by S. C. Green
She howled with rage and barrelled into me. My back cracked against the ground, driving the wind from my lungs. She landed heavily beside me. I swung my arm up and thrust my knife into the soft skin of her belly. With an animalian howl, she tore my knife away. I lunged at her. She caught my arm and tried to wrestle me against the floor. She was unfit and full of drugs, and the stomach wound slowed her down. Even with my hands slick with her blood, I overpowered her. A swift punch to the jaw rendered her unconscious.
“Whowassat?” an angry male voice barked from the room at the end of the hall.
I glanced around frantically. They’d come down the hall at any moment, and I wasn’t ready for them to discover my presence just yet. In an open room, a group of strong men could surround me, but here in this narrow hall they would have to come at me one by one, keeping the odds of success in my favour. I steeled myself for what I would have to do. Already, staring down at the body of the madam made me feel ill.
This is for Diana. I reminded myself. And in my heart, I knew it was for Alain, too.
I found my knife beside her body, wiped her blood from the blade with the edge of my shirt, and shoved it back into my belt. I bent over the woman and lifted the edge of her shirt to inspect her own weapons. I pulled out the dagger and baton she wore on her belt. Her blade was sharper than mine, newer. I hoped it hadn’t been used on any of the unlucky women in her care.
I crouched beside the body and listened. Nothing stirred. No one moved. Further back in the house, male voices talked and laughed. My presence hadn’t been noticed.
I guess they must be used to hearing women scream in pain, I thought, my heart hard.
For a moment, I wanted to run.
Enough of that, I told myself. I had to focus on the task at hand. Leaving the unconscious woman in the hall, I crept back over to the decayed door of the closet and unbolted it. I thrust my head inside.
The blue eyes were still there, wide and unblinking in the gloom. As my eyes adjusted, I saw that they belonged to two girls that couldn’t have been any older than May. One had ebony skin and dark hair in two long plaits, and the other was a blonde beauty with bouncing curls and cupids-bow lips. They wore nothing but skimpy lace underwear, their bodies marked with dark bruises, healing cuts, and burn marks.
I staggered backward, my mouth moving but no sound coming out. Sia’s dead, mutilated face flashed across my memory. This is so fucked up. These girls could end up just like Sia. Even though I’d come here knowing exactly what I might see, the sight of them, so young, so frightened, made the heat flee my body.
“Please ... ” the blonde whispered to me, while the other buried her face in her matted hair. “Don’t hurt us …”
“I’m not here to hurt you,” I growled, pointing to the hall. “I’m here to save you. Come out here. And be quiet.”
Silently, the girls covered their breasts with their hands and made for the front door. One whimpered when she saw the madam’s body. She hesitated, likely not wanting to step in the puddle of blood formed from the open knife wound. One glare from me, and she kept moving.
I knew with my brusque manner and blood-soaked clothing that I was scaring them. I didn’t want to—they’d been through so much already—but I needed them to cooperate quickly.
“What’s in there?” I whispered, jabbing my blade at the door opposite the closet. It was slightly ajar.
The older of the two girls stepped forward, visibly shaking. “It’s where they bring the Johns to choose.”
“So it’s like a waiting room?”
She nodded.
“Is it empty now?”
She nodded again.
“Woosit?” That male voice slurred from down the hall.
Footsteps thudded across a wooden floor. The girls’ faces turned deathly white.
“Come with me,” I said, pushing open the door. “I promise I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
“You have a knife,” the older girl whispered back.
“I’ll be using it on whoever comes down that hall,” I said. “And I don’t miss. I know it’s scary, but I need you to—”
She hugged the other quivering girl against her, and they disappeared into the dark room. I ducked inside and pulled the door shut behind me, just as the footsteps entered the hall.
I pressed my hand against the wood, angling my palm to try to glimpse the man. There was no light down the far end, and his whole face was cast in shadow. He turned his head over his shoulder, calling something back to his companions in the room beyond.
