Fighting Chance

by Shaun Baines

  The warehouse doors were behind metal shutters. The windows were boarded up. There was no sign of an easy access.

  "Do you think Choo set us up?" Bronson asked.

  Daniel stared through the dirty windscreen. If there was a team of kidnapped teenagers inside, it wasn't apparent from the outside. Then again, the Motorheads had operated undetected for who knows how long. Their invisibility was their strength.

  At the far end of the warehouse were large panelled doors.

  Daniel pointed to them. "That's how we get in."

  The doors were closed and probably locked. Outside them was an oil stain catching the light. It was fresh. Someone had parked there recently. With any luck, they'd be back soon.

  He looked over to Bronson to find him staring out of the other window.

  "What's going on?" Daniel asked.

  Bronson shifted on the leatherette seats and made them squeak. "I'm not sure about this."

  "We'll do it together."

  "Because you trust me?" Bronson asked, his eyebrow arched. "You asked what was going on with me. I want to know what's going on with you."

  It was Daniel's turn to shift uneasily and his seat squeaked accordingly.

  "We should take a look around," he said. "See if we can get in."

  "Whatever you're hiding," Bronson said, "it will come out eventually."

  Daniel's eyes narrowed. "Why would you say that?"

  The expression on his friend's face made Daniel's throat constrict. It was a pleading he'd never witnessed before.

  What Bronson called a secret was actually a lie. It was the reason Daniel had never read through the memory stick. The more he knew, the bigger the lie, contradicting everything Daniel knew about himself. How could a man who sought out the truth be the thing he hated above all else?

  Bronson still watched him, as if trying to discern the secret from Daniel's frown.

  Daniel opened the door, filling the van with the trace smell of smoke.

  "We have to figure out how to get in there," he said. "Time to go to work."

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  "Time to go to work," Crash shouted.

  He stood behind a cardboard cut-out of a superhero, its edges singed in dark ash. The teenagers scampered around the warehouse, clearing the remainder of the junk. Their faces were drawn. A boy around fifteen years old, stumbled, dropping a box of false teeth.

  Crash fell upon him, whipping him with a length of rope. It landed with a thwack, forcing the boy to his knees.

  "Do as I say, Holt," Crash shouted, "or you'll be next in the chair."

  Karin hung onto the doorframe of the office, a piece of broken soup bowl in her hand. Working it strand by strand, the ceramic had sliced through her bindings, but her fingertips were shredded. The soup bowl had cut as much of her as it had the rope. Her foot throbbed. Her broken nose pulsed while the wound on her chest felt open and cold.

  Blood wept out of Karin in place of tears.

  The warehouse was almost empty. The skip was almost full. It would be taken away soon. Their work would be completed. The broken mannequins in their sparkling costumes would disappear, followed by the teenagers who would be shipped to the next warehouse to begin again.

  Karin planned on leaving with the skip, not with the Motorheads.

  Stumbling on her bandaged foot, she gritted her teeth against the pain. All eyes were on the poor boy cowering under Crash's whip. No-one paid her any attention.

  Karin crept behind a girl of about seventeen. The girl was frozen by the violence, her broom clutched in a shaking hand. She noticed Karin's approach and pressed her lips together.

  "Get back to work," Crash shouted.

  The girl frantically swept the floor, scuttling off in a different direction.

  Her cover was blown and Karin hurried to a pile of wooden crates. Catching her breath, she surveyed the warehouse. The two guards had spurned Liz's advances. Instead, they prowled the floor, twisting their rope whips around clenched fists.

  Liz had moved over to Adrian, who looked terrified to be the subject of an attractive, older woman. He pulled a stern face to mask his discomfort and Karin smiled.

  If she could see through that, she was sure Liz could too.

  Crash was bent over, the exertions of his one arm having taken its toll.

  "Next time I won't be so lenient," he said to Holt, prostrate at his feet. "Now get going."

  Holt tried to stand, but slipped back to the floor. Crash spat at him and gave him an extra lashing before dragging Holt upright by his ear. The pain seemed to mobilise him and Holt staggered toward the skip.

