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Maybe I needed every moment of terrible to fuel me, to keep the fire burning inside. Because if I took the drugs, if I escaped like Chris, where did that leave me? Here forever? Or until I was no longer useless?
What then?
Would they kill me?
Since I had seen their faces?
Since I could identify them?
No.
Maybe escape - be it drugs or my own brain - would save me in a way, but it could doom me in others.
I might have to suffer this fate, until I had the tools I needed, until I found an opening I could use, but I was not going to let this be the last chapter in my story. Or, if it would be, at least it would be a brutal, blood-soaked tale of a woman who refused to give up.
If I had to die, I wanted to die fighting. I wanted to try to take them with me. I wanted to let these bastards know that they didn't win, they didn't break me.
They can never break me.
The anger coursed through me, finding a well deep inside that seemed to be fed endlessly, letting it flood my bloodstream until my skin hummed with it, until my pulse pounded with it, until my lips were shaking with it.
Sometime later, the click, slide, click, the stomping on the steps.
But not the guy from earlier.
The guy from the night before.
His gaze slid my way as he carried Chris.
I don't know for sure what it was I found there.
Confusion?
Interest?
Something, something I couldn't put my finger on, something I didn't have much time to ponder as he dropped Chris, blocking her from view with his massive body as he shackled her again, turned, and jogged up the stairs.
My stomach twisted as I sat there, scared, so scared that I didn't want to look.
But I didn't have that luxury.
Ignorance.
Not anymore.
This was the reality now, ugly as it might be.
And I had to be strong enough to face it.
My body shook as I forced my head over toward Chris' side of the basement, finding her sprawled on the floor, facing me, and I wondered if that was on purpose, to frighten me, to taunt me.
Because her beautiful face had been brutalized, bruises around her eyes, blood soaking into the whites of one, a dried trickle of it coming from her nose, more of it coming from her mouth, a fresh band around her throat of bruises, ones that matched her wrists, dotted up her arms and her thighs since they had stolen her pants.
My jaw shook as I looked her over, as the anger became something else, something that spread out of my small body, seemed to coat the air around me.
I swallowed back my saliva as I looked into her unseeing eyes, as Aunt Janie came back to me.
Never back down.
Never give up.
Fight.
And I was going to fight.
For me.
For Mary.
For Chris.
For every other unknown woman they had done this to.
I was going to make those fuckers pay.SIXLoI felt... useless.
I never felt useless.
Not in years.
Not since I was a young woman, trapped in a marriage with a man who tormented me.
I made it my mission after that never to feel that way again, to build a life around myself to ensure that I was always in control, to surround myself with men and women who had differing skills from my own, so they could pick up my slack.
And we did good in the world.
We helped so many people like the woman I once had been; we healed ourselves by healing one another. We swooped in when others found themselves without hope, saving the day as often as we could.
We didn't fail.
We insured ourselves against it with training, with constantly bettering ourselves.
But we were failing.
I hated even to think that, even to let such a vile thing cross my mind.
But it was what was happening.
No matter how much I lied and said it wasn't.
Maybe you could call it pride.
I sure would be considered guilty of it more than a few times in my life.
This wasn't pride, though, it was a white lie to save my loved ones heartache they didn't need more of right now.
Everyone at Hailstorm was on it. Those with skills on computers, trying to find the car, trying to search for a trace of V on the darknet. Those who were good at tracking, were tracking. Those with contacts that might have had their ears to the ground on topics such as trafficking, were making calls or setting up meetings. Everyone else was on the streets.
And then there was me.
Doing nothing.
Not a fucking thing.
What? Directing it? Answering endless emails or texts saying the same thing - nothing.
No one had anything.
And this was Ferryn, goddamn it.
My Ferryn.
I loved all the kids.
They all had chunks of my heart.
But Ferryn - the first - arguably had the biggest piece.
