Chapter 16 Anna #2
A few of them looked at one another before one of the younger guys looked at me. “People are being taken by the boogeyman.”
My ears perked up. “The boogeyman? Have you seen him?”
The kid quickly shook his head and took off with his bag back toward the building.
“Has anyone seen the boogeyman in the woods?” I asked.
And yet again, all I got was silence before everyone funneled back to the building.
“Fuck,” my brother grumbled.
I wasn’t done yet, though.
They knew something.
“Here,” I said mindlessly as I passed off the first empty tote. “I’m sure there are people that didn’t come outside.”
“I’ll come with you,” Dozer said.
“No, you will not,” I said simply as I headed with the second tote toward the entrance of the warehouse.
When I felt my brother fall in line behind me, I spun around and shook my head at him. The last thing I needed were these people feeling too intimidated to speak to me. There was a young woman’s life on the line.
We had to figure out what the fuck happened.
My brother ground his teeth together but nodded just the same, and then I disappeared into the warehouse. Sure enough, there were a couple of people that were injured, their bodies bruised and bloodied.
“My God, what the hell happened to you?” I asked breathlessly as I rushed over to one of them and dropped to my knees.
Her eyes were wide with terror and she flinched away from me.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said softly as I stilled my hands. “I just need to see what kind of damage was done. You may need a doctor.”
She just scoffed. “Doctors don’t help us.”
“I’ve got access to a doctor who will,” I said, thinking about Doc, “but I have to take a look. Will you let me?”
The older woman scanned my face for a long time before handing me her wrist, which was so clearly dislocated. She hissed every time I attempted to move it, and the makeshift sling she had her arm in wasn’t doing her any favors.
“Do you have feeling in your fingers?” I asked.
The woman with the wrinkles on her face looked at me for a while before she shook her head.
“How long has it been like this?” I asked.
A smaller voice ended up at my side. “Could you look at my leg? I’ve got a gash.”
I looked over at the much younger woman. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen. “Of course, just sit there and give me a second.”
Before I knew it, I had a small line of people wanting me to take a look at things that had happened. Gashes and infections. Smells and things that were seeping.
“King!” I called out.
“What?” he barked from outside.
“You need to get in touch with Doc! He needs to get out here and help us!”
“I’ll place a call to Cap!”
“Thanks.”
The older woman spoke up, and I quickly found out that she was sort of the leader of this band of people that settled in the warehouse. They all looked at her before they spoke. They all followed her lead.
Which meant I had to get in good with her.
“Do you really know a doctor that will help?”
I smiled softly. “I do. He can set that wrist and make sure no damage has been done to your extremities.”
Another voice piped up. “Does he do stitches?”
“He does.”
“Does he have pain medication?”
“Tylenol, but that’s about it without a formal prescription.”
“Anything is better than nothing,” someone grumbled.
I made a mental note to start putting things like little bottles of Tylenol and Midol and stuff into the baggies I handed out to them.
“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” I asked the older woman.
She crooked an eyebrow. “So you’re not just here to help. I figured.”
I just cupped her good hand in between mine. “There’s a woman who’s been kidnapped. We’re trying to see if anyone saw anything that happened to her.”
No one answered me.
“Please,” I said softly, begging the older woman to lead the charge and tell me what she knew. “She’s only twenty-two. She’s just disappeared off cameras. Her mother is worried sick.”
But the older woman just stared at me.
Fuck, I had to get her to unlock somehow.
“You’re not in trouble,” I said as I sat down cross-legged and shook my head. “There’s no police in this. My brother and his crew are helping another crew from another town that has experienced the same kinds of kidnappings.”
That got the woman to tilt her head. “There’s been more than one?”
I nodded. “This is the first one in our hometown, but it’s not the first kidnapping. Whatever is happening, they’re pushing through territory. We’ve got to figure out what’s going on so that we can call the proper authorities. That’s all we’re trying to do.”
A small voice spoke up. “You’re not kicking us out of the warehouse?”
I turned my head toward the young woman. “Absolutely not. Though, I’m worried about you guys being out here with a kidnapping that happened so close. That’s it, though. No one’s kicking you out of anywhere.”
That was when the woman looked around at everyone who gathered around us before nodding her head.
“She’s safe. Speak.”
Someone piped up behind me. “There was a car.”
“We heard squealing tires.”
“They didn’t leave tracks, though.”
“No burning rubber, either.”
