by Lake, Rae B.
All of the kids run out, but the only one I’m concerned about is Lily. I fall to my knees and wrap my arms around her, tackling her to the ground in my exuberance.
"Baby, are you ok? Did they hurt you? You ok baby?" I swipe the hair out of her face to see a bright smile. "What?"
"I knew you’d come Daddy. I tried to tell them, but they didn’t believe me. I knew you’d find me anywhere." I pick her up from the ground, kissing her cheeks and forehead over and over.
"Always, I’ll always find you."
A loud pop echoes from outside and something hits the ground with a loud thud.
"Daddy, we have to get them out. We have to help them too."
Her face was dirty as were her clothes. She was shaking in fear, but she was more concerned about the rest of them then herself. Just like her mother.
"Alright baby, alright." I rush from cage to cage opening the doors and letting all the children out. They range in age from 3 up to about 8 just like Justin had said. There was a stairway that leads up to some bulkhead doors, but they were locked with what looked like industrial locks. I scour the ring for the key and find the one that would undo these locks and manage to get the doors open. Just as I did the kids all decide to try and run for it.
"No, wait!" I stand in front of the stairwell so they can’t get through. I quickly take out my phone and call Archer who should be out far enough to cover the children as they run out.
"Yeah, you need us in there? I hear shots."
"No, stand your ground. I’m sending out kids. A lot of them." I look down to Lily who has been clinging to my arm since I let her out. "I’m sending Lily."
"What? Daddy … No!" She yanks on my arm to get me to change my mind.
"Roger. I’ll get Joda to take them into the trees." Archer said.
"Look for the flashing light." I order. I only had a small flashlight, but it was so dark outside that he would be able to see it.
"Yup." He hangs up the phone and I make my way to the top of the stairs. Outside is nothing but flat land. There are a few bodies on the ground, and I can hear screaming from upstairs. I pray that the guys are doing okay. Now that I know my girl is safe, I can focus on killing the motherfuckers that took her. I activate the flashlight on my phone and systematically cover it and uncover it. Another light all the way on the other end of the field does the same thing—Archer.
"Lily you see that light. I want you and the rest of the kids to run there as fast as you can. That’s Uncle Luke."
I see her bottom lip shaking, she’s about to start crying.
"Daddy, you have to come with me!"
"Lily, baby, I have to help them. Imagine all these kids here … their families can’t find them, or all the kids who were taken away from loving parents. They deserve to go home too, right?"
She looks at one of the girls that she was in the cage with. "Yes, they need to go home too." She fists her free hand and looks back up to me. "Fine, but you better make sure that you come find me again. Don’t stay." She pulls her hand out of the other girl’s grasp and wags her finger at me. I nearly laugh at her. This little woman thinking that she’s in charge of me.
"Come on, run over to Uncle Luke. Do you see the light?" I pull her up so she can see over the stairs.
"Yeah. I see it."
"Ok, stay as low as you can. Run fast and don’t stop for anything. Uncle Luke and a few friends are over there waiting on you."
"Got it." I see her staring at the light. I bend down to kiss her head and push her up the stairs with the kids on her tail.
I don't hear any gunshots in that direction, but I can still hear them coming from upstairs. I watch my daughter run out of danger and for the second time in the last two days she is in someone else’s care. That couldn't be helped, I had shit to finish upstairs.
When I rush back to the main level, there is row after row of what looks like workers and caretakers on the ground with their hands tied behind their back. I run into Treble who is taking on two men at once. One of them with their arms around his neck while the other is punching him furiously in his midsection. I dart over to where they are to help, but before I do, Treble pushes the man who is holding his neck back into a wall breaking his grasp. He turns and slams the man’s head into the wall. Then he leans down to pull out the small gun he has stashed in his boot. Treble fires three shots into the man before he turns around and fires another shot at the man who was just punching on him. Both of them dead and down before I could even make it down the hallway.
"Good shit Treble." As a prospect, he shouldn't even be here, but from the little I know about him, he isn't one to take no for an answer. Seems like he will make a good brother.
I run past him and carefully poke my head around the corner. Dead bodies are everywhere, but none of them are my brothers.
"Is it clear?" I call out, my family couldn't have gone through all these motherfuckers.
"You doubting our skill now? Just admit it, you know we're the best." Clean calls out loudly before he puts his arms up in a generic strong man pose.
They had cleared a whole fucking building for me. They put their lives on the line so I could find my daughter. These are the people that I should be worried about working with, the ones that are down with the right cause.
Shepard is in the corner with Tex trying to get him under control. In actuality I should kill him, but he’d put his life on the line today too. The Spawns will never be a brother to me, but I could see that they were trying to pull as far away from Rooster as they could. With Shepard's guidance I was positive that they would too. If they stayed true to that I had no problem leaving them alive for now.
"The kids upstairs?" Vexx asks, out of breath and her hair completely disheveled. Her gun pressed heavily in her arm.
