Page 2 of Her Defiant Warrior

“What do you mean, they took him away?” Jase asked. “They took him away where?”

“To one of the punishment rooms in the basement. There were three of them. I saw them when I escaped. I tried to take Edmundo with us, but he could barely walk or talk. He’d been down in the basement too long. I wanted to kill the wardens. Almost all of them were devils.”

“You really think it is the same here?” Jase asked solemnly.

Renzo nodded. “All the children were too happy. Too pretty. Too healthy. I’m positive the wardens here are lying.”

“You mean the teachers?” Malik asked.

“Don’t believe it,” Renzo said. “There might be one or two who are nice, but some of them, especially that weasel-man, are evil.”

Jase shuddered. He was scared. Not of any warden. His mom would save them. He was scared of what they would find. He was terrified that there were little kids like Edmundo behind the back door. He knew something was wrong, but it couldn’t be that bad, could it?

“You’re making this up.” Malik frowned at Renzo. Jase could tell that Malik was only arguing because he didn’t want the things Renzo was saying to be true.

“You’ll see,” Renzo said with quiet authority. “Now we need to be quiet. We need to find the other kids.”

Jase nodded at Renzo. They opened a door that was in the back of the main room where all the kids had been gathered. It led to a hallway painted puke green.

It smelled like piss.

“Eww. Somebody needs their diaper changed,” Malik said as he made a face.

Renzo shook his head. “Trust me, it’s going to get a lot worse.”

The hall was long. They carefully tried every door along the way. In every room that opened, all they found were thin mattresses on the floors, some with blankets and pillows, some without. Two doors were locked.

“That’s where the wardens live,” Renzo said in a serious tone.

“How can you know that?” Jase asked.

“They always lock their doors. They don’t want anyone to see how good they’ve got it. And they don’t want anyone to see their punishment sticks and things. In my orphanage, they even had those electric things that they used on the bulls.” Renzo shuddered.

Jase tried to make sense of what Renzo was saying. Finally, it sank in. “Cattle prods?”

“I think so. They go zap on the cows and make them hurt and make them move. They really hurt us kids. They only used it on me once. It was enough.”

Fuck. No wonder Renzo ran away from the orphanage and went to go live on the streets of Peru.

They continued down the hallway. As they got close to the end, they all heard crying and screaming.

Oh God, it’s going to be as bad as Renzo said.

“It really, really stinks,” Malik said.

“Shut your cake hole,” Renzo whisper hissed.

Jase tried to laugh at his Peruvian brother for saying cake instead of pie, but he was too sick and scared about what they were going to find. At the end of the hall, they had to turn right, and it led to double doors. They had small windows at the top. Jase and Malik were the tallest. They both looked through the small windows.

“Oh my God,” Malik said as he crossed himself.

“What?” Renzo demanded to know.

Jase turned to Renzo. “It’s okay, we can go in. There’s no grown-up in there.”

“Yeah, because they’ve locked the kids up in cages,” Malik practically yelled.

“Be quiet,” Renzo hissed at Malik.