I work a kink from my neck feeling the knives nestled beside my ribs.
Tyler’s eyes move over me, missing nothing.
“You stay with me tonight.”
I meet his gaze with a silent challenge.
He doesn’t back down this time, which is unusual for him.
His voice lowers. “I mean it.”
Tyler knows exactly where that livestream took me. The memories I actively work to bury start scratching their way out of the grave I’ve dug for them. I stare back at the warehouse sorrow, devastation and rage churning together inside of me like old companions.
“They’re allowing people to pay to destroy them, for entertainment.”
Tyler scrubs a hand over the back of his neck before he answers. “Yes.”
“And thousands of people are watching it happen.”
His brows pull together, pinching in the middle as he stares at the warehouse.
He built this place on stolen lives and tonight, I will bury it with his body.
The horror looms between us, dark and unavoidable.
Tyler places his laptop on the dash, turns over his shoulder, and scoops up the duffel bag in the backseat filled with guns, extra magazines and restraints.
Then he lifts my earpiece from a pocket on the side of the bag and hands it to me.
“You remember the objective?”
“Take out the security guards first,” I reply automatically.
“And?”
I slide the earpiece in, double checking the placement.
“We reach one of the roll-up doors and you use the bolt cutters to break the lock latches.”
“Next?”
“We release the women in the cages and get them to the rescuecrew. Since the men conducting the livestream will be in the back room, we take them out and save the last girl.”
Tyler nods once.
Lightning flashes across the windshield, illuminating the warehouse again for one brief second.
It almost looks like a prison in the storm.
Or maybe a crematory.
Tyler racks a round into the chamber of his Glock, the metallic click slicing through the silence inside the vehicle.
“You ready?” he implores.
Before I can answer, he loads my Glock and passes it to me. Then he prepares one for himself, setting spare magazines on the center console. We each get what we need and slide the extra ammo into the pouches on our tactical vests.
I peer at the floodlit building where people are paying money to torture defenseless women for gratification.