"Yeah, we need to get them out of here too. Fuck how the hell are we going to get all of them to safety? Where are they going to go?"
"Let me take care of that. I can have the local police force and maybe a few folks from the Bureau here within a matter of hours." Wyatt says as he digs his phone out of his pocket and starts to put calls in.
I stand back and look at my family, there is no way that I would have been able to do this without them. Not a chance in hell would I have gotten my kid out of here if I didn't have help. I’d spent so long thinking that because of my mistakes I had to fight to deserve their loyalty when they'd never stopped being loyal in the first place. It's humbling.
I turn my head and can see Roth looking around. His eyebrows are knitted together and a deep scowl on his face.
"What is it?" I ask out loud. His eyes jerk up to where I am when he realizes I'm talking to him.
"We are missing a few. The ones that stole Lily in the first place and the ones that hurt Keeley. They aren't here."
I scan the hallway looking for the face I’d seen in the surveillance photos and he was right, they aren't here. There is no way that I was just going to forget about killing those motherfuckers. Not in this fucking lifetime.
A call comes through on Jameson’s phone, I turn to him to see what update is coming through. "Yang says there is movement on the west side. He wants to know if they should take them down."
"Children or adult?" I ask.
"Adults, looks like half a dozen."
"That’s them. Of course, it’s the ones that run this shit that would have an escape plan." Roth says looking to me.
"Tell him to take them down, but don’t kill them. We are on the way." I glance over to Ink to see if I can tell what kind of mindset, he is in. He looks calm, "Ink you good?"
"Yeah, what’s up Wire?"
"I need some assistance."
"Let me come." Clean steps up.
"No brother, if the fucking cowards that left all these people behind are the same ones that hurt Keeley, you're not going to want to be around for that.
"Oooh, oooh, oooh, you about to fillet their dicks? Oh, how about a spike up the ass? Oh, let me come. Can I come too?" Tex tries
to walk away from Shepard, but he doesn't let him go.
"Sorry, can't do it."
I was fine with them laying their lives on the line if they wanted to, but I wasn't going to trust them to have my back if it was just us alone. No, we definitely weren’t there yet.
"Roth, you too."
My head swings to Ink. "You going to be good with that?" Ink is my brother, way before Roth had even stepped on the scene. Roth did some fucked up shit to Ink, even if he was responsible for getting him out at the end. It must be hell for Ink to have to be around Roth so much. The last thing I want is for my brother to feel slighted, since I'm forcing him into this situation.
"No, as long as the fucker doesn't come at me with any handcuffs I'm straight." Ink says one thing, but his body language says another. He was not ok with this in the least.
"Alright, I need a few things. Rope. Lots of fucking rope. See if you can get some of the cuffs that they have in the rooms. A few jugs of water, fire, and …" I pick up the bat that Tex gave me on the way in, I must have dropped it when everything began to pop off, "this. Yeah. This will do just fine."
Ink pulls out a large coil of rope from the bag that he was carrying, but it was no where near enough. "A lot more. See if one of these lovely people would be of any assistance. If not start beating the information out of them, I'm sure someone will point us in the right direction ..." The second it comes out of my mouth at least half a dozen of the people that were bound and on the ground, began to tell us where we could find some rope, more zip ties, or fishing line. Basically, anything that could be used for tying someone up.
Treble, Fly, and a few others rush to the locations the prisoners gave, and they come back with what looks like hundreds of yards of rope and four huge jugs of water. That would do just fine.
I grab the rope and my bat. Roth and Ink take some as well and we make our way out of the house, but before I do I turn back. "Clean, Jameson, Wyatt make sure every room in this house is checked. We leave no one behind."
They nod. I turn to walk out behind Ink and Roth. I know they will take care of it. I trust them to do the right thing and their decisions the same way they trust mine. Yang told us that he had the last of the workers near the tree line on the west side of the building. I couldn't wait to see what surprises he’d caught.
I jog to get there. When I see the line of people that Yang and Jag had brought down, I smile.
One of them is the motherfucker from the picture. The one that was carrying my baby in a duffle bag.
Yes. This was going to be fun.
Dillon
Ink, Roth, Jag, and Yang all help me drag the bastards further into the trees, where they were denser and harder to see through. I scouted the area ahead until I found the perfect place. It was a small opening in the trees with a few small bushes and some grass, but there was enough space for what I wanted to do.
"I need wood, firewood. Enough for 6 small bonfires." I tell them.
"Bonfires? What the hell are you going to do?" Yang asks, but then puts his hand up, "You know what, never mind. I don't think I want to know." He turns and walks out into the forest to get what I asked. Jag and I stay behind to make sure the prisoners don't get away.
"Do you know what you've done? This shit isn't just about us. You’re fucking with the pockets of presidents, royalty, kings, and fucking dukes! They will destroy this little outfit you have here. Think good about what you’re doing." says a man that I recognize as one of the men in the photo Brendan sent me earlier.
