Theirs to Ransom

by Stasia Black

  “That’s exactly why no one knows about this place,” Jagger said with a tight jaw. “They aren’t regular brothel girls. Bill just takes them out every so often to get enough money for supplies. Two months a year at most.”

  Sophia gasped. Did he think that made it better?

  Sophia got up from the table and took several steps away from Jagger.

  He stared at her darkly. “Sophia, get back here.”

  She just shook her head, though. This place, these men, God, even Toby, who she was officially married to, if you could call that sham affair on the steps of the courtyard a wedding—it was suddenly too much.

  “Sophia,” Jagger said again, his voice heavy with warning.

  But that only made it worse. Did he think she was one of his girls like these girls were Bill’s? Would he decide to sell her if he ever got down on his luck and needed a few bucks?

  Her mother’s screams echoed in her ears.

  She turned and fled.

  “Whoa there, filly, where you think you’re going?”

  Toby caught her, jeering. “Having all these girls around have got me thinking it’s time for me to remind you of your wifely duties.”

  She screeched, fighting to get away from him.

  “Sophia!” Finn’s voice sounded very far away.

  But the next second, Toby was yanked off her and thrown to the ground.

  Mario stood in front of her, his chest heaving. He didn’t say anything, but his big hands came to her face, eyes searching hers.

  She nodded shakily. “Thank you, thank you.”

  She realized their error the next second, though, when something solid smacked into the side of Mario’s head and the huge man crumpled to the ground.

  Sophia screamed and jumped, backing away even more when she saw Toby wielding a long steel pipe.

  “You bastard, what did you do to my brother?”

  Leo had been talking to a group back in the center of the warehouse but he came running when he saw his brother go down.

  Suddenly the lights overhead in the warehouse started flashing and everyone who’d been merely observing before jumped up and started running.

  “Stations!” Bill roared.

  Sophia looked around in utter confusion. What the hell was happening?

  Jagger had jumped up from the table and ran to intercept Leo who’d still been headed for Toby. “It’s not the time for this.”

  Sophia could barely hear him above the rest of the mayhem but Finn was soon at her side, too. Toby’s men had finally stopped restraining him and she grabbed Finn’s hand.

  Leo fought against Jagger’s hold at first but Jagger shoved him in the chest. “Look around! Do you know what this means?” He waved at the lights and the general chaos around us. “It means people have been sighted coming into town.” He looked up at the flashing lights, apparently making out some pattern because the next thing he said was, “From the Texas side of the border.”

  Leo finally paused, looking up. “Shit.” He ran a hand through his hair, then looked down at his brother. He pointed a finger at Toby. “I’m watching you, you little shit.”

  Then he jerked out of Jagger’s hold, hands up. “I’m cool, I’m cool. So what the fuck do we do?”

  “Nothing, unless Bill asks,” Jagger said. “They have a protocol. They haven’t stayed hidden out here for eight years because they’re stupid.”

  But just then, they heard swearing come over a crackling walkie talkie. “Shit, Dad, they’ve seen the horses outside. They’re headed your way.”

  “Fuck!” Bill slammed the table and looked Jagger’s way. “Knew I shoulda brought those beasts in right off.” Then he shook his head and pressed the button on the walkie. “How many?”

  “Twenty-five. Trucks and motorcycles.”

  Bill swore again. “You boys don’t do anything. Stay hidden until they get here. Then we’ll attack from both sides. They know we’re here. We can’t let a single man leave.”

  “Understood. No survivors.”

  “Over and out.”

  No survivors? They intended to kill every single one of the men coming to attack? Or maybe those men out there weren’t even thinking in terms of ‘attack’? Maybe they’d just seen what appeared to be a ghost town and had approached thinking that maybe they’d find a water source.

  And now they were walking into an ambush.

  Sophia didn’t have long to stand on the moral high ground, though. Everything was happening too quickly.

  Bill suddenly looked Jagger’s way. “We could use every able-bodied man who knows how to fire a weapon. If they get through that warehouse door, it isn’t just me and mine who’ll be at risk.”

