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“I swear I don’t remember!” Miller screamed, his face red and tears leaking from the corners of his eyes, piss dripping off his lap and puddling on the seat of the chair. It smelled like he might have even shit himself.
Shade leaned forward, stared directly down into Miller’s wide blue eyes and whispered, “Think harder,” letting the sharp edge of the blade bite into his tanned skin at the top of his forehead.
Tanned because he probably sat around the pool out back during the day. The pool that came along with the big house in this exclusive gated community. Bought with the souls of women and children.
Fucking motherfucker.
“Don’t! Please... Please...”
“How many women and children have you sold who you’ve forgotten?” Shade nudged the blade deeper into the man’s skin, causing a few droplets of deep red blood to roll down his temples and into his thinning gray hair.
“I... I don’t know. I don’t know!”
“Guess.”
“I don’t know... Maybe... Maybe... a hundred?”
No, that wasn’t right. “Wrong answer.”
“Maybe five hundred. I didn’t count!”
Shade removed the blade from his now bleeding hairline, leaned down and put his mouth closer to Miller’s ear. He murmured slowly, “Don’t think that’s the right answer, either.”
His grip tightened on the broker’s hair and his hand holding the knife moved in a blur.
He wasn’t wasting any more time on this motherfucker. Not a goddamn second more.
A wet gurgle was heard before the man’s neck gaped open. Shade loosened his fingers and Miller’s head remained tilted back. His eyes became unfocused and the remaining air in his lungs hissed and bubbled from his throat.
Blood began to roll down Miller’s naked chest and over his lap, down his thighs and drip onto the cream-colored ceramic tile under the chair.
Shade stepped over to the kitchen sink, scrubbed his knife clean, dried it on a dishtowel and tucked it back into the sheath strapped to his calf.
He left his latex gloves on when he washed the blood off his hands. He’d dispose of them elsewhere. Most likely burn them along with his completed list.
Then he did what he always did before leaving one of these fuckers’ houses.
He jogged up the stairs, found the attic and from there worked his way down, checking every room, every closet, every possible location a child or an adult could be hidden or kept captive.
For a newer, luxury home, the stairs down to the basement shouldn’t creak the way they did. As he took each noisy step down to the level below the earth, the temp dropped at least a degree or two.
The basement walls and floor were made of concrete, reminding Shade of a burial vault. The smell of bleach assaulted his nostrils. The eerie quiet invaded his brain. And his heart was doing its best to escape his chest.
He blinked as his world began to close in on itself. He fought it. The darkness. The memories.
The dank smell of dark basements came flooding back.
No. Not now.
In a house like this, the basement shouldn’t be musty or dank. It should be well-lit and finished off into a rec room.
Or a man cave.
A room the whole family could enjoy.
Not turned into a dungeon.
He paused on the last of the squeaky steps and took a deep breath so he wouldn’t turn and bolt back up them. With clenched jaws, Shade forced himself to turn his head. To see.
To see past his memories. To see the present.
What he saw weren’t actual cells. Not made of concrete and bars found in prison or jail. Nothing permanent like that.
No, they were cages. Ten of them that could be easily relocated to the next big house with a big room that could hold a lot of strange men with pockets full of cash.
The portable cages were made of thick black wire. Holding pens. Not for animals for which they were designed. But for humans.
Women. Children. Maybe even men.
All were empty.
But one.
The one at the very end. In the darkest corner of the basement. Farthest from any kind of window that might allow even the smallest amount of light to shine in, might give the tiniest amount of hope.
In the cage were two things.
A boy. And a bucket.
A fucking boy. And a fucking bucket.
Shade’s nostrils flared at the stench rising from the bucket, recognizable over the smell of the bleach, and he hadn’t even approached the cage yet.
No, he was still stuck on the last step.
His heart thundered and his brain screamed at him to fucking run.
He remembered these cages. And other cages similar to these.
The wire boxes Julian had been placed inside until it was his turn to stand on that wood platform at the front of the big room full of strangers who wanted to inspect him. Who touched him in the front, lifting and prodding, who made him bend over so they could inspect him in the rear, who opened his mouth, who made him lift his arms to see if he was beginning to grow hair in his pits. Or hair on his balls or hair anywhere but his head. The men who made him speak to see if his voice was changing yet. Because those were signs of him getting older.
