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“Hey, my name’s Roxy, what’s yours?” I see other faces move closer to the bars, coming to see what’s happening, and I swallow hard.
“I just have a number now.” She lifts the dirty nightdress she’s wearing to show me her thigh, and I can’t help the gasp as I see the small number 56 branded into her skin. “But my name used to be Hope.”
My heart is literally lying in tatters inside my chest right now. This darling girl has been through…fuck knows what, but her name personifies what we all need to have. Hope.
Keeping my tears at bay, I slip my hand through the bars as I sense someone behind me, it’s Maddox, and Hope’s eyes watch him. There’s no fear of this giant man as she reaches out to grip my hand.
“Nice to meet you, Hope. There are some people who are going to take care of you now, but you can trust them okay. I promise. No one will ever hurt you again.”
Her breath quickens and her eyes do widen for a fraction of a second, but then she nods her head. A policewoman comes over to unlock the door, and Maddox and I step back.
As soon as the door opens, Hope runs right to me, wrapping her arms around my waist. I lay my hand on her head as she squeezes me tight. After a minute, I pull her arms from me and crouch down to her.
“I need you to go with Officer Cheshire now, but I’m going to come and see you as soon as I’ve finished here. Do you understand, Hope?”
She nods, then leans in to whisper in my ear. “I don’t like that man in there, Roxy.”
Fuck! “Me neither, but you won’t ever see him again,” I whisper back to her.
She releases me and looks up to Maddox, smiles at him then takes the hand of Officer Cheshire. I know she’s one of the good ones, so I’m happy to let Hope go with her.
I watch as the other girls are all led from their prison cells, from hell on earth. There are six in total including Hope, and my heart breaks as each one passes me.
As the last one leaves, Mitch enters, and his face drops immediately.
“I…fuck!”
When he walks to the closed door of the bedroom, I call out to him, “You might not want to look in there.”
His head turns to look at me. “Screw that!” he says, opening the door. It takes a minute, then he’s shouting obscenities and cursing Rogers. When he dives on Rogers, laying into him, I let him go for it, then I tap Maddox to stop him before he takes it too far. I don’t want this to taint Mitch. The man is a saint with a side order of devilish, but he’s not a killer. He’s not even bent in the traditional sense.
“Enough, Mitch. Enough,” Maddox says, pulling him away. “He’s not worth it. Not for you anyway. He’s ours.” He turns to look at me as he says it.
Shutting the door on Rogers, who is now sporting a cut to his lip and eyebrow, we walk Mitch back outside.
Stopping, Mitch already knows what I’m going to say. “I have something I need to do. We’ll catch you up.”
“Okay.” He kisses me on the cheek then walks away.
Maddox follows me back inside the barn and as we reach the door, I pause to pull the knife from my boot. Stepping inside, Maddox closes the door. While I’d love nothing more than to hear him scream, it’s too risky. But I’m happy that the last thing he’ll ever hear are the screams in his own head.
Thirty minutes later, Maddox and I step out of the barn, him lighting a cigarette and me carrying a bottle of whiskey with the gag from Rogers’ mouth stuffed in the top. After taking a couple of puffs of his cigarette, he passes it to me.
Taking it, I inhale deeply as something like peace settles inside me. Then when I’ve had my fill, I bring up the bottle in my hand and light the white cloth sticking out of the top with the fag in my mouth. Once it’s alight, I fling it over my shoulder. The barn goes up in a blaze of flames as Maddox and I walk away.
Epilogue
Roxy
Two weeks later
I drop the newspaper to the table in front of me and pick up my cup as Mitch comes into the kitchen.
“You’ve seen it then?” he asks, pouring himself a cup of coffee from the pot that’s become a permanent part of the kitchen.
“Uh-huh. Not exactly the light read you might want at breakfast on a Saturday morning. But still, it put a smile on my face.”
“Hmmm, mine too funnily enough. But I’m guessing I don’t want to know if you had anything to do with this, right?”