  Jagger nodded and started snapping orders of his own. “Finn, Leo,” then he looked at Toby’s two guys. “And you two and Toby. Go with Bill’s son, Clive. He’ll get you weapons.”

  Finn looked unsure, probably about leaving her, but Sophia let go of his hand. “Go. There’s no point to any of it if we don’t survive the day.”

  He pressed his forehead to hers for a long moment and then he ran in the direction Jagger had pointed.

  Leo ignored Jagger and dropped to his haunches to see to his brother.

  Jagger sighed and looked to Sophia. “Sophia, go with the women.” He pointed to where one of Bill’s men was herding them in the center of the warehouse behind the metallic partitions. “Stay safe.”

  Sophia was about to argue. After all, Dad had taught her to shoot as well as any other boy in all of Jacob’s Well but when Jagger’s eyebrows furrowed and he asked it again, this time with a plaintive, “Please, Sophia. I need to know you’re safe or I won’t be able to concentrate. Neither will Finn,” she relented and nodded.

  Sophia scurried towards the center of the warehouse right as gunfire broke out. She screamed and dropped to the ground before realizing it was outside the warehouse, not inside yet. Still, she crawled the last little bit around the partitions to join the other four women. They were all huddled against an inner wall, clutching one another.

  The eldest woman, Meredith, who’d been serving dinner looked over at Sophia and hissed, “Keep your mouth shut, no matter what happens. If they manage to get in and find out there are women here, they’ll come for us first thing.” She shuddered, then glared Sophia down. “We’ve got a good thing here, so don’t make a goddamned peep.”

  So Sophia clapped her hand over her mouth to keep her shriek silent when, the next moment, all the lights of the warehouse went out and suddenly everything went pitch black.

  It was likely just a tactical move. If the warehouse dwellers were familiar with the layout of their home, or maybe even had some night vision goggles, then they’d have the advantage if intruders did get in.

  As soon as she’d thought it, brief spurts of gunfire broke out. Inside the warehouse this time. Every noise was magnified by the echo chamber of the concrete flooring and steel walls. Instead of her mouth, Sophia was soon covering her ears as she hunched into a ball and tried to make herself as small as possible.

  It was official.

  She hated the outside world. This was the second time in as many weeks as she’d been shot at by people who didn’t even know her. People in this world just went around indiscriminately killing one another. She’d thought, she didn’t know, that things had gotten better in the last eight and a half years? There were laws and mobs didn’t go around raping and killing anymore. But God, she hadn’t realized—it was just as savage as ever out here, even if the savagery took different forms than it used to.

  Everything had seemed so black and white only days ago—about who she should marry and what she should do—but now Sophia had no clue what to think. All she knew was that she’d never longed for her girlish Pepto-Bismol pink bedroom back in Jacob’s Well so hard as she did right this minute.

  But you can’t go back there.

  Jacob’s Well was occupied by Travis’s troops.

  There was no going home.

  N
o running back to Daddy and hiding her head in the sand any more. She thought she’d wanted freedom but she was starting to realize she hadn’t known how good she’d had it.

  When a stray bullet pinged against the steel of their partition barrier, one girl began to weep. Her heaving and hiccupping gave her away, no matter how many times Meredith whispered a hushed, “Shhh. Quiet now.”

  Men shouted and cried out along with the gunfire, though, so Sophia doubted anyone heard the girl.

  It didn’t mean Sophia felt any safer. What if the initial count had been wrong and there were more than twenty-five men? Or they had more powerful weapons?

  And Finn. God, Finn. She should never have let him leave her side. She should have demanded he stay with her, that he—

  “There you are.”

  Sophia barely stopped herself from screeching when a light flashed in the darkness, revealing Toby’s face.

  He was holding a lighter.

  “You fool,” the woman hissed, but he’d extinguished the light before she’d even finished chastising him.

  What was he doing here? Had Jagger ordered him to come and keep watch over them? At least he hadn’t turned on the light until he was around the corner of the partition. No one else should have been able to see it.

