by Jessie Cooke
Billy raised an eyebrow and said, “What are you thinking?”
“You won’t like it.”
Billy sighed. Gunner wondered if Billy would ever get tired of being the voice of reason while he was busy acting on impulse and emotion. He hoped not. It was the main reason they got along so well. “I usually don’t,” Billy said, “but that’s never stopped you before.”
21
Tamara woke up in a cube. It was moving, so she assumed it was a truck or a train. She was lying on something hard, a wooden bench, maybe, and her head felt like it might explode. She tried to use her arms to push herself up and look around, but they were weak and shaky. She felt drugged and for a few seconds she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there.
“Hey, you’re alive.” Slowly she pulled up her aching head and after several seconds of trying to focus, her eyes landed on a young boy, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. He had soft-looking blond hair that fell to his shoulders and he was slim and pale.
“Yeah…I guess,” she said in a raspy voice. “Where am I?”
“Transport truck,” he said, flatly. Tamara used all the strength in her weak muscles to push herself upright on the bench. Her limbs were shaking and she felt sick to her stomach. She felt even sicker when she took in the scene around her. There were at least ten other people in the truck. Other than the boy talking to her, they were all girls or women. Some of them looked unconscious and the rest of them looked ill or terrified.
“Where are we being transported to?”
The boy shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine,” he said.
Tamara closed her eyes for a second and tried to remember what had happened earlier in the day. That’s when it came back to her…Eddie. He had her tied up and he’d handed her off to the sick pervert. Oh, God! Did they rape me? She looked down at her torn blouse. She remembered Eddie ripping it and then giving the big man permission to rape her, but that was all she remembered. After that, everything was fuzzy.
“How did we get on the truck?” she asked the boy.
“I walked,” he said. “They carried you.”
“Why weren’t you drugged like the rest of us?”
He shrugged. “I guess because I didn’t fight them. I’ve been used for sex most of my life. This can’t be much worse. Maybe they’ll sell me to someone rich.”
Tamara rubbed her eyes and when she looked down at her hands she realized her wrists were rope burned and swollen. “Used for sex?”
“I’m just guessing that’s what they want with us,” he said. “I’ve heard rumors that Eddie is in the sex trafficking business. I was working at one of his porn shops and they just showed up and told me to get in the truck.”
“Jesus. How old are you?”
“I’ll be fifteen in about a week.”
Tamara clutched at her stomach. She was sure she was going to be sick. She looked around the cube and saw that a few of the others had already been sick; the floor was littered with vomit and oral secretions. That made her retch. Once the spasms in her stomach passed, she was grateful that she hadn’t eaten anything for a while. The dry heaves beat the hell out of another smelly mess on the floor.
“What’s your name?” the kid asked her.
“Tammy. What’s yours?”
“Ben,” he said. His voice was flat and his blue eyes were devoid of all emotion. Tamara hated to think what must have happened to him in his short fourteen years of life to make him that way. The girls and women who were curled up into fetal positions and rocking back and forth sobbing were less frightening to her. Tammy thought about her dad and Tommy. They must be losing their minds looking for her. She wondered if Gunner knew she was missing. She’d thrown him out and she’d been so mean. She wondered if he even cared. She was probably just another notch to Blue-Eyes anyway.
“How long have we been driving?” she asked Ben.
“A couple of hours, I think. It’s hard to tell how much time is passing in here.”
Tamara nodded and looked around again. There were three women probably close to her age, in their early twenties. Besides her and Ben, there were five very young girls; one of them looked like she’d barely reached puberty. She was lying on the floor with her knees to her chest and her small body was racked with sobs. Tamara tried to stand but her legs were too shaky. At last, she just slid to the floor and scooted on her butt over to the girl. “Hey, my name’s Tammy, what’s your name, honey?”
The little girl looked up at her and Tamara saw that she was probably thirteen or fourteen, just small for her age, not that thirteen was any better, considering. “Please help me,” the girl sobbed out in a tiny voice.