I cast a cursory glance around the room, checking for hidden assailants. It had once been the house’s sitting room and still retained the floral wallpaper—now peeling back and revealing patches of plasterboard beneath—and tasteful art prints dotting the walls, the glass now smudged with grime. Tattered damask curtains hung from the bay window overlooking a garden so overgrown it blocked all light from entering the room. The space was devoid of furniture except for two armchairs facing the wall, a small wooden table placed between them, and a tall steel frame in the corner that looked like some kind of medieval torture device with arm and leg shackles hanging from the bars. A staircase on the far side of the room led upstairs.
The girls sank to the floor behind me, their arms around each other, wide eyes watching me.
“What’s goin’ on down there?” a cruel voice snarled. “‘’Oo was at the door?”
I turned back to the door, moving my hand along the wood as the man moved along the hall. I still couldn’t make out his features in the dim light.
He took another step, and his frame passed through my view. I snapped my head back, my heart pounding. I recognised the face. Salvador Dimitri, youngest son of the most notorious crime boss in the Rim. Evidently he was building a flourishing business of his own.
His crooked walk and glazed eyes indicated he was high as well. But he was much larger than me, an experienced fighter, and a cruel man. I had to hit him once and neutralise him before he overpowered me. My fingers closed around my knife.
“What the fuck?” Salvador stopped in his tracks, staring down at the floor. “Wossall this fucking blood about?” He kicked the body of the madam. “Gerrup, you whore! Wossall this mess?”
Behind me, one of the girls whimpered.
He whirled around at the sound and grabbed for the door handle. I yanked my hand back. He flung open the door. I threw myself at him, grabbing him around the neck as though I were embracing a lover. He staggered backward, his beefy hands pawing at my face, searching for a grip on my throat. I plunged my knife between his shoulder blades, working it in between his ribs.
He shook me violently, howling with rage. I twisted the knife deeper. Blood spurted from his mouth, and when he coughed and yelled, it splattered across my face and over the girls. The younger one ran and hid behind the chairs, but the other girl came forward, her eyes determined.
Salvador changed tactics. He slammed me against the wall, grinding and crushing his weight against my body. The air rushed from my lungs, and I gasped for breath. He managed to work his hands around my neck, pushing his thick fingers against my throat, cutting off my air.
Pain lit behind my eyes. My chest burned. Panic rose up inside me as my lungs begged for breath. Salvador’s blood-streaked face leered at me, swaying in and out of focus as his fingers dug deeper.
My head started to swim, a strange lightness passing through my body, as though I were floating away. But I didn’t let go of the knife. Every inch he gained on me, I pushed it deeper.
He growled and bent forward, throwing me over his shoulder. But he must’ve changed his mind because he dropped me. My back slammed hard against the ground. My knife flew from my hand. Behind me, one of the girls screamed.
I gasped in air, my body lurching with the sudden intake of oxygen. I tried to roll out of the way, but my body spasmed with violent coughs. In a second, he lunged for me.
He grabbed my neck, but he was sluggish, moving in slow motion.
Or perhaps the world had slowed down. I rolled out of his path, swung my foot around, and took out his ankle. He fell heavily, his knees crunching loudly as he hit the floor. I sucked in a breath and leapt at him again to bend his arm around. I didn’t stop until I heard the snap of the bone breaking and his howl of pain.
“Don’t just sit there,” he commanded the two girls. “You stupid or summin? Go get the men.”
“Men?” the older blonde girl asked sweetly, her voice ringing clear, despite the slight tremor in it. “There are no men in this house.”
“Don’ play games with me,” he snapped at her as I bent his arm even farther. “Or I’ll have you beaten again. Get this bitch off me.”
The girl stepped forward, and for a moment I thought she was going to pull me off him. But then she grabbed the handle of my knife, still sticking out of his back, and yanked it free. Blood gurgled from the wound like lava from a volcano. It ran down his shoulders like the slopes of Vesuvius and washed over the girl’s bare feet.