"Kings huh? I don’t think I’ve ever pissed off a king before. I’m down with that." I shrug and walk away from him.
"Yemen will kill you all and never have to leave his fucking office."
"Yemen?" Jag startles and walks closer to the man. It’s obvious he is rattled.
I grab hold of him and pull him back.
"Who’s Yemen?"
"The motherfucker who has Duchess!"
"Oh Marie? Yeah, she’s right at home over there with him." The prisoner says nonchalantly.
I don’t think I have ever seen Jag get so furious so fast, "You piece of shit!" He pulls his foot back and brings the heel of it down on the man's face. Over and over until I can drag him back again.
I knew a bit about what had gone down at Eve’s Fury, but we were getting through our own shit that I didn’t know much.
"Yemen?"
Jag takes in a few deep breaths to compose himself so that he can talk to me. "He is some big fucker over in Europe, basically runs an auction service for high level officials so they can get wives and sex slaves."
"Ha!" Another of the people on the ground laughs, "You think it’s only for wives?"
"Do you know how much little boys and girls go for over there? Yemen can get you anything you want, as quickly as you want. This small holding location is nothing compared to the ones he has around the country, hell around the fucking world." He continues to laugh and the sound of it gets under my skin. A dull roar echoes in my ears and I can't hear anything around me anymore. Not Jag, not the rest of the prisoners, just this bastard laughing. I rush over to him and pull the man up to his knees. I yank his head back and shove the grip end of the bat into his mouth. He tries to buck away from me, but I hold his head as steady as I can. I use my elbow to hammer the end of the bat further and further down his throat until blood and vomit trickles out of his nose and the slit of his mouth. I can see the hard round imprint of the knob of the bat bulging through the skin of his chest. I hit it one more time and hear a satisfying crack of his sternum. The man doesn't make a sound. He's not breathing or moving, but most importantly he's not fucking laughing anymore.
I grab hold of the barrel of the bat where there is a gap in the barbed wire and try to yank the bat back out. It doesn't budge at first and I have to put my foot on the man's shoulder to get some leverage. Finally, when I'm able to get it out, large chunks of bright pink material come up with it and a tube-like muscle flops out of his mouth.
Like coming up from under water, a wave of sound crashes into my ears and I can hear everyone around me again. The rest of the prisoners are screaming and begging for their lives, and Jag’s behind me.
"What the fuck is that?" A nasty gagging sound comes out of his mouth as he steps closer to where I am. "What the fuck is that, coming out of his mouth?"
I look down, and roll the tube- like material around in my fingers. I can feel the slight ridges on the body tissue that I'd ripped up. "That's his throat, the esophagus and trachea. I must have pulled it out along with some of his lung." I pluck off some of the pink material from the edge of the grip of the bat and flick it at Jag. He jumps out of the way and the tawny colored man turns green as he keels over and throws up.
"Oh, what the fuck." He groans as he stumbles away. Not everyone is made to maim and torture.
"Did you get started without us?" Ink says as they walk back with arms full of sticks.
"That one needed to learn a lesson. The rest of them know better now too." I turn and the rest of the prisoners are either still crying or are hunched way over trying to hide from me.
Yang doesn't even bother to ask what happened. "You need more?"
"Yeah, lots more." I tell them and keep my eyes on the rest of the prisoners. I wonder what other details they all had hidden in their fucked up minds.
After two more trips there was just enough firewood for me to do what I needed to do. I grab the rope and cut off equal lengths in front of each of the five of them.
"That is my fucking cue to leave." Jag says.
"I'll let Archer know that you three are out here working." Yang says and follows Jag out.
Ink and Roth stand there waiting for instructions. I don't know what kind of fucked up teacher instincts I have, but part of me is excited to show them this.
"Come, grab the rope and do exactly what I’m doing. It needs to be right, or they will fall sooner than I want." I order them both. Ink comes to one side of me and Roth to the other.
"When is the next time this Yemen will be in the states?" I ask when all of them are hanging in the appropriate positions.
"How the fuck are we supposed to know, does it look like I have his fucking calendar?" One of the men who was at the house when they’d beat Keeley speaks up out of breath. He has a long scar going across his nose and a unibrow that looked like it would need a weed wacker to tame it.
"You may want to watch your mouth. You're not in the best position to be talking to me like that." I keep my cool and just as I'm about to walk away he says.
"You know who has a beautiful mouth? That woman of yours. When I had her tied to the bed, squirming and screaming like a bitch in heat it was all I could focus on."
Darkness clouds the sides of my vision as I realize that he is saying he is the reason my world is fighting for her life in the hospital. "Ink lower him down a bit." My voice is low, but he must hear me, since I feel wind pass by and the man begins to lower inch by inch. I put my hand up to stop him when the man is about chest level—the perfect spot.