  “Hey,” Sophia hissed when she felt Toby’s hand feeling around blindly in the darkness. “That’s my leg.”

  Instead of pulling his hand back, though, he just reached higher, grabbing her thigh in a crushing grip.

  “I know. If this is what it takes for me to be able to assert my husbandly rights without your fuckin’ bodyguards around, so be it.”

  Sophia felt her eyes fly wide open. Uselessly. It was pitch black. But she reared up her leg that was still free of him and kicked downwards as hard as she could, scrambling backwards when she heard Toby’s oof of pain.

  The next second, though, he was back and more furious than ever. He landed on top of her.

  “No!” she screeched. “Get off of m—”

  But her words were cut off by a hand over her mouth.

  A small, feminine hand.

  “Are you insane?” Meredith hissed. “Quiet or you’ll get us all killed.”

  Toby laughed and ripped the bodice of Sophia’s sundress down the middle. Sophia’s scream was muffled by Meredith’s hand and Toby’s weight kept her immobile no matter how hard she fought to get him off.

  No! This couldn’t be happening. She tried using the self-defense moves she’d practiced so often in her room, but she couldn’t get her elbows up or buck him off. In all those scenarios, she’d been standing, not already on the ground.

  Finn! she tried to call. Mario!

  But they couldn’t hear her. Even if Meredith hadn’t been covering her mouth, the gunfire was only getting louder and more rapid every second.

  And Toby was trying to rape her right in the middle of it all.

  He shoved her legs open and thrust himself against her. Oh God, no. She felt him hard through his slacks.

  Why the hell had she worn this fucking sundress? If she’d been in jeans he would have at least had a little bit more of a fight but with the stupid sundress all he had to do was flip it up and unzip himself. Her underwear were no barrier at all.

  Oh God, oh God, oh God. Sophia felt herself start to hyperventilate. Because this wasn’t a nightmare, she couldn’t even pretend. The sweaty man on top of her was real and she couldn’t twist out from underneath him and now he was unbuckling his belt and any second he’d— he’d—

  Oh God, he was pulling it out. He was pulling it out.

  She felt it against her leg.

  No, he would not put that fucking thing inside her. He wouldn’t.

  She bucked more furiously than ever, putting her feet against the concrete and using every ounce of leverage she could manage.

  Toby punched her.

  Once in the face and again in the gut.

  She coughed, dazed by the pain, all the while her mind was screaming at her, no, don’t stop fighting, don’t stop—

  Because he was reaching down again. Shoving aside her underwear and positioning himself. About to—

  “Sophia!”

  Sophia looked dazedly in the direction of the shout. She still couldn’t see anything and her mind felt fuzzy. But she still had the brainpower to bite Meredith’s fingers and then shout, “Help!” when the woman jerked her hand back.

  “Sophia!” came the shout again, closer now.

  There was the briefest flash of light, and then Toby was hauled off of her.

  “Jagger, wait. She’s nothing. You know we’re just going to—” Toby started to say but his words were cut off by a sickly gurgle.

  Sophia’s hand flew to her mouth as she scrambled backwards even as she felt a mist of wetness coat her face.

  Oh God, did he just—?

  “Sophia. Are you okay?”

  Sophia blinked and wiped at her face. Had Jagger really just— Had he killed Toby?

  Light flashed again, the spark of a flint, just enough to see Jagger crouched above Toby’s lifeless body, his throat slit. Sophia turned away and hugged the wall.

  The next moment, though, strong arms surrounded her. She fought at first but Jagger just kept holding her tight.

  “Shhh, you’re okay now,” he whispered into her ear, holding her head tight to his chest. “He’ll never touch you.”

  When he only held her and didn’t try to touch her in any other way, Sophia finally melted, burying her face against him.

  In that moment, she just wanted him to make it all go away. Go away, go away, go away, just like daddy always used to.

  But it wasn’t just Toby she saw now when she closed her eyes.

  No matter what you do, you do not come out of the closet. Promise. Promise mommy you won’t move!