  The doors behind the skip would be the ones to open, Karin thought. They were large, but light, made from corrugated aluminium. Karin had to get closer, but there was little cover between her and them. Getting caught would mean further punishment and she'd reached her limit for that.

  Crash's beady eyes scanned the warehouse, like a lighthouse searching for disobedience. There was no way Karin could escape him.

  But then again, she didn't intend to.

  Holt limped toward the wooden crates, every painful step etched on his face. He jerked to a stop when he saw Karin's pleading face.

  "Keep walking," she hissed.

  "I have to work." Holt glanced at Crash and shuddered. "He'll kill me next time."

  Karin tightened her grip on the ceramic shard. "What do you think he'll do to me?"

  "What's going on over there?" Crash asked, his voice booming over the warehouse.

  "Nothing," Holt answered and picked a scrap of paper from the floor. With a gasp of pain, he turned to the skip.

  "What the hell are you doing?" Crash asked, pointing at the crates. "Get them in the skip."

  Karin shrank lower, chewing on her lip.

  "I can't," Holt said with a shiver.

  Crash cracked his whip in the air. "It will hurt a lot more if you don't. Get a move on. Once that lot is cleared, we can get out of here. We have another job to get to."

  Holt's Adam's apple bobbed and his shoulders fell. Closing his eyes, he placed his hands either side of a crate.

  Karin heard his laboured breaths. He gasped as she placed a tender hand on his. Slowly, Karin stood from her crouched position and work ceased in the warehouse again. The occupants gawped while Crash looked from Karin to the room where she was supposed to be.

  "I take it all back," he said, his jaw muscles flickering with tension. "I don't care if they find your body."

  The distance to Crash was too far, especially on an injured foot. Karin searched for a way to get to him. She wanted to leave. For the first time in her life, Karin wanted to go home, but not until she'd taught her captor a bloody lesson.

  Her eyes found Liz and without a signal passing between them, Liz acted. Her bony face connected with Adrian's jaw as she headbutted him. His arms circled in the air as he attempted to regain his balance.

  Liz struck him again and he toppled to the floor.

  "Run," she shouted.

  Karin lurched toward Crash, her pain replaced by fury. She bolted through the warehouse, suddenly feeling free.

  She was faster than anyone would have believed, including herself and reached Crash before he'd had a chance to react. She sliced the shard through the air, missing his stump by inches. The momentum carried Karin forward and she bowled into his thick frame. The resistance surprised her and she almost tumbled. Saving her from a fall, Crash grabbed her and threw Karin into the side of the skip.

  The ceramic shard fell to the ground, smashing into smaller, useless pieces. Crash bore down on her, swinging a fist wrapped in rope. Karin ducked and countered with a flurry of punches to his midriff. It knocked the wind out of him and he listed.

  Karin leapt on him, like a lioness might to take down larger prey. They collapsed to the ground and Crash rammed an elbow into her already broken nose.

  Swirls of light lit the back of her head. Her absent pain returned with a vengeance, radiating through her whole face
. Karin kicked out blindly and missed Crash completely.

  He tried to stand and she reached for his ankles, but Crash was too quick. He moved out of her reach and uncurled his rope.

  "Now you're going to learn to be good," he said.

  Karin was within crawling distance of the warehouse doors, but they may as well have been a county away.

  She watched Crash raise his whip, a cruel sneer on his face, when Liz raced toward her.

  "No more," she shouted.

  And that's when the warehouse exploded.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  It had happened so quickly Daniel couldn't avoid it. Bronson had followed him around the circumference of the warehouse. Behind it was a mass of brambles and a carrier bag of pornographic magazines. The walls were buckled, but intact. There were no hidden vehicles, save for a child's bicycle missing its front wheel.

  The whole place was on a lock down.

  Daniel stared up at the metal doors, searching for an idea when he heard the growl of an engine. Bouncing down the road was a skip loader with thick tyres and a grubby teddy bear tied to its grill.

