by Amber Lin
I waited at the window until I heard shots fired downstairs. The men standing outside ran in, and that’s when I tried the window. It wasn’t locked from the outside, so after a few pushes, I managed to get it open. The bigger problem was the bars on the window. That was where the gun came in.
“Aim for the brick,” he’d said, panting through his workout.
I leaned over the window, looking at the large screws that held the bars to the wall. If I blasted the bricks they were in, the whole thing would come off. Hopefully.
I took aim, squinting into the sight. Lining it up. Slowly, slowly, I pulled the trigger. Oh shit, what am I doing? I thought right before the sound of gunfire exploded in my ears.
The shell ricocheted back into my face; the gun pinged directly off metal. I ducked back into the room for a second, but the shouting from downstairs spurred me on. I peeked over the ledge and saw that the metal had bent right out of the wall.
Hah! So much for hitting the brick.
I congratulated myself on my badassery before moving to the next one. Which I missed, entirely. But there wasn’t time, so I shot again and again. As the third one came off, the whole grate tilted on its axis, hanging from the last screw.
I didn’t need to remove that one to get out, so I slung one leg over the window and prayed. I didn’t bother with shoes, and at least the black sheath was easy to move in.
I looked down at the garbage dump. Footsteps sounded outside the door, and I jerked, almost falling headfirst out the window. The door slammed open, and I thought my heart would burst. That didn’t happen, but I did pee myself—just a little.
It was Jenny, white as a sheet. “What’s happening?”
“We’ve got to get out of here,” I said.
“Okay. You jump, and I’ll follow.”
“Right,” I said, not moving.
“Shelly,” she said urgently.
I glanced down and then away. “I might have a small fear of heights.”
She rolled her eyes and then pushed me.
“Wait,” I cried, but it was too late. My leg scraped along the jagged edge of the bars as I fell. I landed sprawled on the lid of the Dumpster. The impact jittered up my whole body, and my teeth chattered with the agony of it. A red gash ran from the outside of my knee to the ankle.
“Move,” Jenny demanded.
With shaky legs, I slid to the side and turned my face, ready to send encouragement. But by the time I called her name, she was already falling, landing in a far more graceful heap. No painful leg gashes for her.
“Well, yeah,” I said. “Because you saw me go first.”
She hopped onto the street beside me. “We have a plan after this?”
Damn, how had she recovered so quickly? And she looked more alert than I had ever seen. I glared at her as I stumbled onto the ground, wincing as the weight of my step shot pain up my shin.
“Come on.” I took her hand, and we ran across the street. Or really, she ran. I hobbled. We crouched behind the Jaguar and peeked over the hood. No one appeared to have seen us. In fact, we couldn’t see anyone at all. Everyone was inside and quiet, which meant they were either dead…or Major was.
I slipped into the driver’s seat, and Jenny took the passenger’s. No keys. I felt around in the pockets of the car. Jenny flipped the visor down, and the keys fell on my head.
“Ouch,” I said, rubbing the spot.
“Let’s go,” she muttered, watching the door of the complex.
“I have to wait for someone.” She gave me a look, and I recoiled from the vitriol of it.
“A man?”
“The man who helped us escape,” I retorted.
Her cool gaze slid to the keys in my hand, then back to me. I got the impression she was measuring me, deciding whether to take them by force. My fingers tightened on the keys as I waited.
The tension released from her in a breath as she had apparently decided to keep me around. “You better hope he comes out soon,” she said, her gaze glued to the door. “If they find us, we are so fucked.”
I let out a breath. “I cannot believe you were faking it all this time.”
She snorted. “As if you don’t.”
“I don’t mean orgasms. I mean pretending to be high and stupid,” I said. “All the freaking time.”
“We all have our masks to bear.”
“You could have been straight with me. What did you think, I would go tell Henri?”
Her look was assessing. “You might have. I couldn’t trust you. I still don’t, but you’re the one with the ticket out of here.”
I touched the gash on my leg, then winced. “They really did a number on you, didn’t they?”
She laughed softly. “You’re one to talk.”
I felt Jenny tense beside me. I looked back to see a man walking out of the building. Major.
“He’s with us,” I said.
Major walked across the street, focused but unhurried. When he reached the car, I climbed between the seats into the back while he got in and drove.
“You got blood on the seats,” he said.
“Yes, I’m fine. Thank you for your concern,” I said sarcastically, collapsing against the back. “How did you know where to find me?”
“Let’s just say I have friends in low places.”
“Well, you do know Shelly,” Jenny said.
“That’s it,” I said. “I was going to actually help you, but since you’re being rude, I’m going to sic Marguerite on you.”
She scoffed. “Another pimp? Please.”
“Much worse. She runs a shelter.”
“A shelter?” Jenny cut in. “I don’t want to go to a shelter. Hell, no. Do I look like a poor battered woman to you?”
Major looked over at her, from her dirty, tangled hair down to her bruised arms. “This is a trick question, right?”
She crossed her arms. “I’m not going.”
He looked back at me. She’s your friend. You talk to her.
