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The sound of crickets and other insects compete against the sound of the beating of my heart. The fear of being alone in the middle of nowhere and detected, or bitten by a snake, or a rat, keeps my heart racing faster than it should. I swallow past the dryness in my throat, watching him slowly open and close the door ahead of me, and then begin to count. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, keeping up my internal mantra until three minutes have elapsed and only then do I begin crawling toward the door.
Liam grasps my hand and drags me the last bit of the way, half crouched from beyond the door. The warehouse is dark, and it takes time to adjust to the pitch-black darkness. Liam wears something over his eyes that looks like goggles. He takes my hand, leading me quickly to the back of the warehouse. My legs race to keep up to his stride and my eyes squint, trying to see as we reach the far corner where Nick is working.
Nick looks up at both of us, his goggles firmly in place as he turns. “Some of the ladies need stitches right away. I’ve been working on her the entire time to get the bleeding stopped.”
Liam kneels by the woman next to the one Nick is helping and pulls a plastic pouch from beneath his shirt. He unfolds it and removes alcohol, needles, and lidocaine for suturing.
“Not every state allows RNs to suture, but I was trained. I can help, just not in the dark.” I take my bag from where he’s placed it on the floor and open it up.
Liam hands me a set of goggles from his belt. “Put these on, and let your eyes acclimate. They’re razor sharp even in the blackest of conditions.” And good thing too, because the fuckers haven’t given these ladies one bit of light.
I adjust the goggles and look harder in front of me, focusing on what I’m seeing, and my chest tightens. A circle of women, back-to-back all wide eyed, frightened, and some of them with vicious cuts on their arms and wrists. The woman that Nick is caring for has multiple lacerations, some that he’s already sutured and one still bleeding. “They need more than we can provide. We need to call 9-1-1.”
“Not yet, Allie. The minute those sirens get anywhere near this location the whole warehouse goes up in flames. Suture what you can while I get the wires deactivated. No one open any of those goddamn cages until I do.”
I turn to glance around the room, but Nick’s deep bark pulls me back. “Don’t look. Focus on the task at hand.”
I move toward the women, scanning them all before crouching in front of the one who needs my help the most. She tenses with fear, looking up at me with a mixture of hope and heart-wrenching despair. “I’ll try not to hurt you, but I’m going to have to numb this up to suture it,” I whisper, opening my bag to get the items that I’ll need. Alcohol pads are hardly sufficient to ensure she doesn’t get an infection, but if I have a chance in hell of saving their lives, that’ll have to do. One of the ladies takes her hand, silently comforting her as I work to save her life. When I’ve finished, there’s no time for celebration, only a brief pause to stretch before moving on to the next as we each take care of the task in front of us.
It seems like hours later when Nick’s strong and steady voice comes through the headset. “Murphy, everything’s been deactivated. Let Marenah know we’re going to need a whole lot of help to get these women transported, and some are going to need to go straight to the hospital.”
“Roger that.”
Nick crouches beside me, cleaning up the items I’ve used while assessing my work. “Great job. You take this one, and I’ll take the other,” he directs, pulling out his own pack of suturing equipment and starting in on the woman beside me with gaping wounds. “The rest can wait until the crews get here.”
When we are finished, I stand and stretch, and my eyes wander past his head and into the rest of the warehouse. “Holy mother of…”
“I told you not to look.”
“So many, many women. We need to get them out of the cages, like right now.” Just seeing them like that raises my level of anxiety to unchartered territory. “You’re so calm. We need to get them out, Nick. Please?”
“Keep your voice down. If we didn’t get those detonators deactivated first, there would be no women to get out, and if we didn’t suture next, we would have lost them. It’s just a different assessment and triage than you’re used to. Now, we’ll get the women out.”
My brain knows what he’s saying is right, but my heart rages against everything about this situation and my triple A personality just has to do something to help. “Where are the keys?”
“No keys. We’re going to have to drill through the locks or cut the bars.”
“Nick, this is Maraneh. I heard the update but was on another call. We have our ears on and have transport en route,” the woman with the Russian accent speaks.
“Good. How far out are you?”
“Still about thirty minutes.”
“Roger that,” Nick answers, as he and Liam begin untangling the ladies from the wire their captors have used to tie them together. I clean up a few more superficial wounds as they do.
Marenah’s voice comes over the wire. “I have vans organized, and they’ll start coming in to get the ladies to safety on your order. ETA is five minutes. You want me to call in the bomb squad and ambulances, or no?”
“Negative, we can’t engage until we know there isn’t someone watching and ready to blow the goddamn facility up. Just get those vans here now. As soon as one is loaded and pulls onto the highway, another one comes in.”
“Copy that,” Marenah replies.
“Murphy, you have any update?”
“That’s a negative, Nick. We’re still working on it. Confirm the caution. No lights situation until we have those women in the clear.”
“Roger that, Murph.”
Nick turns to me. “Start walking the ladies toward the door,” Nick directs as he heads to the first of the prison-like cages that line the entire wall of the warehouse.
