Page 88 of Inflict

Skin.

“I see you finally made your way over here,” Trevor called out to Connor as he headed toward the guard watching the shipping containers. “How long has it been, Connor? You were what, seventeen the last time we saw each other?”

Connor stayed right where he was, refusing to move even an inch for this man or his counterpart. “Something like that.”

“Twenty-six or so now, ain’t you?”

“Something like that,” Connor repeated.

Trevor smirked, passing Jonson a look that Connor couldn’t quite decipher. Connor’s guard went up a wee bit more, and he was suddenly grateful that he had his back to one of the walls of the warehouse, and not the men in front of him.

Feckin’ snakes, all of them.

“No matter,” Trevor continued, coming to stand in front of the guard before handing him a set of keys that would likely unlock the two containers. “Your father thought this would be a good … how do you want to say it—run for you, I suppose. You’ll get your hands a little wet before diving in with the best parts.”

Connor’s throat tightened painfully at the man’s words and what they suggested, but he did his best to keep from showing his distress. “Funny, I was told you shower of savages just needed an extra pair of hands.”

Knowing the men probably weren’t familiar with Irish insults, he smirked as it flew right over their heads, entirely unnoticed.

Trevor shrugged. “Open them,” he told the guard. Then, he turned back to Connor. “An extra pair of hands is always needed to keep the skin in line.”

With that, the guard opened the first container, and Connor suddenly wished he could disappear.

The second the container door swung wide open, letting light filter inside, the barely-moving forms only looked toward what they could see. Women. Girls. Dirty, with very little clothing, and a smell that made Connor’s stomach twist into knots. He knew how these trips worked for these girls, because he’d heard the stories. They were given just enough bread and water to make the trip, cat boxes or something similar to expel their waste into, and told to keep quiet, or else. Many wouldn’t be able to speak English, because they came from countries that were too poor to offer it as a language in school, that was, if they could even afford to go.

Many of the women had probably been tricked into their current situation, told they would be brought to America to work in a salon or something similar, but would actually be put into a dank whorehouse on a stained bed to feed a trick’s whim. Sure, some would make it into salons, offering fake massages with happy endings, though those were few and far in between. To get that sort of traction, a girl had to gain attention, by being pretty enough and compliant enough.

It was still feckin’ terrible to Connor.

“Out, now, get moving!” Jonson shouted into the first container.

The women—and some young enough for Connor to consider girls—scattered from the container like wee rats on all fours, disoriented and confused. The lights probably hurt their eyes, they were likely starving or thirsty, and they had no idea of the hell they were about to face.

None at all.

And there he was, about to help deliver them to it.

Connor stayed back as the females huddled together, and the men made a circle around them, pointing out which ones they liked, which ones seemed dirty in a drug sense, or otherwise. A few of the younger ones were taken from the group immediately, their heads covered with black sacks, large zip-ties tightened to their neck to keep them from ripping the hoods off, and then placed in one of the many vans.

The scene went on and on, until no women stood in a huddle, and it was just the men left.

Connor spent the next several minutes, while the men chatted amongst themselves, trying to convince himself he could do this. As much as he hated it, and for as sick as it made him, he could put on the mask he’d been wearing his whole life and handle this shite. Since he was a young lad, he’d watched slaves come and go from his home. Some had nursed him when he was sick, fed him three meals a day, and helped him learn to read.

A couple had even been the mother he never had, though he didn’t like to think on them too much.

Aye, it took him years to understand what those women had been to his father—slaves—but he still knew now.

As long as he didn’t think too feckin’ much, or feel too much, he’d be okay. It was just like anything else he didn’t want to do—get in, get it done, and get the feck out.

Right?

Connor wasn’t so sure.

His despondence and disinterest only increased when Trevor motioned for the guard to unlock the second container. Connor figured it would be like the first, filled to the brim with dirty victims needing transported from the warehouse to their new situations within the city.

Apparently, that wasn’t to be.

The container looked all but empty at first glance. It was as dark as the first, though the smell wasn’t nearly as bad, and Connor instantly noticed a pile of books and drawing pencils near the door. Unlike the first, where the girls had to be screamed at to get them out, this woman came walking out on her own, wearing a black dress that fell to her bare knees, with nothing on her feet but for painted pink toenails.