“Well, that’s where we’re going, so unless you’re planning on doing the tuck-and-roll out of a moving vehicle, so are you. Besides, you haven’t lived among regular people in years. No way are you surviving on your own.”
“That’s your motivational speech?” he asked me, incredulous.
I waved my hand. “I don’t do positive thinking. That’s what my shelter is for.”
In the rearview mirror, I saw Major raise his eyebrow. “Your shelter?”
I felt heat creep up my neck. “No, not mine. I mean, I just—”
“What, like, you volunteer there or something?” Jenny asked.
“No. Definitely not.”
“Spill,” Major said.
I sighed, resigned to explaining my random, very nonpossessive connection to this place. Really, what did I care about them? Nope, barely at all.
“I was at the clinic to get my birth control pills and monthly testing done. And this lady comes up to me in the waiting room, saying how I was such a beautiful soul and I didn’t have to do this and she could help me live a better life.”
Jenny made a disgusted sound.
“Right? So I get the hell away from her, but then I met Marguerite, who is not sweet. Honestly, she’s kind of a bitch, but that’s why I tolerate her. She guilted me into giving money for the girls to start new lives. Then when they got too big for the house they were using, I bought them a new building. Whatever.”
“You bought them a building,” Jenny repeated.
I shrugged. “By that time, I was with Philip. He’s pretty generous.”
“But a building?” She seemed stunned. “I have two thousand dollars stuffed inside my bra right now, which is all the money I have.”
I winced. Paper cuts had never been my thing. “And that’s why we’re taking you to the shelter.”
She spoke quietly. “I’ve been in hiding for the past five years, hiding inside my own body. No way am I going back to that life.”
I gentled my voice. “The thing
about the shelter is, they aren’t hiding from life. They’re living it. It took me a while to figure that out too.”
She swallowed, looking scared. “Okay. I’ll go.”
“Good. I’ll get you settled in too. It won’t be so bad.”
“Wait a second,” she said. “After convincing me to go to this place, you’re not staying?”
“My orders are very specific,” Major said. “Get you out and keep you safe until Luke can meet up with us.”
“Sorry, I’ve got some things to take care of. Clearing my name and all that.”
“I thought you knew,” he said.
That sounded ominous. “Thought I knew what?”
“The police department. They’ve moved on. Technically, you’re still wanted for questioning in connection with the crimes, but they’ve removed the arrest warrant on you and that other girl. You’re free.”
“Wow.” So Henri came through for me after all.
He continued. “The cops can’t justify spending their time looking for someone when everyone knows you guys aren’t a threat anyway.”
A small sound came from Jenny. She looked outside.
“What is it?” I asked.
“So, don’t lose your shit.”
“Shit.” I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. “What did you do?”
“Nothing. Well, not exactly. I overheard Henri talking. Apparently he’s going to talk to someone right now. Negotiating for your release.”
I turned to Major. “Where exactly did you say Luke was?”
His silence was damning.
“Fuck.”
“There’s no way he’ll actually do it,” Jenny said. “You heard him.”
Yes, I had heard Henri’s plans for me. More than that, I remembered Jenny’s story from earlier. Henri would do anything to get even. It was the reason he was so successful. Desperate to claw his way back to the top, he wouldn’t abandon his brutality now.
“Major, you know where he is.”
“Goddamn it.”
“Take me there. Right now.” I paused. “Please.”
“Luke’s not going to like that,” he muttered.
We drove straight to the Barracks. I spent most of the trip hyperventilating in the backseat while Major gave Jenny a kind of guided tour through Chicago. She had been incredibly sheltered under Henri’s thumb and displayed a childlike excitement at every new landmark. I could tell Major was charmed. Well, Henri hadn’t been an idiot. We might have been pawns, but the girls in his elite were good at what we did—making men want us.
When we got to the Barracks, Major pulled behind a copse of trees. The headlights were off, and we rolled gently over the rocky landscape.
“You guys can go,” I said. “I’ll go in alone.”
“Hell, no,” Jenny said. “If there’s going to be ass-kicking, I want to be a part of it.”
“No. There will be no ass-kicking for you.”
She pouted. “As if you’re a ninja or something.”
“If you must know, I’ve had lessons in shooting a gun. Plus, I’ve been shot. It’s a special club.”
“A gun lesson.” She sounded giddy. She turned to Major. “You mean you can teach me how to use one?”
“Your enthusiasm is disturbing but irrelevant,” I told her. “We can’t do a lesson now.”
“I’m going,” she whispered. “You can’t stop me.”
“Very mature.”
“Look at it this way,” Major murmured. “I’m going, so she’s probably safer with us than alone.”
We got out of the car. Every car door closing made me wince, and I waited for men to come running out. When nothing happened, I let out a breath. We crept along the line of the trees until we reached the fence. It was still cut away where we’d entered before. An odd lapse in security, but I supposed Henri had already evacuated this place for the most part. If he was just coming here for a meeting, he wouldn’t need to establish a perimeter.
Slipping inside, we made it to the first hangar before Major put up his hand. He lifted his gun, signaling for us to stay back while the shadows enveloped him. I heard a low voice and then a brief scuffle. I blinked, my eyes wide, but I couldn’t make him out. Pushing Jenny behind me, I was about to get us the hell out of there when Major reappeared with his arm around another man. I saw the red bandanna first, then noticed the rest of him.
