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“Jesus,” Hound mutters, in the way an annoyed dad would when one of his kids does something stupid. “Did it cut through your boot?”
“No,” Newton answers. “But I fell, and I’m pretty sure my fucking wrist is broken.”
The man has his arm cradled against his chest.
“Someone help him out of that thing,” Hound snaps.
Slick and I step forward and work together to spread the gnarly teeth on the trap so Newton can pull his foot out.
“Shit,” he mutters. “That’s going to bruise like a motherfucker.”
“What the hell were you doing back here anyway?” Hound growls.
“Had to take a piss.”
“And you’re supposed to be the smart one,” Hemlock mutters as he holsters his sidearm.
“We have a fucking job to do. Anyone have any objections to that?” Hound snaps in annoyance.
A rumble of agreements rolls through us.
“You’re sitting this one out. Slick, call the locals and see if we can’t get Mr. Doesn’t Fucking Pay Attention to a hospital.”
She nods and pulls her phone from her pocket at Hound’s direction.
We’re all given burner phones on each mission, with the numbers programmed in it in case we need any kind of help. We don’t have to use them often, but when we do, it saves us from having to lose precious minutes trying to figure out who to call.
“The compound is only half an hour away in Tumbaco. He said we’ll never make it inside. They have traps.” Hemlock points over his shoulder toward the direction Newton just left with Slick. “It’s going to take some time to get inside the house.”
Despite the warnings the man gave Hemlock, the local police were able to tell us that the address we were given wasn’t occupied until a couple of days ago. Although he could’ve been telling the truth, the men we’re looking for haven’t had a whole lot of time to fortify the house they’re renting.
We also know from experience that minimal effort is put in because they move from one location to the next so often. These disgusting people move these sex trafficked children to where the clientele is rather than expecting those perverts to travel to them.
The drive over is done in a handful of vehicles so as to not to spook the locals. It only takes a couple hundred dollars for people to not only turn a blind eye to what’s going on in their own backyards, but to also quickly alert the traffickers if they suspect someone is coming to shut them down. The longer the kids are kept in one place, the more money the people surrounding their den are making. When there are people in your family starving, the demise of others becomes a little less important.
It takes three hours to clear the house. We find six of the remaining eight children we were looking for alive. The other two were already gone before we even landed in Ecuador, but knowing that doesn’t ease the guilt that swims inside of me when I see those tiny little body bags being carried out the front door.
Getting sixty percent of the kids back to their families isn’t the best number, but it’s a better percentage than we’ve been getting lately. The need for teams like Cerberus is only growing, and I fully understand the need for domestic teams to fight in the US. Maybe we could increase those percentages if we were able to stop children from being pulled from in front of their houses in Florida, Ohio, and Georgia. I’m fully aware that one team on the east side of the United States is not going to be enough, but I know we need to start somewhere.
Once we’re done and heading back to the hotel, I pull out my phone and shoot off a text to Beth. We’ve been here for nearly a week, and we can’t leave until tomorrow. I hate the idea of spending yet another night away from her, but we’ve kept up with texting each other when we can. It’s just not the same as feeling the warmth of her body next to mine.
Unlike all the other nights, I just let her know that I’m okay rather than hinting at wanting her to send me pictures of her lying in our bed. I need her in a much different way now than I did the nights leading up to tonight and, honestly, I don’t know if it’s okay to yearn for her comfort when all we agreed to was sex and fun.
Chapter 24
Beth
I look out the window for the millionth time since I got to the shelter this morning.
According to Derrick’s short text last night, he’s due back this afternoon, but that hopeful part of me keeps thinking he might get home a little earlier than he mentioned.
Max, one of the Cerberus guys who works IT for the club, nods at me when he spots me in the window.
