by Nolon King
Jasper slid into a crowd, lowering his gun, trying not to stand out.
Bodies against him, crying, shouting.
He glanced to his right and down at a young girl who sobbed as she tried to press past the wall of people. Mascara ran down her face as she tried to escape.
A fat man shoved her down, trying to pass her. The crowd behind him followed, trampling the girl. Jasper stopped and threw himself against the tide of people. A man in a suit yelled at him, throwing a punch.
Jasper tossed him aside, into another man, then turned around to find the girl on the ground, face down, wailing and covering her head. Bruises and scrapes marred her young flesh.
Jasper used the rifle’s sling to throw it over his shoulder while he grabbed the pistol from his waistband, then he reached down and picked her up.
“Hold tight.” He hugged the girl close to his chest as he pushed toward the door in a crouching jog. Someone yelled behind him and fired a shot. It missed.
Jasper spun around, balancing the girl, praying he wasn’t going to use her as a shield, then raised his pistol and fired, hitting the man once in the chest, then again in the head.
The second shot dropped him.
Jasper turned and continued with his awkward jog, clutching the girl, heading into the stream of people, shoving his way past the adults, making way for the children.
Most of the people were running right into the massive lobby and out into the daylight.
He considered racing out with them, but the gunmen would be waiting, and flight wouldn’t bring him any closer to Madam.
Jasper spotted two women coming out a door. Above it, a sign indicated stairs.
He ran with the girl, eager to get her somewhere safe before resuming his search.
Just inside the stairwell, Jasper finally had a chance to catch his breath.
“What’s your name?” he asked the young girl.
“Rosita.”
“Rosita. I’m Jasper. You’re okay now. I need to put you down. Okay?”
“No.” She stared at him with big, helpless eyes. “Dangerous.”
He sighed and looked up the stairs. Now that Jasper was standing still, his adrenaline was petering out, and he was beginning to feel every bruise that had been inflicted on him.
And climbing the stairs would be a bitch if he had to carry a kid.
But with all hell breaking loose, he had no idea how long he had before more guards came upon him, and he needed a safe place for Rosita before he finished his search for Madam Pandora.
Chapter 43 - Paul Dodd
Paul paced the living room, savoring the moments before his guests awoke.
He was in his new home, a gift from Madam Pandora. A single-story house fifteen minutes from Paraíso, a gated parcel on the outskirts of El Sol Constante, in a wooded area owned by Madam Pandora, and thus private for at least a few acres.
The house was nice, with all modern electronics and appliances, even though the furniture itself looked a decade or so behind the times. It had three bedrooms, a large kitchen, and two baths. The highlight was the basement — a soundproof set which had been used for a number of pornographic films, many illegal, Paul inferred from both what Madam had said and what Daniel told him on the ride over.
Paul had declined having Daniel stay with him. He needed privacy to truly reap the benefits of living here. Daniel arranged to stop by daily, to check and see if Paul needed provisions, until he was ready to go into town himself.
Paul glanced at the television, tuned to the basement’s closed-circuit cameras.
He smiled at the sight of Mallory and Jessi, each of them cuffed to twin beds side-by-side.
They were still passed out from the drugs, which gave him more time to work up his appetite.
He’d had fun with the little girl at the hotel, but in the end, she lacked Jessi’s innocence, even though she was only a few months shy of eleven.
He had a history with Jessi. Same for Mallory. And he couldn’t wait to resume their relationship. There was something about the cop that both drove him crazy with rage, and … turned him on.
He wasn’t attracted to many women.
But Mallory was different.
Was it because he’d never fucked a mother and daughter? Perhaps there was some of that. But there was something else, too. A connection to Ashley. The more he looked at Mallory, the more Paul flashed back to his time with her daughter.
No, she hadn’t been his favorite at the time, but he’d thought about her often after she was gone. He’d watched videos of her, and of them together, while spilling his seed. There was something about her that never ever bored him.
Most girls, he tired of seeing after a while. Their special thing faded after repeated viewings. This was true of both pornography and recordings of those girls he’d been with in real life.
But Jessi and Mallory stirred something within him. He was aroused just looking at the monitor, imagining what was going to happen. Picturing the both of them under his thumb, begging for their lives as he humiliated them, as he fucked their brains out, over and over and over.
Paul started touching himself as he moved closer to the monitor.
“Wake up, you little cunts. Daddy’s waiting.”
Chapter 44 - Jasper Parish
Jasper was carrying Rosita against his chest as he went door to door knocking, “Security. Open up.”
He held the pistol at the ready, but either the rooms were all empty or people were looking out their peepholes and deciding not to open up.
He knocked on a fifth door, this time covering the hole with the back of his hand. “Security, open up!”
“What is it?” asked a man with a British accent.
“We’ve got a bomb threat. We need to evacuate everybody. It’s a level five situation.” A bullshit designation might make this more believable.
The door opened to a thin pale man. He looked like a retired accountant or maybe a banker, wearing a silk robe and nothing underneath.
