Marcus nodded. “Most people like having a group to rise up against and a good reason to do it. They probably won’t question much beyond that.”
“No, I don’t think they will.”
“They’ll separate us,” he said, as though he were going through the next steps in his mind. “We need to have the same story, about where you came from and how we met.”
The middle, pointed, portion of the huge building’s roof collapsed in on itself, spreading flames in a hurry, and billowing smoke in every direction.
A pit formed in my stomach. Since I set out on this journey, I never imaged Marcus and I would go down with the Hunters. And yet, here we stood.
“We can be honest with how we met. That’ll help us to appear trustworthy, since I’m sure they have footage and will quickly gather paperwork on the times I brought skips into your Everett police station,” I said. “And as far as where I came from, we can tell them I’m part of their organization, that they’ve been doing experiments on women. This will further incriminate them.”
Marcus release my hand and turned to me. He cupped my face in his large hands and gazed into my eyes. “No, I won’t say that.”
“Why?” I implored. “You don’t want to dig a deeper hole for the Hunters?”
His brow creased. “I refuse to bury you in that hole. I’m going to tell them that you contacted me, as a bounty hunter who stumbled across evidence to a huge case involving members from higher up in the police department, when you captured Samuel Woodry. I went snooping for proof before I brought it to their attention.”
“Then don’t tell them you’re a Hunter,” I pleaded. “Tell them you infiltrated their ranks or something.”
Marcus’s eyes darkened. “I can’t, Faline. When they bring in living Hunters for questioning, it’s bound to come out.” His gaze softened, probably due to the pleading in my own eyes. “I won’t offer that information off the bat. I’ll wait.”
That was all I could ask of him. “All right.”
Huge streams of water sprayed over the top of the building from the front. The firefighters had begun their work. Police ran around both sides of the house, trampling the broken fence. One look at the bodies and they drew weapons and pointed them at us. “Get down!” they shouted. “Get down, and put your hands above your heads!”
In the middle of the courtyard, beside the maple tree, and in the midst of bloodied bodies, Marcus and I slowly lowered to the ground, on our knees. We placed our hands behind our heads, and waited. Police zig-zagged through dead bodies and burning debris toward us. Four of them cuffed us before jerking us to standing.
“You one of the women from the road?” an officer asked before escorting me toward the car where the other officer had Marcus standing beside it, patting him down. “One of the kidnapped?”
“No, I’m a bounty hunter,” I answered. “The man you arrested beside me is a police officer with the Everett, Washington police department. We were following leads to a case that started in Seattle, Washington. We are not criminals.”
The officer grunted. “Really? You sure you weren’t in the middle of killing your captors when we got here?”
I shook my head.
“Then why were there dead bodies all around you and blood on your hands?”
Ailani jetted from the burning building, out the back door and through the courtyard. I stared as she ran past us, past the many police officers, without being noticed. She slowed enough to offer me a wink and a thumbs up.
“You have the right to remain silent,” the lean, male cop said as he pushed me away from the tree and to the right side of the house, walking me toward the squad cars in the large, round driveway at the front of the building. As he finished listing my rights, I heard the larger male cop saying the same to Marcus, directly in front of us.
I snuck a look to Ailani out of the corner of my eye. She appeared as a flame, flickering along the ground, jumping from one spot to the next. I almost laughed to myself. So that’s how she got past the cops without being noticed. Marcus hadn’t even seen her.
“Do you see her?” I whispered to Marcus who stood beside me.
“Who?” he asked, looking around.
A cop opened the back door to a squad car, and they escorted me into the backseat, lowering my head and shutting the door. I watched as another set of cops escorted Marcus into a separate car. Blue and red lights spun atop vehicles. Sirens blared. Water spilled and wet the ground. Smoke and steam filled the air, the heat cooking the bodies, leaving a stench of burning flesh in my nose. The two cops crawled into the front seats and clicked their seatbelts. We roared down the driveway, hurtling to the station.
As a bounty hunter, I knew what would come next. I literally had the blood of others on my hands. I knew they’d silently drive me to the local police station, process me, and throw me in a private room for questioning. I gazed out the window at the trees seemingly speeding by, replaying every possible scenario through my mind.
Shit. They weren’t taking me in as a witness. They’d cuffed me, read me my rights. They’d arrested me. When they processed me, I’d be stripped and looked over by female cops. They’d see my back, my bark. The pit in my stomach grew and I ground my teeth to keep the bile in my stomach from coming up.
It was only a matter of time before they realized I wasn’t human.
The officer in the front passenger seat, the one who’d led me to the car, turned to me. “What case where you referring to back there?”
“A country-wide human trafficking case,” I said, trying to sound professional and confident, but unable to keep the pleading from my voice. “Their base was moved from the Seattle area when their cover, a woman named Clarisse Callixtus was captured. She was eventually released on bail and then went missing. I’d followed her to this complex here in North Carolina. Marcus met me here.”
He tilted his head as though he were in thought, but I could tell by his lack of expression that he doubted my words. “Why weren’t we notified that there was an investigation happening in our backyard?”
