger bubbled up inside him all over again as he gave her disheveled appearance a more careful look in the dim light, looking for new injuries.
She rocked herself. “Just give me a minute.” And then she took some huge, heaving breaths, mumbling about water and whales.
But she kept hold of her gun, and when a minute later someone banged on the door at the top of the stairs, she immediately swung the weapon in the right direction.
She earned his profound respect while simultaneously activating all his protective instincts. She was driving him crazy. “Get back.”
She ignored him, of course.
Giving in to her about little things had been a mistake. She had drawn the conclusion that they were some sort of partners.
“I’m the professional here. You’re the civilian. Get back and take up a defensive position. That’s an order.”
But she just stood there, feet apart, a grim expression on her face, ready for anything.
He sure as hell wasn’t. He wasn’t at all ready for her to get hurt again, for example.
So when the bastards at the top of the stairs broke through the door, he rushed forward to make sure he would be between them and Grace.
Three men charged forward, all well-armed, shooting wildly in the dim space. The women screamed in the back.
He gritted his teeth and shot one of the men in the head, one in the chest, all while still dashing forward. By the time he could turn his attention to the third one, he was close enough so he could swing the butt of his gun up and smack the guy in the face, bringing him down.
If he could, he needed to keep alive as many as possible. His team needed information. These men were their first real break.
He kicked the guy’s weapon away and kept his own gun aimed at the man’s chest while he glanced back over his shoulder at Grace. “Did you get hit?”
She still held her gun, absolute fury on her face. The kind of fury that made him wish he had on a bulletproof vest under his shirt.
She lowered the weapon at long last. “You stood directly between me and the attackers, completely blocking me,” she hissed.
He’d never in his life wanted to kiss a woman as badly as he wanted to kiss Grace Cordero at that moment. He marshaled his self-control and pressed his lips together for a second, before he asked, “Did you get hit?”
“No!” she yelled at him. “What the hell was that? Were you out sick the day they taught teamwork? Do you even know what the word means?”
All that fire was just turning him on even more.
“We’re not a team.” He bent to the man and tied him up with his own belt then strode back to her. “You were consulting. That’s now over.”
No way would he put her in danger like this again. His heart had about stopped when the men had opened fire. She’d seen plenty of rough stuff in the past and clearly she still wasn’t over it. Involving her at all had been an incredibly stupid thing to do. Her participation would end here.
He opened his mouth to tell her, then decided it could wait until they were out of here and she was safe. Right now they shouldn’t waste any energy on fighting.
“Is everyone all right?” he asked the women in Spanish. They had stayed in their cell, had kept down and kept quiet through the exchange of fire. “Sí, señor,” a frightened voice said after a minute from the back. “We are okay.”
“Don’t come out yet,” he warned, not that they looked as if they were ready for a rush to freedom. “It’s not over yet, but soon. I promise.”
He turned to Grace. “Stay here.” He gave the order in his best I-mean-it voice, in case she was thinking about disobeying him again.
Then he carefully moved to the stairs, weapon ready. With the machines going in the wire mill, and them down below the ground, there was a chance that nobody had heard the shooting. He sure hoped and prayed that was the case. Because if someone had heard, then more attackers would be coming, and the backup he’d called for was still nowhere to be seen.
* * *
SHE KNEW SHE WAS NO LONGER the best. She knew she was washed-up, no longer fit for a military op. But the way Ryder had dismissed her still cut to the quick. Hurt her more than if it’d come from anyone else. Grace ground her teeth together and stood in silence, two dozen steps behind him.
He’d as much as said that she was nothing but a liability.
Fine. Whatever. But if things came to the worst, she’d still rather go out fighting than hiding behind others.
She couldn’t see the top of the stairs from where she stood, so she watched Ryder for clues. No sign of weakness in him. His whole body was focused, his posture just right to launch into action at a moment’s notice as he stood on the balls of his feet, gun aimed, eyes forward. He was a warrior through and through; nobody could doubt that looking at him.
As unbearably bossy and irritating as he was, everything about his warrior’s body called out to her. Humiliating—considering how quickly he’d dismissed her. Annoying—considering that she didn’t even like him. But her hormones didn’t much care about that. They simply overrode her brain and sent her body all kinds of confusing signals.
Just great.
He tensed, giving a small nod that immediately redirected her thoughts.
She pulled her weapon up. Had he heard someone coming?
Despite the fact that she could have cheerfully strangled him more than once since they’d met, concern for him sliced through her.
He aimed. She stepped forward to back him up.
But he lowered his weapon the next moment, his muscles relaxing.
No more than two seconds passed when Shep came out of the staircase, as well armed as she’d ever seen him. “What do we have here?”
Mo followed him. “The building is secured.”
“How?” Ryder asked.
“Immigration.”
“Ha
d to be called in,” Shep added. “The mill is a large civilian, U.S. target. We couldn’t just come in guns blaring.”
He didn’t sound happy. All three men looked pretty grim, in fact. Having to call in the INS was obviously an impediment to whatever secret mission they were working.
“Where are they?” she asked.
“Sealing the exits and checking ID’s.”
“Where are the captives?” Mo asked. “We have ambulances waiting outside, if they need medical help.”
Grace tucked her weapon into her belt and walked to the cell, ducked inside. “You are safe,” she told the women, and waited while the one who spoke English translated.
“Nobody is going to hurt you now. The bad guys are going to be caught. You can go home to your families.”
But they cried and hung on to each other, not believing a word she was saying.
“Come, please.”
For a while nobody moved. Then the tallest one took a few steps, set foot outside the cell at last. And little by little, seeing that nobody was harming them, at least not yet, the others followed.
Grace stifled a gasp when they came out into the light. Their rags were worse than she realized. Nearly all of them had bruises. One couldn’t walk; the others had to support her. And, God, they were young. Somewhere between fourteen and nineteen—not women, but girls.
Ryder came up to them, slowly, his whole demeanor changed. He spoke in a low voice, gently in Spanish. If he’d looked like a warrior before, now he seemed a guardian angel, his gestures and words softened. He talked for a minute or two, ended the crying—mostly. Then he picked up the injured woman into his arms and carried her toward the stairs.
Mo and Shep came to support others. Grace did the same, although her ribs ached enough to make breathing difficult. But she knew that whatever abuse she’d endured from the bastards for the short time she’d been in captivity was nothing compared to what these girls had gone through in the past two months here.
Nobody spoke, the only sounds were feet shuffling, the machines humming somewhere in the mill and the quiet crying of one of the girls.
None of them could make it up the stairs on their own. Their muscles had little chance to move in that small cell for the past two months, and they were half-starved. Shep and Mo each supported two—one on each side—Ryder carried one while letting another lean on him. Grace held up the last one, although with the brace throwing off her balance, it wasn’t always clear which one of them was holding up the other.