“What’s going on?” he asked as Jasper pressed his way inside and closed the door behind him.
A young woman was lying on her stomach, facing the opposite wall. She was either short or underage. Her arms were cuffed to the headboard. Ankles too, legs splayed. Bright red lashes and dark welts covered her legs, back, and ass. A whip and paddle lay on the edge of the bed, along with lubricants and toys.
Jasper never understood the thrill of bondage, either delivering or receiving pain. Wasn’t there enough agony in the world without bringing it into your sex life? It wasn’t illegal, so long as these two were consenting adults. But even if the girl on the bed was an adult, he wasn’t sure if she could consent — especially if she was a slave.
“Are you okay, ma’am?” Jasper called out.
The man, indignant, shouted, “What the hell is going on here? I’m going to need to see some identification.”
The girl turned her head toward Jasper. She was far too young for consent.
“Close your eyes, sweetie,” Jasper said to Rosita.
She closed her eyes.
Jasper shot the man in the head.
The girl on the bed screamed. Rosita flinched, but kept her eyes closed.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Jasper promised the girl on the bed.
He set Rosita down on a love seat and after turning it away from the man’s dead body, went over to the girl who was twitching and trying to break free of her restraints, practically hyperventilating, eyes wide. She was pulling so hard at the cuffs that Jasper was afraid she might hurt herself.
“I’m not gonna hurt you.” Jasper put set the rifle and his pistol on the ground and raised his hands.
Rosita said something in Spanish and the girl relaxed.
He found the keys to the cuffs and unlocked them.
She sat up, covering herself with the sheet, staring at Jasper and then at Rosita. The girl looked maybe thirteen.
“Are you okay?” Jasper asked.
; Rosita translated.
The girl nodded.
“Okay, you all stay here. I need to go find someone.”
“No!” Rosita shouted, getting off the chair and coming over to him. “Don’t go. Not safe.”
“I’ll be okay,” Jasper said.
“No. Not safe for us. Please, take us with you.”
Jasper stared at the girls and felt utterly helpless. He didn’t have time to rescue them or the other people held here against their will. He was only one man, and Madam Pandora had an army.
He would be lucky to find Jessi and Mallory. Stopping to save others might blow his mission to hell — if it wasn’t already ruined by that fucker, Anders Martin.
Jordyn was suddenly beside him. “You can’t just leave them here.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Jasper sighed. “Bring them with me?”
“I dunno.”
“Well, neither do I! I need to find them.”
Time was running out, the walls were closing in.
Rosita asked, “Who are you looking for?”
“Two of my friends were taken here. A blonde girl, Jessi. And an American woman named Mallory. You haven’t seen them, have you?”
Both girls shook their heads.
“I know someone who might be able to help you,” Rosita said.
“Who?”
Chapter 45 - Jasper Parish
Jasper and Rosita waited as the older girl, Gloria, went to find Rosita’s sister.
If anyone knew where to find Jasper’s friends, she would. Rosita’s sister helped Madam directly. Jasper wasn’t sure he could trust her, but at this point, anyone who could lead him to Pandora was a resource, whether they helped him willingly or by force.
After about fifteen minutes, Jasper was afraid that Gloria had second thoughts and went to tell security about the American who’d come into the room and shot the guest. He imagined squads charging up the stairs in formation, armed to the teeth, throwing gas and storming the place.
He grabbed the AR-15 and told Rosita to back away from the door, to stay in the bathroom.
After what felt like an eternity, there came a knock at the door.
Jasper approached slowly, stepping softly, rifle in hand and ready to fire.
His heart raced as he moved toward the peephole then saw Maria and another young woman outside.
He opened the door.
The other girl, in her late teens, marched in without any regard for Jasper’s gun, or the body on the ground. “Where’s my sister?”
Jasper pointed toward the bathroom.
Rosita ran out and jumped into her sister’s arms, talking a hundred words a second in Spanish, pointing to Jasper as she spoke. The young woman put Rosita down and offered a hand to Jasper.
“My name is Lucia. My sister said you saved her from being trampled, even though guards were shooting at you?”
Jasper nodded. “She said you’d know where my friends are.”
“The blonde girl, Jessi, and the woman?”
Jasper felt a swell of relief, his heart about to burst from his chest. “You have seen them?”
“Yes. But they’re not here now.”
“What?” His elation fell to fear in an instant. Were they dead? To come all this way to have them already be dead, Jasper wasn’t sure he could take it.
“That man took them to a house nearby. The bad house.”
“What man? What house?”
“Another American. Bald. Scary. I think his name was Paul?”
“Yes, that’s him! What about the house?”
“It’s where Madam would send girls, and sometimes boys, to make movies with wicked men.”
Jasper felt that sickening kick in his gut. This place was a wretched hell for these kids. How long had it been going on and how many had suffered? How many were dead, or worse, still alive and wishing they weren’t?