“I will if I can,” Tamara told her. She lay down next to the girl and put an arm around her. The girl folded her tiny body into Tamara and she could feel her shaking all over. They lay there like that for a while, the little girl’s tears soaking into Tamara’s skin. Finally, the girl got quiet and once she had her sobs under control, she looked up at Tammy and said:
“Chloe.”
Tammy did her best to give the girl a smile. “Hi, Chloe. We’re going to figure this out, okay? I promise I won’t let anyone hurt you.” Tammy had no idea what she was saying or why. She had no idea where they were going, what they were facing, or how the hell she’d get out of it…much less protect the girl. She could feel the terror the girl was feeling seeping into her bones, and that caused anger to seep into her veins like poison. She wasn’t going down without a fight. She had just learned something new about herself that day—she had a maternal instinct. For some reason Chloe brought it out in her, and like a mama bear she was determined to keep her safe.
When the truck finally stopped, everyone was herded down a ramp and onto a wooden dock. It was dark and the only light came from three big men with flashlights. They also had guns, big ones, automatic rifles if Tamara wasn’t mistaken. “Hurry up,” one of them shouted at the woman in front. When she didn’t move, he shoved the gun into her side and she screamed. That caused Chloe, who was clutching at Tamara’s hand, to start howling.
“I want to go home! Let me go home!”
“Shut up!” another gunman said, pointing his gun at Chloe, only making her scream louder. Tamara surprised herself by stepping between the man and the girl.
“She’s just scared, leave her alone.”
The gun was in Tamara’s face then. She willed herself not to flinch. “You shut up too,” the big ugly guy with a pockmarked face and unibrow snarled.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Yeah,” he said, running his tongue over his lips. “A half-dressed ho on her way to make some Cartel men very happy.”
Chloe was digging her nails into Tamara’s arm, she was holding onto her so tightly. “Wrong,” she said. “I’m the daughter of the VP of the Head Hunters.” She thought the man blanched, but it was too dark to tell for sure. “That’s right, I’m Randall Covey’s daughter, and whether I’m dead or alive when he finds me, he’s going to kill you for your part in this.”
“I wish that old, fat bastard good luck,” the ugly man said. “Now get moving and make sure that brat moves with you.”
Tamara started walking again, urging Chloe along in front of her. They walked across the dock to a ramp that led to what looked like a passenger ferry. Tamara felt the anxious tickle in her belly growing deeper. She had grown up listening to talk around the club when the men didn’t think she was paying attention. Randall never wanted her involved in club business, but she’d been around it long enough to have absorbed more than even she wanted to know. She didn’t know for sure where they were but, if she calculated the approximate time it took them to get there, and took her surroundings into consideration, she’d have to guess they were in Corpus Christie. She’d heard a lot about boats leaving out of private docks in Corpus Christie and heading toward the South Texas portion of the U.S.–Mexico border. That area is extremely rural, with long stretches of sparsely populated land. Drug traffickers have no
toriously used the infrastructure to smuggle drug shipments into the U.S., or to store those shipments before transporting them to larger towns and cities along the border area. Tamara had been hoping that Ben didn’t know what he was talking about, but if the area was as good for transporting drugs as she knew it was, then it stood to reason that it might be good for transporting humans under the cover of night as well.
She and Chloe walked slowly across the dock with a gunman urging them along every step of the way. Her head was pounding with the implications of what was about to happen and her brain was struggling to figure out how the hell to get out of it. They were the last in line, and everyone else was five or six feet in front of them and already on the ferry when it was Chloe’s turn to board. She froze in place and clung onto Tammy. Sobbing again she said, “I’m not going.”
The man with the gun poked her with it in the back and said, “Yes, you are, or you die right here. Your choice, kid. I have a schedule to keep.”