  Without thinking, Daniel rushed at it, waving his arms above his head.

  "Help. Help," he shouted. "I need help."

  The driver graciously came to a halt, his face panicked by Daniel's words.

  Daniel wrenched open the truck door and pulled the driver to the ground. Bronson pounced on him and together they manhandled him into the back of Daniel's van.

  "We have to remember to let this one go," Bronson said.

  The van's locks clunked into place and Daniel marched to the truck, finding the keys swinging from the ignition.

  Bronson joined him in the passenger seat. "What are you going to do?"

  "We need the element of surprise," Daniel said, making the engine snarl. "This should do it."

  "Are you mad?" Bronson said, scrabbling for his seat belt.

  It was too late. Daniel's foot was already on the accelerator. What the truck lacked in speed, it made up for in weight. Slowly, the wheels turned, building into a blur. The noise of groaning pistons filled the cabin, forcing Daniel to shout above the noise.

  "I can't find the brakes."

  The truck tore through the warehouse doors like sugar paper. They peeled away, sending razor sharp ribbons of metal into the air.

  Daniel hadn't expected any obstacles and hadn't wondered what the truck might encounter on the other side of the doors. It slammed into the skip with a clap of thunder, shunting it forward. The truck's windscreen disintegrated into a million cubes of glass.

  Without a seatbelt on, Daniel was hurled through it. He flew like a superhero, but his large frame wasn't airborne for long. He flopped into the skip, sinking under a surface of mannequin limbs and curly wigs. Swimming back to the top, Daniel clambered to the side of the skip and hung on.

  The warehouse was a mass of stumbling bodies. Some were injured from his entrance. Some were carrying injuries that were days old. A heavy set girl with a broken nose and bandaged foot wrestled with a one-armed man.

  It was Crash, the Sheriff's son and the leader of the Motorheads. Daniel climbed from the skip and shook broken glass from his clothes.

  "I knew you'd come to save me."

  Daniel turned to see his mother, his mouth falling open.

  "What the hell are you doing here?" he asked.

  Liz was developing a habit of turning up in places Daniel didn't expect.

  "We have to get these kids out of here," Liz said, pointing to the girl with the bandaged foot. "Do what you came here to do and stop that fight."

  As she spoke, a boy in a sheepskin coat jumped on her back. He was thin and ineffectual. He wore a purple bruise on his jaw. Liz waved him around her shoulders like a cape, slapping him against the skip.

  The teenagers stared at the sunlight pouring through the hole in the warehouse doors. They blinked, raising their hands to protect their eyes and took ragged steps to freedom.

  The exodus drew Crash's attention.

  "Come back here," he shouted. "You work for me."

  Daniel heard his mother shouting at the blood stained girl swinging fists. "Run, Karin. Get out."

  Karin paid Liz no attention, aiming a right hook into Crash's mouth. He spun three hundred and sixty degrees and fell from view.

  Daniel passed through the two teenagers, careful not to add further injury to their already feeble bodies. They moaned with joy as they grew closer to the outside world, supporting each other in their final steps.

  "Where is he?" Daniel asked.

  Karin sat cross-legged, her eyelids fluttering as she attempted to stay upright. "I think I killed him."

  Crash was nowhere to be seen. No matter how hard Karin had hit him, he seemed to have escaped.

  Daniel rushed to Karin's aid. "Are you okay?"

  She nodded, her chin falling to her chest. "I'm sleepy."

  Daniel didn't need his body reading skills to know that was a lie and he held her gently by the shoulders. "We're going to get you out of here, but you have to tell me – where did Crash go?"

  He looked to the spot where he'd seen Crash fall, expecting him to reappear, as if he'd simply been misplaced.

  Karin licked her lips, preparing to speak.

  Daniel leaned in, bringing his ear close to her mouth, feeling her breath on his neck.

  "I want to go home," she said.

  Hiding his frustration, Daniel lowered Karin to the floor, wishing he had something soft to place under her head. "Stay here."