I thought to look him and his partner over for hidden dagger necklaces, or revealing tattoos, or some sign they were Hunters. But their sizes alone kept me from believing I was dealing with the enemy.
“Because,” I said, nearly stuttering. So much depended on whether or not they believed me. If they processed me as a suspect, it’d be over. My bark patch had grown too pronounced to miss. “The building we just left, was the operation hub of the human trafficking ring. It’s also the compound to a private group of individuals who’ve infiltrated the government and law enforcement. We had to procure solid evidence before telling anyone. If information leaked before we had the evidence, it would have all fallen apart and more women would have been abducted.”
“Look it up,” the driver told his partner.
The front passenger turned away from me and began punching keys on the laptop attached to the car’s dashboard. He sucked in a breath. “Shit.”
“My name is Faline Frey,” I added as an afterthought. “Check the records. A month ago, I brought in a skip named Samuel Woodry, a serial rapist. He’d been bailed out by the leaders of the human trafficking ring because he’d agreed to work for them, procure their victims. I believe it’s because their organization had grown so much that they were gaining interest from law enforcement and needed someone not linked to their secret association in any way to do their frontline work.”
“She checks out so far,” the passenger cop said, scrolling through uploaded documents.
“How’d you find out about this?” the driver asked me.
“Something Samuel said when I captured him,” I responded. “I dug deeper. And got a tip from Clarisse Callixtus.” Mentioning Clarisse was a gamble, but I couldn’t afford to walk into that police station as a suspect, and I had to think we were nearly there.
Our car turned a corner with a small park on one side and old brick buildings lining the streets on the other. A two-story b
eige brick police station took up a corner, a clock tower positioned at the top. I had to pull out everything I could before we parked along the road at the side of the station.
“Marcus Garcia, the officer your co-workers just arrested, took leave from the force to go undercover in the Washington complex, where this was supposed to have started, where Clarisse was hiding out after she skipped bail. He’d tried to bring her in when he found out she was staying there, but angry buyers, from another country, I’m assuming, attacked the complex and burned it to the ground.”
We pulled into the parking lot.
“Please, look it up. He went to the Oregon complex next, it was right outside of Portland. But he was too late, they’d already caught on that they were being watched and they burned the evidence and moved the women to the building in North Carolina.”
“So then why is their current building on fire?” the driver asked before he pulled the parking break lever into position. He unbuckled his seat belt and turned to look at me. “Do they have pyro enemies following them around the country? That makes no sense.”
Please, Freyja, please, help me.
“The women, your coworkers found women at the end of the driveway, women who’d been kept in the basement of that monastery building,” I said, pulling out everything I had.
He nodded.
“Marcus and I rescued the women. We were caught by a couple members and fought the men off. A few candles were knocked over in the process. The women will attest to us rescuing them and fighting the men.” I doubted the women saw a fight, but I hoped they’d at least heard it as they fled the front yard.
“And what about the dead men outside, surrounding the two of you?” he asked with a disbelieving smirk.
“The leaders of the whole thing were in talks with new buyers when Marcus and I came in,” I said. “We’d meant to simply collect evidence and information to bring to law enforcement, but the buyers were there to take the women, and we couldn’t let that happen. After we released the women, the buyers accused the leaders of setting them up and stealing their money, so a fight broke out in the courtyard.”
“Then why were you and Marcus just standing in the courtyard?” the passenger asked.
“We had evidence for you. And also, I was trying to bring in the skip, Clarisse, but she died. You’ll find her body in the house, I believe.” I knew us being outside and Clarisse being inside the house didn’t fully make sense. But I hoped it was enough to mention the skip and her body’s location. A bounty hunter wouldn’t just let a skip die if they possibly could save them. I didn’t make money on dead bodies. I got paid when I brought them in alive.
“That’s not where her body was found,” the passenger told the driver.
Shit.
The driver turned away from me and opened his door. “Welp, that doesn’t check out. Where’s the other evidence you had for us?” he shut his door and walked around to the back side door where I sat. He opened the door and waited for my answer.
I lowered my head. Ailani never gave me the thumb drive. “I don’t have it,” I said, defeated.
The officer pulled me from the car, gruffly, like he’d treat someone who’d murdered a whole group of people and burned down their building to hide the evidence. Despite the women’s testimony, I had no proof I was there to help rather than to kill. And once they saw the bark on my back they’d peg me as a killer, I knew it.
He led me toward the rear of the building, through a separate entrance from the one the public used, the same type of entrance I’d bring a skip through, or a cop would bring a suspect. “Of course you don’t have proof of your story.” He scoffed. “Why am I not surprised?”
Thirty-Four
The driver led the way as his partner, the other police officer, walked behind me, directing my steps and holding my arm. The Burnsville police department reminded me of a quaint building out of an old movie, a place where the worst crimes committed had more to do with petty theft than human trafficking and mass murder.
“I’m a witness, not a suspect,” I repeated, dreading the physical portion of being processed, when the humans would know for sure I wasn’t one of them. With only moments left to change their minds, my tone grew more stern and less begging. “You should be taking my statement, not processing me to book like a criminal.”