“Rico,” I said with relief, then realized Major was basically choking him. “What the hell?”
Rico threw Major off him and echoed my shock, but with more profanity.
“Was it you?” Major asked. “Don’t fuck with me right now; just tell me I can trust you.”
Rico grew still. “You saved my ass, literally, when I was nine years old. I told you then that I had your back, and that hasn’t changed.”
Major stared at him, measuring, and finally blew out a breath.
“Now,” Rico said. “What in the actual fuck was that?”
“Someone betrayed us,” Major said.
Both men turned to look at me.
“Yes, okay,” I said. “Be a stereotype and blame the hooker.”
Rico frowned. “It doesn’t make sense that it would be her or Luke, not with their asses on the line. And if it wasn’t you or me, then…”
“It was Jeff,” I said. “He must have put something in my water.”
Rico shook his head in frustration. “He said you’d been shot, but we couldn’t find your…” The word body hung in the air. “Luke was frantic. He almost got killed because he refused to leave without finding you first. We had to drag him out of there.”
He’d thought I was dead? “Where is he?”
“I heard some of the guys talking,” Rico said. “The meeting is happening in the middle hangar. We have to get over there before he does something crazy.”
We turned to go around the back. That was when I saw it. A faint red light glowing from the ground, the remains of a cigarette. Which meant the guards were nearby. I opened my mouth to warn them, but before a sound emerged, a shot rang out. Rico fell to the ground. Major jumped over Jenny to cover her. Heavy hands closed around my neck.
Gleaming white teeth shone in the dark, the Cheshire cat holding a machine gun. “You’re back.”
Chapter Seventeen
The dark of a windowless room enveloped me, followed by a humid stench strong enough to gag me. Mold and copper—it smelled like pain. Henri’s shoes clipped the concrete softly from behind me, incongruously civilized compared to the almost dungeon-like atmosphere…but it was a lie. This place suited him more than the well-guarded penthouse where he conducted business. It was how he saw the world, darkness and death inescapable.
An elbow rammed into my back, and I fell to the floor, landing in a thin film of grimy water. From the floor, I heard the drip-drip from somewhere else in the room. Slowly my senses sharpened, revealing a counterpoint—low, harsh breathing. Labored breathing.
My voice wavered. “Luke?”
“Don’t worry.” Henri’s voice came from beside my ear as he bent to speak to me. “I punished him for taking you without payment. I know you were very concerned about that.”
“Luke.” I shuddered, feeling bone-deep revulsion for the breath on my ear, mourning whatever unseen pain had been inflicted. This was my fault, not his. My pain, and my body craved it with a kind of gnawing hunger—anything but have him suffer. I couldn’t stand it.
I had to.
Summoning my strength, I stood. In the center of the room, I could make out a shadow. A chair. A man, slumped over.
He didn’t register my approach. He was not conscious. At least, his eyes looked closed, but they might have been too puffy to see. He might have heard me call his name in horror and pain, but for the blackened blood dripping into his ears. He must have felt me when his head jerked away from my hand—though it might have been an unconscious move, like the leaves that fold at the touch of a finger.
“Oh God,” I whispered. “What did th
ey do to you?”
Hurt him, beat him, tortured him. My mind didn’t want to accept it. Find another answer, one that wouldn’t leave Luke bleeding.
Blood leaked from the corner of his eye, dried into a crusted tear. His face, his head was a mass of blue and black and purple, swollen and misshapen and beautiful because I could still hear the rasping breath from his bloodied lips. I could still see the beat of a green vein at an undisturbed patch of skin at the hollow of his neck. I touched my fingertip to that spot. He was warm and smooth there, where life and hope still beat.
I heard the steady clop-clop of Henri’s shoes as he came near. I shut my eyes, willing myself to remain still, remain focused, but how could I focus in the face of my worst fears? Luke hurt and Henri with nothing to lose—I didn’t know which one was more terrifying. Where did I go when both dreams and waking held nightmares?
He touched a hand to the back of my neck, the soft pressure almost reassuring. “If you had only listened,” he said with what sounded like regret. “I had such hopes for you. After I’m gone, the two of you could have ruled.”
The force of my denial shook my body. I knew he could feel it, so I didn’t bother to hide the disgust in my voice. “Never. He never would have done what you do.”
After a pause, he laughed. “I didn’t mean Luke.” Before I could ask who he meant, he continued in a low taunt. “Though his hands are not as clean as you think.”
“Lies,” I spat.
“Come now. We may not always agree, but have you ever known me to lie outright?”
“Yes.”
“All right.” He chuckled. “But in this case, I wouldn’t. The truth is far too glorious on its own. Didn’t you ever wonder why Luke cared so much about the plight of the working girl?”
I had wondered, but it was only because Luke was so good—someone like Henri couldn’t possibly understand motives so pure. Someone like me.
“Didn’t ever wonder how he knew so much about the life? I know you did. It was part of what drew you to him.”
