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“Like the shit shipping containers are made out of?” he demanded.
“The docks?” Dean shouted. They were in the fucking mountains. “How’d they get her to the fucking docks, Cas?” Sam wondered if he should pull over or keep shooting toward where they’d last seen that flashing red beacon of hope.
“No, not the docks,” Cas was quick to disclaim. “Dean, caves. I’m texting you guys a topographical map now and I’m in a car as we speak headed in your direction too. But we think she keeps popping in and out of a cave or something. I don’t know, what the fuck. But let’s get our asses up there and find out.”
“What about Grungy and the cops?” Dean wanted to know. There was a huge purple bruise on his face where Robby had cold-cocked him. He wanted some payback.
“That’s turning cold fast,” Cas told them, and fury rode clear through his voice. “I’ve got a team after the trail, but I decided to follow the trail that’s hottest, and that’s Kimberly’s.”
“What do you mean already going cold?” Sam demanded in frustrated rage. “They only had a five second head start!”
“Sam,” Cas’ voice was as weary as his hound dog face, “the scum has spent his lifetime under the radar. He’s spent his entire life hiding. But we’ve got his prints, face and we can nail down his name now that we know who his nephews are. The fucker isn’t going to last on the outside long this time. Let’s just go get your woman.”
The smellof human feces and dank earth mixed to make Kimberly’s eyes sting and bile rise and choke the back of her throat as she inched her way down the endless tunnel.
Kimberly could only remember one time in her life when she’d been this terrified. She’d been in a burning cabin with two naked and bound women to rescue then, too.
“I’m going to have to buy myself a cape and a mask,” she muttered in an attempt to bolster her courage. It didn’t work. Even with her sight adjusted, she couldn’t see anything—all the light seemed to just get absorbed into the rancid earth and unforgiving walls. Tears stung Kimberly’s eyes, tears of unmitigated rage. Who the hell did these people think they were to lock women up in here like this? It went beyond her understanding and Kimberly was frozen in shock. Only someone without a soul would do this to another living being.
At last, Kimberly forced herself to move and came to an opening. She’d only walked a few meters—it couldn’t have been far, but fear had made her feel as though the journey had been a trudge into Mordor. As she stood inside the mouth to the new cave, a fresh sob of anguish broke free. If there were any justice in the world, Kimberly would have been free to crumble to her knees and wail at the sight before her.
There was no justice here, though. And Kimberly was not free. She would never be free from this. Not ever.
Shawna had led her to the two remaining missing women. Grace Bridges and Ria Maine were naked and manacled. Their pale bodies glowed like ghosts in the gloom, and Kimberly saw jagged wounds, raw and seeping, on their too-thin limbs. The collars on their necks cut into their flesh the same as Sierra’s had. Kimberly sobbed as she rushed forward to the closest girl.
They huddled together in fear, tiny, frightened mice in a cage. Kimberly came to a shaky halt, then got to her knees beside them.
“Shh,” she soothed through her endless tears. “Sshhhush, it’s going to be okay soon. It’s going to be okay.” She swiped the back of her hand under her nose, then on the hip of her jeans, and didn’t give a fuck under the circumstances. “Here. My name’s Kimberly. I’m here to help.”
Perhaps it was because of the darkness, or perhaps it was because there were the two of them, but they showed less fear than Sierra had. Kimberly worked fast as they held each other and watched with wide eyes and silent trembling lips while she worked her bobby pin on first one vile lock then the next.
Once freed, the two women climbed up Kimberly’s legs like starving cats. Desperate as they clung for survival. The stench that hung onto them was as thick as the grime that coated their skin. Kimberly gulped back her sobs—the tears she could do nothing about, but these women needed her strength right now. They’d been strong long enough. It was goddamned time someone else was strong for them for a change. So, she didn’t utter a peep as she wrapped an arm around each brutalized woman and led them carefully from the cave.
Once they reached the wider mouth where she’d found Sierra, they cowered, at the end of their newfound trust and courage. Kimberly took two steps forward, unwilling to force a single thing on these women—if they wanted to wait there, that was fine with her.
“I’m going to go check on Sierra. And Shawna is here, too. She’s the one who found you,” Kimberly said with her back to the mouth opening so they could see the truth in her eyes. “Shawna saved you. She’s right outside. Everything is all right now. You’re safe now.”
“Well, sweet cheeks,” a sneering voice said from behind, “that’s where you’re wrong.”
Kimberly screamed and turned to see Master Lee and some piece of shit wearing a T-shirt with the wordsBobby Sneed is all you needprinted over his sunken chest.
They had guns on Shawna and Sierra.
“We got a name on Grungy, gentlemen!”Cas rang back for the third time as the Impala shot through the mountains like a bat out of hell. The sleek black muscle car ate up the road and the gas with all the feral greed of a hungry cat.
“What the fuck?” Dean almost bounced out of his seat and into his phone. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Nicole Lavern Campbell,” Cas told them.
They shared a looked that said they must’ve misheard.
“Hold up.” Dean pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do you mean to tell me, Cas, that son of a bitch we’ve been dealing with, that grungy, filthy, Joe Dirt, wannabe asshole is named Nicole Lavern? What the hell, man? Was he born a woman?”
“According to the sole unsealed juvenile record I was able to uncover, his father named him that. He was the second born. The first born got the boy name—the second born gets the girl name no matter what they happen to have between their legs, I guess. So, our Boy Named Sue spent one turn in juvie when he was roughly twelve years old. He was caught shooting stray cats with his grandpa’s twenty-two. Turns out it was on his grandmother’s orders—they had an infestation, but it was a twelve-year-old out there slaughtering strays like it was a slasher film. Shit, guys. I’m forwarding the pictures now. You aren’t going to believe what that kid did to those cats. And where the fuck did they get so many?”
Dean cursed viciously and Sam had time for one regrettable glance down before he threw the cell to the floor well of the car.
“Motherfucker!” he cursed.