“Look at her,” Tammy said, hoping the big man had a heart. “She’s just a little girl. You have so many, would they even notice if…”
“Move!” He shoved Tamara and her shaky legs gave out. She fell forward onto Chloe, which only made the girl scream louder. Tammy had claw marks on her arms and neck from where Chloe had clutched onto her. “Get up!” Tammy pressed her sweaty palms into the dock and tried to stand up. Between whatever drug they’d given her to make her muscles weak and Chloe’s weight, she couldn’t push herself up.
“Please, Chloe,” Tammy pled with her in a whisper, “we have to go.”
“You promised. You said that you wouldn’t let them hurt me.”
“I won’t…” Tammy felt Chloe’s arms ripped away from her neck. The big man had ahold of her with one hand and Chloe was clawing at his face like a feral cat. Suddenly he tossed her like a rag doll toward the dark water, and she landed in the murky river with a splash.
“What the fuck?” one of the guys from the ferry yelled. The man hovering over Tamara ignored him and poked her with the gun again.
“Get up, bitch!” Tamara felt like she was watching a movie in slow motion as she pushed herself up off the dock. The man was threatening her with the gun. Chloe’s screams and splashing were getting weaker and the man on the dock was yelling louder. Tammy stood on shaky legs and in a split second made a decision that could cost her life. She got to the edge of the dock and dove into the water toward the spot where Chloe had disappeared only seconds before.
Tamara’s body was immediately enveloped by the dark cold water. She felt an incredible pressure in her chest, and her lungs began to burn. Her heart was already hammering into her rib cage, but it increased in intensity and speed as she tried to claw her way to the surface. Her head was filled with panic and she opened her mouth and sucked in an icy cold lungful of water that sent jolts of pain through her body. She couldn’t see or hear anything other than a buzzing in her ears. The buzzing turned into a hum and she felt the edges of her consciousness beginning to fade to black, and then she bumped into something. It was cold and hard…Chloe! She wrapped her arms around her and fought to get to the surface, but she wasn’t facing up, she was perpendicular and her body was going numb. The last thing she remembered was a vise-like grip on her arm, pulling her up.
22
Billy was clutching onto Gunner’s waist so tightly that as Gunner took a tight curve they were almost both pulled off the bike backwards. He was pushing the limits of how fast the Fat Boy could go, but if his hunch was right they only had a few minutes to make it to the dock. He had the gun Dax gave him tucked into his waistband and he’d sent Dax a text before they took off. He tried to leave Billy behind but his friend was having none of it. Gunner’s biggest worry was that someone else was going to get hurt because of him, and his second biggest worry was that his hunch was all wrong and he’d got his hopes up for no reason. The night Detective Sarah Grady raced out of the hotel room, Gunner knew where she was going. It was where he had just left when he’d gotten arrested at fifteen. Slip 49 was where a small passenger ferry docked once weekly. That ferry and the boat slip belonged to one of Eddie’s “legitimate” companies. The rest of the week it transported passengers out to the small, mostly uninhabited islands along the gulf, for climbing, hiking, and exploring. But on Friday mornings before the sun came up, the ferry docked and what came off it had nothing to do with “legitimate business.”