  He got to his feet, his eyes scanning the warehouse. Daniel caught sight of Crash weaving toward Liz before he disappeared behind the skip.

  Bronson was propped against the smoking truck, the heel of his hands pressed into his temples.

  "I've lost him," Daniel shouted. "He's coming your way."

  Two men in sheepskin coats loomed in front of Bronson. They were bigger than the young boy, who was lying unconscious by the skip. Their coats stretched tightly over broad muscles. In their hands, they carried whips.

  Bronson immediately forgot his pain and dropped into a fighting stance.

  There was no way he'd be able to defend himself in his state, Daniel thought and charged forward, tackling the men to the ground. The wind was knocked out of them and Daniel wasted no time in knocking out their teeth as well.

  "Need a hand," Bronson said and Daniel nodded. Together, they threw the guards into the skip, tossing in the young boy for good measure. Wiping their hands clean, they walked outside to be greeted by the pale, expectant faces of the teenagers. They had lingered in the car park outside. Having gained their freedom, they didn't know what to do with it.

  "We did it," Bronson said.

  Daniel jammed his blood-stained hands into his pockets. "We lost Crash."

  "We dismantled his operation," Bronson said. "He can't come back from this."

  "We still lost him." Daniel paced in tight circles, chastising himself for allowing Crash's escape. Bronson was right, though. It was over for the Motorhead. He'd spent a lot of time building up his trafficking ring, making certain it was never detected by targeting the most vulnerable. Something like that wasn't created overnight and now Daniel knew of Crash's existence, he'd be waiting for the first mention of his name.

  In the meantime, Daniel had a gang of teenagers to take home in his van.

  "God dammit," he shouted.

  "What is it?" Bronson asked.

  Daniel gestured at the space where his van used to be. "Crash has stolen the van."

  As his eyes flitted over the broken tarmac, Daniel saw a fake diamond earring lying in a crack, twinkling through the dirt. Picking it up, Daniel knew it was his mother's. She'd been there when the van was taken and Daniel was certain Crash had taken her, too.

  His stomach flipped. He suddenly remembered the girl in the warehouse and dashed inside.

  But Karin had also disappeared, leaving a diminishing trail of blood in her wake.

  Chapte
r Fifty

  "I can't thank you enough," Sophia said, opening her arms.

  It had been twenty-four hours since the teenagers were freed and with nowhere else to take them, Daniel had brought them to Sophia's drop-in centre. Music played from someone's mobile phone, but no-one was listening. The relief on the teenager's faces was obvious, but their ordeal was etched deep.

  It would take a long time for them to recover, if they ever did, but it had brought them closer together. They had formed a gang of their own, a survivor's cabal intent on protecting themselves from outside influences. Like all gangs before them.

  Sophia was waiting for Daniel to acknowledge her. She wore a flowery dress and a smile, and her patience seemed infinite. He backed away, folding his arms, allowing Bronson to take his place. Daniel watched them hug, running a finger around his collar when it continued too long, glancing to his feet when they kissed.

  "I'm sorry to hear about your mam," Sophia said to Daniel as she disengaged from Bronson's wandering hands.

  Daniel had sent out feelers for information on his mother's whereabouts, but to no avail. Crash was an expert at hiding and it made Daniel shiver to think Liz might be his final abduction. She had the habit of turning up in unexpected places. He had hoped this centre might be one of them.

  "She'll come back," Daniel said, thinking about the post arriving tomorrow and what he might receive. "What about the girl? Karin?"

  Sophia took Bronson's hand and squeezed. "We haven't heard anything. Her mother is dead, or so she claimed and the father drifts in and out of her life. Karin never spoke about him."

  "She was a fighter." Daniel examined his scarred knuckles and remembered why they were there. Each indentation, each white line told a story. He imagined Karin having similar contusions, though after her ordeal, those scars might run deeper.

  "She wandered off," Bronson said.

  "We'll find her," Daniel said, slipping his hands into his pockets.

  Bronson cleared his throat. "She was in a bad way. She couldn't have gone far."