  And she hadn’t moved.

  Not even when her mother began screaming downstairs as rioters broke into their house.

  When man after man violated her mother, Sophia did nothing. She didn’t move out of the upstairs closet.

  She did nothing.

  She’d been as bad as Meredith. She let them do as they would to her mother just so that she could save herself.

  Fat tears slid out of her eyes, soaking Jagger’s shirt.

  Her entire life was one long story of selfishness after selfishness. Time and time again, she’d let others sacrifice themselves for her.

  Her mother. Her father. How many times had she heard that her father had created Jacob’s Well just for her?

  And when Dad had come and rescued her that day after the men finally left and she’d continued to hide in the closet—too scared to even go down and check on her mother, she was such a coward—all she’d been able to feel was happiness that she herself was still alive. Her mother was dead but the relief at being saved was so overwhelming, Sophia hadn’t been able to stop crying. She’d never known if they were tears of joy or grief.

  And what kind of person did that make her? She’d been so ashamed. So horribly ashamed. So she’d focused on being the best daughter anyone could ask for. She’d give back to the community and do enough good to outweigh the bad.

  But it was never enough, was it?

  Even trying to finally do something selfless, to come out here and help raise an army was back-firing horrifically. What would Dad say when he found out what happened to her if she died here today? That she’d been lost in a gunfight in New Mexico?

  Although, as she frowned and hiccupped, the noise of gunfire was quieting. She pulled back from Jagger’s chest and swiped at her face with her forearm.

  One last volley of gunfire made her jerk back against Jagger and his arms tightened around her again.

  Afterwards, though, it was silent. Eerily silent for long moments that turned into minutes. Finally a sharp whistle broke the quiet. Several other whistles of varying lengths and tones responded.

  And then the warehouse was flooded once again with light.

  Sophia wi
nced and covered her eyes.

  “It’s safe,” one of the other girls breathed out in relief.

  “How do you know?” Sophia asked, voice wobbling. She still hid her face in Jagger’s chest, like if she just stayed there long enough, she could pretend Toby wasn’t there, dead, on the other side of him.

  Because that was what she was best at, right? Pretending the bad things weren’t there.

  “The whistles. They’re signals. They said it’s all clear.”

  “All the same,” Jagger said. “I think we’ll stay right where we are for a while until it’s confirmed.”

  Meredith and the others nodded.

  But after a while, two sandy-haired men came around the barricade looking for the women and confirming it was safe to come out. They stared down at Toby’s corpse in surprise.

  “He got caught in the crossfire,” Jagger said.

  The men nodded even though anyone with a pair of eyes could follow the trail of blood from Toby’s body over to where Sophia and Jagger were huddled in the corner against the metal partition.

  At least Jagger had resheathed his knife at his belt, but still, it was obvious what had happened.

  The men just nodded, though, apparently uninterested in any affairs beyond their own. “It’s all clear.” They gestured for the other women to come out, which they did, obediently.

  “Have you seen our friends?” Sophia asked, hiding behind Jagger, but she had to know. God, were Finn and the others okay? Please let Finn be okay. Finn had to be okay. And Leo and Mario. “The ones who came with us?”

  “Not sure. They’re just starting to clean up and bring guys into the infirmary.”

  Jagger got to his feet and helped Sophia up. She held the tatters of her dress together. She felt the shame thick. Everyone would see. Everyone would know. But she had to find out if Finn was okay, if—

  The next second, though, Jagger had pulled his T-shirt off and draped it over her head.

  She looked up at him, surprised and grateful and— and she didn’t even know what else. So much was happening so fast. His eyes caught hers though, and silently, he helped her put her arms through the sleeves of the shirt.

  “We caught one of the sons of bitches,” the taller of the two men said to Jagger conversationally, ignorant of whatever moment they were having. “He’s telling quite a story. Says he was promised a bunch of land if he joined up with Travis’s fighters near San Antonio. But then the army switched sides when some badass bitch came in and took the city over and the Army’s loyalty with it.”