AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How can you be so cruel?” A tiny blonde girl from the group of women huddling on the other side of the room spoke up. “Can’t you see they’re scared? Have some compassion.”
Tala sat up straight and glared at the blonde. “Shove it, Becca. You’ve been in this room longer than I have. You know we’re not getting out unless they drag us out.”
Becca huffed and sucked in her cheeks. “Well then, maybe we should fight.”
“With what?” Tala held both her hands in the air. “In case you haven’t noticed, my werewolf powers are gone. And even your Arachne spider-powers are gone. We can’t fight.”
I stared at Becca, imagining what she’d look like without the collar around her neck. Arachne women were about as common as harpies. I’d seen one or two on the club scene. They were usually harsh women with spider-like abilities to hone in on their mate. Never one to settle down, they flitted from partner to partner, weaving a web of lovers a mile long. Sometimes, I thought Angel should’ve been an Arachne, but she was too kind to fit that mold.
“They’re only humans.” Even with the angelic little pout of her lower lip, there was a vicious spark in her dark eyes. “A dozen girls should be able to get past them.”
“And then what?” Tala stood up and dusted off the front of her sequined mini dress. “There are more of them out there. Probably with guns, waiting to sink some lead in our stomachs and ditch us for some new girls. We won’t stand a chance. They’ll kill us without thinking.”
The young girls gasped again. Several of them leaned on each other for support, sobbing. I looked around the room at the nameless faces, each more frightened than the last.
A spark of rage lit inside my chest. This was Robert Caro’s fault. He took innocent girls from the streets like they were fruit hanging from a tree. And then he used them and discarded them. Our lives meant more than that. Monsters like him always thought they can do whatever they want. It wasn’t right.
We didn’t have any more time to talk through an exit strategy. At that moment, the metal door slammed open and a huge man walked through. Immediately, I recognized the giant who picked me up in the alley outside the Scarab Lounge. He had black stringy hair and a thick beard that spanned the length of his massive jaw and neck. With hands the size of plates, he stood to the side of the door and clenched them into tight fists.
“That’s Timur the Giant,” Tala whispered to me. “Not as tough as he looks. One of the girls I came with fought back and took a chunk out of his nose. I haven’t seen her since.”
The girls scattered as a second man came through the door. He was almost as tall as the giant, but rail-thin and bony. Dressed all in black, he would’ve been nothing special if it wasn’t for the impressive array of knives hanging from his belt. An eerie grin played on his pale lips, which told me he wasn’t afraid to use those weapons on any of us. His translucent skin colored with blotches of red and pink while he bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, clicking his tongue in an upbeat tempo.
Tala glued her eyes to the ground and nudged my shoulder. “That’s Jack. Don’t mess with him. I’m serious. It’ll be the last thing you do. He’s a big fan of testing out his new knives on anyone that misbehaves.”
I shuddered and watched a third and final man enter the room. Compared to the previous two men, he was tiny. No taller than me and just as trim, he wore an unassuming gray suit and a black tie. The way he walked, with his shoulders back and his chin up, told me this guy had a Napoleon complex. I’d met men like him before. They were always compensating for something. Their low self-esteem made them the most dangerous of all.
“And who’s the last?” I asked when Tala went silent.
She mumbled something and took two steps back, pressing herself into the dusty wall behind us. The other girls did the same, lining up and gluing their eyes to the floor. I followed suit, but kept my eyes up. If my mother was here, I didn’t want to miss her.
“We picked up four new recruits, Bobby,” Timur said with a wave of his giant hand. “Good ones. I think you’ll like ‘em.”
The man in the gray suit stepped forward, a toothpick hanging out of the side of his mouth like he was some thirties mobster. I realized with a start that this was Robert Caro, or Bobby as Timur called him. This was the man himself – the one that had imprisoned my mother and made her so fearful she didn’t even try to escape for over fourteen years. The rage that burned inside of me threatened to explode into an uncontrollable fire.
“Good… good,” Bobby said. His voice was soft and smooth, like the hum of a baritone sax. “We only need two tonight. And Reggie’s going to like what he gets. No picking and choosing. That right belongs to the top paying clients.”
I clenched my teeth and dug my nails into my palms. The way he was talking, we were nothing but heads of cattle. Someone needed to teach him a lesson.
Bobby started at the opposite end of the line and walked slowly past each girl, inspecting her with a quick wave of his eyes. Occasionally, he would pause and tilt a chin, pull on a strand of hair, or ask a girl to show him her teeth. Halfway down the line, he paused and nodded to Jack. A curvy girl with a blonde pixie cut and square-framed glasses squealed as Jack grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward. He yanked her toward the door and disappeared through the dark exit, her sobs growing quieter as the moments passed
by.
I shifted back and forth on my feet and waited for Bobby to get to me. It didn’t matter if he chose me for his dirty client. There was no way I’d find my mother in here. I had to get out of this room and into the organization, if I wanted to do any good. Maybe he’d sell me to someone to clean houses or do sweat labor. I hadn’t really gone through all the possibilities in my head.
The terrible thought that he’d make me do other things had played at the edge of my mind since Ruth first told me about the mission. But I couldn’t consider those ideas. If I did, I’d freak out and lose all my nerve. It was best to worry about the here and now – not what could happen.
“And what’s this?” Bobby stopped in front of me and leveled his eyes with mine. “A new one? She’s very pretty.”
I sneered, but didn’t say anything. There was a fine line between being confident and suddenly finding myself with a dagger in the chest.
“You think you’re hot stuff?” he asked.
Watching his dark blue eyes, I saw the flicker of evil behind the intelligence. It was the same thing I’d seen in Theo the Gorgon’s eyes. An insatiable desire to commit harm and violence. It was as if their brains had been hardwired wrong at birth. I never saw that flicker in my brother, Nicky. Maybe that’s why I didn’t saw his breakdown coming.
I pressed my lips together. Bobby Caro could think whatever he wanted. I wasn’t bowing down to him.
The muscle in his jaw tensed. It was my only warning before he struck me with his open hand, nearly unhinging my jaw in the process. I fell back against the broken drywall, adding another dent in the crumbling stuff. A poof of drywall dust floated to the ground and left a thin white layer on my black boots and Bobby’s shiny loafers.
