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Too old.
They’d turn him and check for bruises and scars. For any identifiable markings, like a brand or a tattoo.
When they were done, they’d nod and smile at him, as if they expected him to smile back. Some even asked Julian if he’d like them to be his next “daddy.”
No. The answer was always no.
His answer would make that smile disappear and a hard expression replace it. One Julian had quickly learned to recognize. The unspoken message that said, “I’ll teach you to behave. To be a good boy. I’ll train you right.”
They always thought they’d be the one. The one to tame him. The one to make him pliable. The one to break him.
They never were. None of them succeeded. They all failed.
Every. Single. Fucking. One.
No. Not now.
Shade forced himself to step onto the basement’s concrete floor and move between the two rows of cages. He didn’t look left or right, he focused on the cage at the end.
The one containing the boy with the bruises. The child wearing nothing but stained underwear and filthy tube socks, the formerly white cotton soles now almost black.
The boy whose face was dirty except for two clean streaks down his cheeks. From when he was scared.
Only, he didn’t seem scared now.
His eyes followed Shade’s path and when Shade stopped in front of the boy’s cage, they stared at each other.
“Who are you?” The kid’s voice was raw like he’d spent too much time screaming or crying. Most likely both.
Yeah, he was past the stage of fear. That ship had sailed. He was now angry. Pissed. The look in his dark eyes hard. Maybe even deadly.
Shade didn’t blame him.
“I was you once.”
The boy with the shaggy brown hair frowned up at him unable to hide his confusion. Shade didn’t blame him for that, either.
Shade had to look questionable. He was dressed in all black. His hair was pulled up and covered with a beanie so he wouldn’t shed strands of DNA, his hands were covered in latex gloves so he wouldn’t leave identifiable prints. His boots were a generic brand purchased at a Walmart in Tennessee, the size and tread pattern not unique in any way.
Though Shade took precautions, Miller’s house was full of strangers’ DNA with all the men, women and children coming through it. His would just be one of hundreds identified, if at all.
“What are you going to do with me?”
Yeah, it hurt for the kid to talk. That made Shade’s throat hurt, too, from the memory. “Set you free.”
The boy’s brow furrowed. “You’re going to set me free? Just like that?” He tried to rise but even at twelve he was too tall to stand straight in the cage, so he crouched back down. The cages weren’t tall, so their human occupants had to hunch over or sit. It made it harder to fight when it was your time to be shackled and removed from it.
If you managed to struggle too much, there were electric prods—the same kind used on cattle—that were used to help convince you to comply.
“Just like that,” Shade answered.
He pulled out the key ring he’d found in Miller’s pocket and had tucked into his own. One by one he flipped through the keys and tried them in the padlock. The fifth key opened it.
The boy’s anger was gone and uncertainty was slowly creeping into his face. “Where’s my mom?”
“I don’t know.” It was sort of the truth and better than no answer at all.
“Do you think she’s here somewhere?”
The hope in his voice squeezed Shade’s heart to the point of almost crushing it. “No.”
“Are you here to help me?” More hope, this time guarded. Like he still was very unsure of Shade’s motives.
The kid was smart not to trust anyone at this point.
“That’s not why I’m here, kid, but I’m gonna help you.”
“Why are you here?”
Shade dropped the padlock onto the floor and yanked open the cage door. If the boy jumped him, he’d need to subdue him. Shade hoped to fuck he didn’t try anything; the boy already had enough bruises. An ugly one across his cheekbone, a dark purple handprint circling his left bicep and one encircling each wrist. Maybe Shade should think about tracking down and killing Miller’s goons, too.
No, he needed to get back to Manning Grove. He’d done what he’d set out to do. It was done. Over.
If he was going to track down and deliver karma to anyone else, it would be his father, even though Shade didn’t know his name, didn’t know anything about him. Julian had his mother’s last name and had no idea if she had taken his father’s as her own but doubted she did since they weren’t married.
He hardly even remembered what the man looked like twenty-six years ago. Now, he had to be in his fifties.