I sighed with relief as I asked my first question. “Did you see it? Or just hear it?”
“I saw it,” a choked voice spoke up.
I turned toward a woman whose age I couldn’t really clock. She was dirtier than the rest, and clearly very scared. Her blue eyes were wide and a bit bloodshot. I could have sworn I saw a bit of yellow in her eyes as well.
I needed to tell Doc that.
“Do you feel brave enough to tell me what you saw?” I asked softly.
“Come here, child,” the older woman said. “Sit by me. It’s all right.”
The woman slowly slipped through the small throng that gathered around me and sat right against the side of the older woman with the dislocated wrist. She tucked herself under the woman’s wing, and her voice was so soft that I really had to strain to hear her.
But I heard her just the same.
“She was running. Had headphones in. I only remember that because the headphones were sort of shiny. I thought they were pretty.”
I smiled. “That’s good. Thank you. Do you remember anything else?”
She swallowed hard. “The car. It was black. Came out of nowhere. I scrambled out of view and hid in some bushes.”
“What happened after that?”
The woman’s eyes got watery. “She didn’t even make a sound, you know? No screaming or anything. It all happened so fast.”
I gave her a moment to collect herself. “Did you happen to see how many men were in the car?”
She swallowed hard and sniffled. “Two got out. But neither of them got out from behind the wheel. They both came from the back.”
So at least three men, possibly four, were in the car. I logged that away. “You’re doing so good. Thank you. Do you remember anything else?”
She shivered. “They shoved her in the trunk. I swear, that’s all I saw.”
“I know, I know,” I said softly, reaching out and placing my hand on her shivering knee. “Thank you so much for all of your information. It helps us a great deal. Do you know how close you were to the warehouse when you saw this car?”
She shook her head softly. “I don’t know, I’m sorry.”
“She ran up on us from that direction,” the older woman said as she pointed. “I remember because I heard her crying when she ran towards the warehouse. I went outside to greet her.”
I smiled at the older woman. “Thank you for taking care of her.”
She lifted her head with pride. “We always take care of our own.”
I nodded. “As do we. Us women have to stick together, and right now, one of our own is in a hell of a lot of danger.”
“The boogeyman,” one of the girls whispered.
I nodded as I turned to face yet another young woman. “That’s right. We’ve got a boogeyman in these woods that is taking women, which means all of you need to stick together for now. No one goes anywhere without a buddy, and you stick to the places that you know have cameras. Got it?”
They all nodded their heads as I turned back to the young woman who saw everything. “Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything at all? Don’t leave anything out, any little tidbit is useful.”
She closed her eyes for a while before they bounced open. “The logo.”
I furrowed my brow. “Logo?”
She nodded. “On the car. It was on the side. I don’t know what it was, but the car did have a logo on it.”
Bingo. “Thank you so very much for helping us out. We greatly appreciate it.”
“Is she gonna be okay?”
I smiled softly. “We are going to do everything in our power to make sure that she is.”
One of the men piped up behind us. “Are there any more goodie bags?”
I peered over my shoulder before I tugged the tote I brought in with me toward him. “Here, take one.”
He smiled, showcasing his missing teeth. “Thank you.”
“If there’s anyone else that hasn’t gotten a baggie, please, take one to them.”
“Could we take another?” a small voice asked.
I shook my head and looked back at the younger woman. “Not until I know everyone here has had a baggie first. But if you guys stay put and stay safe, I’ll be back tomorrow with more baggies.”
The older woman’s eyes widened. “You will?”
I smiled and stood, dusting myself off. “Absolutely. But that means you guys have to stay safe and stay here so that I can come back and find you.”
The older woman nodded. “We can do that.”
“Could you bring food?” another man asked as he came up and got a goodie bag.
I nodded. “I’ll make sure to put more foodstuffs in these baggies.”
After divvying out the rest of the baggies I made up, I made my way outside with an empty tote bag. King tilted his head, and I gave him two thumbs up. It didn’t take long for me to be helmeted and slung on the back of his bike again, but I flipped my visor up when he spoke.
“Any good information?” my brother asked.
“Lots. We’ll talk about it while we’re shopping,” I said as I wrapped my arms around him.
“Shopping?” Dozer asked.
“Yep. Promised them another set of baggies tomorrow with more foodstuffs in them.”
King chuckled. “You must’ve gotten a lot of information.”
I flipped the visor down. “We’ll talk while we’re shopping. Let’s go. We don’t have any time to waste.”