“You can tell your Reaper contact,” I said snidely into his ear, “that his business is officially over in this city.”
Salvador twisted his head toward me and spat in my face. His warm spittle, laced with blood, dribbled down my cheek.
“Don’t bother with him.” The girl leaned forward and thrust the knife into his throat. “I can tell him myself.”
Salvador’s eyes grew wide, his last view of the world the blonde girl waving sweetly at him as she yanked out the blade. Blood oozed from the wound, bubbling out like a boiling kettle. His body shuddered and went still. I dropped his arm, and he slumped against the floor, blood pooling around his head like a crimson halo.
My whole body shook violently. I hadn’t prepared myself for the aftermath of what I was doing here, for taking life in this way, for the dark hatred in the eyes of the girl as she’d killed her jailer. This was what the dome did to people. It made men into animals, and girls into cold-blooded killers.
The girl wiped off the blade against the chair arm and handed it back to me.
I shook my head. “You keep it. I have another.”
I lifted Salvador’s shirt, grabbed the handgun from his belt, and checked the cartridge. It was full. Good. I shoved it into my belt next to the woman’s knife.
The girls clutched each other with white-knuckled hands and stared at me with wide, frightened eyes. The younger one was sobbing. Even the older one who had stood defiantly against Salvador only a few moments ago had reverted into a shell of fear. I wondered if she now even registered what she’d done.
“Go.” I pointed my chin at the door. “Find a place to hide. They won’t come after you again, I promise.”
The older girl shook her head. “I won’t leave the others. Come with me.”
She pointed to the staircase in the corner then tried to pick up her friend, but she wasn’t moving. I suspected shock. So we left her there, and I followed blondie up the stairs.
Upstairs, a long, narrow hall stretched the length of the house, the walls soaked in filth and scrawled with lewd graffiti. Behind the doors, voices sounded—men grunting and shouting, as well as women sobbing and whispering. Behind one of the doors toward the end of the hall someone sang a soft, forlorn melody.
“I’ve been plotting our bid for freedom for a long time, but there are so many girls to free, and they’re all fed with drugs to keep them submissive,” she whispered to me as we moved down the hall. “Thank you for hastening our escape.”
“How many girls are here?” I asked, my whole body pulsing with anger.
“At least thirty,” she replied. “Although not all of us are in the house at the same time. Sometimes they would take us to clubs or residences in the Hub, or to the Compound.”
At the mention of the Compound, Alain’s face flashed through my head once more, but I pushed it away. I wanted to question the girl further, but now was not the time.
She pointed to the two closest doors. “There are girls in these rooms with Johns.”
“Split up?”
She nodded, raising the knife beside her face. I pulled the gun from my belt. I didn’t want to have to get close to another man with the knife again.
We each grabbed a door handle, and I mouthed a countdown. Three … two … one. I flung open the door.
Two people occupied the drab bedroom. A pretty brunette on her knees with her hands bound behind her back sucked off a dark-skinned John. He turned toward me and his eyes grew wide, but he didn’t get up from the bed.
“I’ve still got fifteen minutes,” he snapped.
My finger slid over the trigger, the power behind it steeling my insides into something cold and unrecognizable. With a shaky breath, I squeezed.
His head bounced back against the bed, staining the sheets crimson. The girl screamed, but then she turned and saw me. Realization—and then relief- flooded across her face.
“Untie her.” My companion poked her head through the door, her blonde curls bouncing on her shoulders. “There are more down the hall. We’ve got to free them quick.”
I sliced through the girl’s bonds, and she staggered to her feet, moving stealthily toward the door in her towering heels. From downstairs, chairs scraped along the ground and men swore.
I dimly became aware they must’ve heard the gunshot. They were coming.
Back in the hall, the blonde girl slid open a latch and opened the first door.
“Let’s go, ladies. It’s jailbreak time!” she cried out into the gloom, and then a similar message in Spanish, and then in an Asian language I didn’t recognise.
Suddenly, the hall was flooded with naked girls, their bodies streaked with filth and burns and lacerations.