Jasper wanted to ask Lucia why she and Rosita were here. Why didn’t they just leave? But now wasn’t the time. Besides, he could imagine all too easily how they wound up here. Plenty of terrible avenues led girls to places like this, and they all existed because of two things — the sickness of hideous men and the greed of those who would exploit their children, families, and communities to feed their sick desires. As for why they hadn’t left, that reason was always the same. Fear.
“Do you know where this place is?”
Lucia nodded.
“Can you bring me there?”
For the first time, terror crept into her face.
Rosita grabbed her sister’s arm. “He can help us escape!”
Lucia looked him up and down, looking doubtful. “You look pretty hurt.”
“I’m fine,” Jasper said.
Lucia turned to Rosita. “Where would we even go? Our family sold our mother to Madam.”
“I’ll find somewhere for you.,” Jasper promised. “For all of you.”
Lucia eyed him with suspicion. She looked like someone who had been kicked every time that she’d taken a risk, learning it was better to suffer under a monster you knew than one you didn’t.
“Please,” Rosita cried, grabbing Lucia’s arm. “We can’t stay here.”
Gloria said something in Spanish, and Lucia nodded. “If I get you to the garage, can you drive?”
Jasper nodded.
“Okay. We’ll go. If you promise to help us.”
“I swear on my life.”
Chapter 46 - Mallory Black
Mal woke to the sensation of something pressing hard against her skin.
She opened her eyes, still fuzzy, and saw Dodd fastening a strap on her leg. She was in what appeared to be a wedding dress, upright, limbs outstretched and bound in several places on a giant black platform.
No, not a platform, a wheel. A big wooden spinning wheel.
What the hell is this?
“Ah, you’re awake. Shhh … you don’t want to wake poor Jessi.”
Mal looked around and finally found her, lying on a bed, wearing a similar dress.
“You like the outfits? That’s the problem with today’s culture. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer clothes that leave something to the imagination. That make you imagine.”
“You sick fuck.” Mal spit at him.
He stepped back, wiping the spit from his face, then licked it.
“I’d be careful if I were you, Mallory. Your behavior can go a long way into determining the tone of these next few days.”
Mal glared at Paul as he resumed tightening the strap at her ankle.
“Ah, I think that should just about to do it.”
He reached behind the wheel and clicked something. “You might want to hold on to those bars.” Then he tapped one of the two metal handles near her hands.
She gripped them.
He spun her around, slowly, her stomach going into free fall, her head already swimming.
“Please. I get motion sick easily. I don’t want to puke.”
He stopped her, upside down, then looked down at Mal, smiling.
“Ah, I like this wheel a lot. I wonder why I never thought to get one for my old place. You know who would’ve loved this … Ashley.”
“Don’t you say her name,” Mal growled.
“What’s that?” Paul smiled like a deranged lunatic, still looking down at her. She’d never seen him this manic, or so downright scary. He was enjoying every moment, and God only knew what he had in store for them.
Mal flashed back to that night when he had taken her and Jessi to her house, then brought them to Ashley’s room, planning to rape Jessi right in front of her. She glanced over at the girl and thought, Please, God, don’t wake up.
“Put me back right. I’m really going to puke.”
“Fine,” Paul said, spinning her fast, then stopping the wheel with a sudden grip that forced her stomach into another somersault.
It spasmed, along with her throat, but she didn’t throw up.
Paul got in her face, still smiling. “God, I’ve mi
ssed you.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Well, I wanted to be friends. That’s what I wanted. For you to visit me in jail and keep me company. But noooo, you had to be a cunt about it.”
“You raped and killed my daughter! What did you expect, for us to be buddies? Tell me you really aren’t that deluded, Paul.”
Using his name softened his crazed glare, just a bit. She made a mental note. It could come in handy. Everybody had a lever. If Mal played this smart, she might be able to get him to free her. But she would have to resist the urge to spit on him or curse him out again.
“You don’t get it, do you? I wanted to share Ashley’s final moments with you. I thought you’d want to know how her last days went.”
“I know how they went.”
“No, no you don’t. Not really.”
He seemed almost earnest.
She played along. “Okay, tell me.”
“No. I don’t think I want to now.”
Mal sighed. Was he really going to play this game? It was all she could do not to call him a whiney moody bitch to his face. “Please. Tell me.”
“No. You lost that chance when you sent that message.”
“What message?”
“That Nazi fuck who raped me in the shower and nearly killed me. That message!”
“You think I had someone rape you?”
“You threatened me, Mal. Of course I think you did that. You wanted me to feel what Ashley felt. But here’s the thing, I wasn’t nearly as vicious as that fucking Nazi was! I was gentle, caring. And when your daughter died, I made it quick and painless.”
Mal tried not to let his words slice into her. “I didn’t send anyone to hurt you, Paul. As much as I hate you, I would never have someone brutalize you the way you did my daughter. Never.”
Paul shook his head. “I told you, I was kind and gentle. I know you’re going to find this hard to believe, but your little princess liked what I did to her.”