They both ignored me. I couldn’t blame them. How many times had I heard my skips repeating the same crap? Nearly every bail-runner insisted they were innocent and I was mistreating them, nothing implicating them was their fault. Surely these two cops heard the same excuses more than daily.
“Officer Lankle,” the driver said to the cop behind the desk. “I need this suspect, Faline Frey, processed and then in the interrogation room for questioning.”
Officer Lankle, who stood behind the desk, nodded. “Will do, Officer Gains,” she said. She went to work gathering paperwork, intake forms I assumed, and stashed them into a file.
“Meet you at the door,” she said without looking at her coworkers, as though it was just another day, another criminal.
Officer Gains led the way as his partner escorted me through the steel door and back to the processing area. I’d never been past the door back at home at the police stations I’d dropped skips off. I’d gone through enough school to know the law and to keep my nose clean as a bounty hunter, but this part of the process was foreign to me, outside of what I’d seen on TV. And from what my limited experiences taught me, in most everything, TV got it all wrong.
“We’ll need two females to search her,” Officer Gains said as we neared another door down a hallway.
A narrow bench was bolted to the wall opposite the door. Officer Lankle motioned to it as she said, “Yup.” and tossed the file she held onto the wood to go in search of some help.
My huldra sensed the fear bubbling up in me and nudged to take over. I calmed her as much as I could.
As I sat on the hard wooden bench, my back against the white cement wall, I knew this was it. I was surrounded by humans who would soon know I was not one of them, who would soon connect me to the monstrous stories the Hunters circulated about my kind. These humans would figure it out in enough time to label me an evil huldra, killer of men. After all this, after everything I’d done, everything Marcus and so many others had done on our behalf, the Hunters would win. In the end, the Hunters’ history would override truth and plunge folkloric women into hiding, fearing for their lives even more than before. I would be the poster child for bucking the system and used to teach young Wilds to submit to their Hunter protectors. They would say, “After all, look what’ll happen when you release yourself from the Hunters’ protection.”
Another woman followed Officer Lankle down the hall toward me and the two male officers. The women carried latex gloves, ready to begin their search of my body.
I stretched my fingers, willing my huldra to keep silent, willing my vines to stay inside my hands. I refused to use my abilities against these humans. They were only doing their jobs, and I would only prove the Hunters’ lies correct if I lived up to the expectations they’d set out for us.
Funny thing, oppression. Long after the act is over, after the brain has been washed in lies and half-truths, the victim still lives in a bubble of it. Like an earthquake, the affects resonate far and wide, as she fights herself and others to prove her strength, her independence, and her endurance. How long can she oppose the cards stacked against her until her legs give out and she tumbles into the very pit of lies created by her oppressors to trap her?
I ran my fingers along the smooth wooden bench beneath me. No, I would not give up. I would not fold. I would allow life and hardships to sand me down, to smooth out my rough edges, but at my core, I was still me, a Wild Woman, capable of handling anything thrown my way. The Goddess had breathed her life into my ancestors. And I intended to honor her gifts, in whichever way she wished me to.
Officer Lankle unlocked the door across from the bench and directed me to stand and f
ollow the women into the white, nearly empty room. The women snapped latex gloves on. The door shut, leaving the three of us alone.
Officer Lankle removed my handcuffs. “Go ahead and remove your clothing please, all of it,” she said, adjusting her gloves.
“Okay,” I breathed. I wished I’d worn shoes and socks to draw out the process, but my bare and dirty feet gave nothing to uncover. I unbuttoned my jeans and began to push them, hesitantly, down my legs. I spotted my right thigh where my identification tattoo had been and realized I hadn’t seen the spot since Avera healed it. The light, discolored skin looked as though someone had tried to use an editing application to smear my pigment and got a little too zealous.
Before I shimmied my ankles out of my worn, torn jeans, someone knocked on the door. “Bring Ms. Frey out,” Officer Gains requested urgently. “Now.”
I looked to the women for an indication of what to do.
“You heard him,” Officer Lankle said. “Put your clothes back on.
I nearly cried with gratitude. Thank you, Freyja.
My hands shook with frayed nerves and unreleased adrenaline as I buttoned my jeans. Blood. For the first time, I noticed the dried blood cracked along the skin of my fingers and under my nails. Of course I looked guilty of multiple homicides. I peered down to my chest. Blood splatter stained my shirt with spots of reddish-brown.
One of the cops in the room opened the door and motioned for me to go through it. “This way,” Officer Gains directed.
No one placed cuffs back on me or surrounded me to make sure I didn’t run.
“Sorry ’bout that,” Officer Gains started as he slowed to walk beside me, in step with me. “It’s just this way.” He pointed to the right and we turned at the end of one hall into another. We were buzzed through another steel door and found ourselves in a more decorated hallway with paint and trimming and even art hanging on the walls, most depicting the towns near Mt. Mitchell. “You have to admit, you two looked pretty damn guilty.”
Wild Women Collection Page 73
