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CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
RIFF
Their house.
I could have figured this shit out without bringing the eighteen-year-old smart-ass along with me. But here we fucking are. Me, Frogger, Bans, Byron, Slots, Uno, Pins, Rollin, and a few of his men that I didn’t bother getting their names.
She guides us all into the house, it’s not a big one. We take up the space of the entire living room. There isn’t much happening here, just a sofa and a television. Not even a coffee table or anything. It’s bare fucking bones. But it’s also very…empty.
It’s not just empty of actual things, it just feels empty too. All homes have a feeling of being occupied, but this one, it’s void. It’s cold. This is a fucking prison.
“So, what the fuck are we doing here?” I ask. “Picking up your panties or what?”
She turns to me, narrowing her eyes on me, obviously not liking much about me. But I don’t really give much of a fuck what or who she likes. I’m here for one thing and one thing only, to get these girls and then figure out what the fuck to do with them.
“They’re in the basement,jackass,” she snaps.
She lifts her hand and motions for us to follow her. Jerking my chin toward Frogger and Bans, I give them a silent order to stand guard. I’m not about to get fucking stuck in some basement in Louisiana. Why there’s a goddamn basement here in the first place, I don’t even know.
“This thing flood when you get hurricanes?” I ask as we make our way down the very narrow staircase.
“Yeah, it really does. He brings them up to the main part of the house and locks them in my bedroom when it does,” the girl explains as she flicks the light switch on.
When the lights are turned on, I look around the room in shock, though nothing should really shock me anymore. I feel like I’ve seen it all, except this. I have never seen this before and my entire body jerks at the sight.
Girls.
Four of them are chained to the wall by their necks, ankles, and wrists. They’re on the floor, but they have metal shackles around them with chains that are hooked to the wall. Fuck. They’re young too. Way too fucking young.
“What do we do with them?” I ask the room, not anyone in particular.
This is not my thing. This is not my situation. I came here to kill some fuckers, rescue a girl, and deliver her back to her people. None of this shit was on the menu. Not a single part of it.
Sucking in a breath, I look over to Uno to gauge his reaction. He is staring at the girls, his eyes wide and his lips parted. He’s fucking shocked, which bodes well for him, I don’t think I’ll have to kill him for this shit. It honestly looks like he had zero fucking clue this was going on.
“What happens now?” I ask.
The girl looks over her shoulder at me, her eyes focusing on mine before she speaks. “They’re all runaways. Their families probably don’t even know they’re gone and if they do, they don’t care. They need help.”
“Don’t work in healthcare or CPS, babe. Don’t know what the fuck should be done with them.”
“Well, I’m not going to just let you take them with no plan. They’ve gone through enough,” she says as if she has some kind of fucking choice.
Rollin takes a step toward her, then another. He turns to her, dipping his chin. “I’ll take them, Paige. My woman will make sure they get what they need and are healed.”
I don’t know why I even ask. I don’t really give much of a fuck what they do as long as it doesn’t involve me. But I do ask anyway. “What’s your woman gonna do?”
Rollin shifts his attention to me, his mouth turning up into a smirk. “My woman works for a battered women’s shelter here in town. They have resources and shit. I don’t know exactly what she has, but she’ll keep them safe and make sure they live.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” I say.
The girl, Paige, I know now… she walks up to Rollin, tipping her head back to look up at him. “I agree. It sounds like a really good plan. I like that for them. A life, a real life,” she whispers.
“Yeah,” he says. “But you can’t be here.”
Paige looks over to me, then back to him. “I can’t?” she asks.
Rollin shakes his head a couple of times, his gaze flicking over to me. I almost tell him to fuck off, because I know exactly what the fuck he’s going to ask,demand, whatever from me. It’s going to involve Paige and me, and I don’t know if I want any part of it.