When Gunner was about fourteen, he had a little piece of crap Honda Ca95 that he’d picked up at a junkyard. Old Kinley had helped him get it running, and once he had wheels he was able to pick up more jobs from Eddie’s crew and make more cash. One of those jobs was picking up packages that came in on the ferry in Corpus Christie on Friday mornings. That morning, the day that he’d gotten arrested, he’d picked up his package and was on his way from the parking lot in front of the docks back out to the main road when his bike stalled. He got off and was tinkering with the engine when a cargo truck pulled in. Gunner learned young to ignore his surroundings as much as possible. If you didn’t know anyone else’s business, you didn’t have to get involved, harassed by the police, or killed. He kept his head down and his focus on the bike, until he heard the wailing. The sun was just beginning to come up and the docks were quiet, but the sound pierced the night air and sent chills down his spine. Without thinking, he raised his head and looked toward the sound. He saw a man carrying something off the truck, wrapped in a blanket. The wailing was coming from the blanket, and he looked like he was having a hard time holding onto it. Whatever was underneath was twisting and flailing, and when a long limb came out and struck the man on the chin, he yelled and threw the blanket down hard on the wooden deck. The night went silent again and Gunner knew he had to get the hell out of there and fast. He dropped his tools back into his backpack and started pushing the bike. He pushed it past the empty guardhouse and underneath the yellow safety bar and didn’t look back. As luck would have it, when he got to the main road a state trooper came by and stopped to see if he needed help. Gunner panicked and tried to run. He found out later that was a stupid thing to do too. Within minutes he was lying on the ground on his belly, surrounded by police. He wouldn’t find out until later that the package he was carrying contained four kilos of cocaine with a street value of over $100,000. The D.A. tried hard to get Gunner to reveal who his source was, but Gunner never said a word about Eddie or the ferry, and after two years in prison the memory of what he’d seen that night had faded, replaced by new atrocities his young mind had to absorb.
He could see the guard shack between the old warehouse and the dock as he and Billy approached it, and he could see that as usual, it was empty. The yellow safety bar was down and the gate next to it was locked. He yelled at Billy to hang on tight. Billy gripped him even tighter and Gunner felt like he couldn’t breathe as the bike busted through the guardrail. Shards of wood splintered in every direction but Gunner didn’t stop. He kept going until he got closer to the water. He could see the ferry still parked in the slip. They jumped off the bike and moved behind the cover of some pallets, getting to within six or eight feet of the boat.
“Are they dead?” One of the men on top of the ferry was shouting to someone in the water below. Gunner’s eyes moved from the ferry to the activity in the water. It was too dark for him to see what was happening down there, but he heard a voice yell back:
“Fuck if I know. I wouldn’t mind if they were, bitches already caused us enough trouble for one day.”
Gunner couldn’t help but think it looked like a scene out of one of the old black-and-white monster movies Patty liked to watch. A big man appeared under the dim moon as he emerged from the water. He was dripping wet and dragging something behind him in both hands. When he turned away from them and began to head up the ramp to the ferry, Gunner could see that he was dragging two bodies. One was really small like a child, and the other looked like it could be that of a teenager or smaller adult. He dragged them up the ramp like they
were sacks of flour and dropped them on the deck at the other man’s feet before pulling up the ramp and yelling out:
“Let’s get this tub moving.”
“I have to get aboard that ferry,” Gunner said.
“How do you plan on doing that?” Billy asked.
“I don’t have a plan yet. There’s a little boat parked over there next to the ferry. You think you could hot-wire it?”
“I only stole a boat once,” Billy said, “but yeah, I could probably get it started.”
“They’re raising the ramp. As soon as they finish, we move.” Billy nodded, and they waited in silence as the man on the ferry pulled in the ramp and closed the opening in the railing. They heard the hum of the motor as the ferry began to slowly move away from the dock. The one advantage they would have was the fact that the large, flat ferry couldn’t move very fast. Billy started to stand when the ferry was about six feet from the dock. Gunner put his hand on his friend’s arm and said, “Let’s give them a few more feet.” They waited until the ferry made it about twelve feet out and Gunner said, “Okay, let’s go. Stay low and out of the light.” There was only one light shining on the dock. They stayed as far from that as they could and made it to the boat without attracting any attention. Gunner climbed down into the boat first and Billy was right behind him. Billy went to the end of the boat where the outboard motor was located and said:
“Look under the bench seats and see if there’s anything in there like a screwdriver.”
Gunner pulled up the first seat and shuffled through it. All he found there were life vests and floatation devices. He turned and pulled open the other one. There was a small gas can, a flashlight, and something that looked like a small tire iron. He picked up the flashlight and tool and asked Billy, “Will this work?”