We opened two more doors, and my comrade counted the girls as they passed, her bow-shaped lips moving silently as she ticked off each of her sisters in her mind.
“Where are Donna and Darcy?” she called out to the surging pack.
“Sal took them to the Hub,” a beautiful Asian girl with creamy skin called back as she jostled with a Spanish beauty to reach the stairs first. “He said they’d be doing a gang—”
“You can’t worry about them now,” I said. “Run for it. Save them later.”
My comrade ushered the stragglers down the stairs and through the waiting room, just as footsteps sounded on the stairs at the other end of the hall. I swung down after them, just as a man’s head appeared around the corner of the hall. A bullet whizzed past my head. I fired back, my heart pounding. I hurried down the staircase, not stopping to see if I’d landed a hit.
My companion already had the front door open and was pushing the girls outside. They leapt over the body of Salvador, some of them stopping to kick him in the head or ribs as they did so, and then flew out the open door. The black-haired girl who’d been in the closet with her was still crouched like a statue behind the chair, her face deathly white and her eyes staring unfocused at the ceiling.
I pressed myself against the wall just as heavy boots thudded down the stairs. Two men burst into the room, guns pointed forward, their faces red with rage. I aimed my gun at the head of the first, my hand shaking, not wanting to take another life.
I didn’t get the chance. Before I could squeeze the trigger, several of the girls jumped on the man. His mouth set in an O of surprise as they brought him down, but turned to screams as they clawed at his face with their fingers, beat at him with fists, tore chunks of his skin away with their teeth.
“Don’ just stand there,” he yelled at his partner. “‘elp me—”
His friend stepped out from the stairway and lowered his gun, aiming at the swarm of girls that kicked and clawed and shrieked their vengeance.
“Gerroff him, or I start shooting!” he yelled.
I swung my leg out and tripped him. He fell heavily on his side, the gun clattering from his hand. My blonde friend grabbed it and aimed it at his head.
“Don’t move,” she said over the screams of the other man. Her voice was
stern, devoid of emotion.
“Please …” The man’s eyes flooded with fear. His voice turned pleading. “Please don …”
“Why shouldn’t I?” she snarled, pressing the sharp heel of her stiletto on his palm and stomping down. He howled as the point crushed through his skin, pinning his hand to the floor. “Tell me what pitiful excuse you’ve come up with to make me spare your life?”
“I dinna do nuffin. I always treated you nice.” His voice broke on a sob, and tears tracked down his face.
“You mean, you didn’t beat me after you fucked me?” She tilted her head back and laughed hollowly, grinding her heel into his hand. He was gibbering now, tears running down his cheeks. “My, but you are the gentlemen. Shall we see what your treatment has driven us to do?”
With the gun, she gestured for the girls to retreat. They did, leaving the other man’s body on the ground.
Blood flowed from hundreds of wounds in his skin. His eyes had been poked out, blood oozing from the ruined sockets. And his head was bent at an impossible angle. He did not move.
They strung the sobbing man to the steel frame in the corner, locking his hands and feet into the shackles so he was hung up like a pig for slaughter.
“Let me go!” he yelled, struggling against his bonds.
In response, the blonde cut away all his clothes with her knife, leaving him strung up completely naked.
“Sorry.” She shook her head, then stepped back. “Since you treated us “so nice,” I’m not going to kill you. But we are going to leave you here. Let’s see how long you last without food or water or clothing. Nights on the Rim can get quite chilly without clothes, can’t they, girls?”
Her sisters nodded.
“We should get going,” I reminded her, my heart pounding in my ears. All this blood and death made my stomach churn. I’d come here to seek justice, but watching these girls take it themselves didn’t make me feel any better. Instead, I felt ill.
One by one, the girls filed out the front door. They fell outside, their faces lit with smiles as they encountered the murky grey light of the dome for perhaps the first time in months. From the house, the imprisoned man yelled at the top of his lungs. Everyone ignored him.
