Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
During our meal, they started the auction. The first items up for bid were the ladies who served as our buffet platters. For some oddball reason, they were being listed as a group sale. They all went for a hundred grand. The next item up for bid was a set of twins, age sixteen, who went for two hundred and fifty thousand. The auctioneer stated their hymens were still intact, but someone had trained them.
Yet another reason all these assholes deserved to die.
It went on and on through the list. At one point, Hunter squeezed my leg when a fifty-year-old cougar at our table purchased a twelve-year-old boy and boasted about how it was good to train them young. Since I wasn’t able to make her feel my wrath, she was going on my list. She might not die tonight, and maybe not tomorrow, but it would happen when she least expected it.
About an hour later, I’d had enough. The auction was almost ready to be concluded. The one thing we knew for sure was they wouldn’t hand the merchandise over until they concluded the auction and money changed hands.
So I needed to put our plan into action.
The plan was for me to go looking for the office
Just before they paraded the last couple of victims across the stage, I made my excuses to the table and left Hunter to talk with them while I went exploring.
It didn’t take me long to find the hallway I was looking for. According to the floor plans, the office I wanted should be just around the corner.
When I came around the corner, someone was already there watching guard. He wore a shoulder holster with his gun in plain sight. That would be mine before the end of the night.
“Can you tell me where the bathroom is?” I asked the man.
“You’re not fooling anybody, sweetheart,” he scoffed. “No one at these parties walks barefoot in search of the ladies’ room while carrying their heels.”
“I swear I’m just looking for the bathroom,” I whined, moving closer to the office door. “Daddy makes me wear these and my feet are all achy.”
God, I hated acting like a ditz.
“Sure, whatever you say,” he replied.
Feigning a stumble, I teetered in his direction, leaving him no recourse but to grab me before I fell.
“Oopsy,” I giggled, then ran my hands up his biceps. “You’re strong. Maybe Daddy will let you play with us tonight.”
What he didn’t notice was me grabbing my matriarch. Wrenching his arm behind his back, I overpowered him by placing the knife to his throat. Next, I quickly disarmed him and held the gun to the middle of his back.
Almost instantly, he stopped struggling.
“Where are they keeping everyone?” I asked, as I dug my knife further into his neck. The gun would be my last resort.
“What’s taking so long?” a familiar voice called from behind me.
“This asshole was guarding the door when I got here, so I had to be an airhead to gain an advantage over him.”
“So what’s the holdup, then?” Hunter asked as he moved closer.
“I haven’t convinced him to tell me where they’re holding everyone.”
“You might as well kill me now because if I tell you, they’ll do it.”
Getting nowhere fast, and not wanting to draw any more attention, we pushed him into the office. While Hunter secured him to the office chair, I raided the office and loaded everything onto a memory stick for Liam to process later. Liam was good at what he did, but we didn’t have enough time to wait for him to access all the data on the computers remotely.
Once we had everything, we trashed their security monitors and disabled all the surveillance. Then we went in search of the room where they were holding everyone. According to the office stooge, who spilled his guts when he found out who we really were, there was a room near the exit.
When we pushed open the door, I couldn’t believe my eyes.
They had stuffed all the people into one room like cattle. It was as if they were pushing the point home. Like they didn’t matter at all. Their captors wanted them to feel as though their lives were forfeit, and they had no choice but to accept it.
Their eyes widened when they realized we weren’t the guards. I held up my hands, hoping they wouldn’t cause a ruckus.
“We’re here to get you out,” I whispered.
The younger ones cried silent tears.
I couldn’t wait for us to get them out of here.
Hunter checked out the door and signalled for us to move. I waved my hand in a motion for them to follow us. Some of the older ones shook their heads, which made the youths stop moving.
Did they seriously not want to get out of here?
They had broken these poor souls to the point of not believing they were worth more than this. Hunter pulled out his cell phone and sent the text to signal for our pickup. We weren’t sure how many people they had in here, so there would be a couple vans waiting for us outside to transport them.
“We don’t have all night,” Hunter told me. “The guards are gonna do another round soon.”
I turned to the most defiant of the captives. “The auction is almost complete and then your new masters will come to claim you.”
“How do we know you’re not gonna do the same?”
“When we get you out of here, we’re gonna make sure they all pay for everything they have put you through.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Okay, how about this?” I began.
“Hellcat, we don’t have time.”
“Fine. I’ll personally make sure they die with their own dicks in their mouths.” I glanced around the room; some guys held their hands over their packages. “Let’s go.”
“Okay,” she responded. “If you’re lying, I’m gonna cut your boyfriend’s balls off.”
Then she pushed past me, following Hunter out into the hall. I stayed in the room until the last of them were gone. Then I followed them out the exit. Two vans were at the far side of the parking lot, with the doors held open. Reapers were helping each of our rescues one by one into the vans. Upon nearing the vans, one girl’s legs went out from under her. Hunter sprang to action, swinging her lithe body up into his arms. He glanced back to make sure I was behind him.
“Go, get her in the van,” I told him. “I’ll be right back.”
“You should never say that phrase. It’s not comforting at all.”
“You’ve just watched too many horror movies. Go. I need to find the girl who was on the sushi table. We can’t leave without everyone.”
With what I only had to assume was the last person loaded into the moving van, I shut the doors and tapped on the back. The driver waved out the window, and they were off. The skeptic in me considered the entire process a little too easy , but I chalked it up to Hunter not being beside me.
Just as I watched the van exit the parking lot into the street and take off, everything went dark.
Hands grabbed my arms, and two men forced me, kicking and screaming, back inside the building. Not being able to see through the cloth bag they had over my head wouldn’t stop me from thinking of ways to get out of this situation. The door clicked behind us as they forced me up against the wall and stripped me of the weapons they could find, then tied my hands behind my back.
After the struggle I put up, they tied me up real damned good, but they missed the weapon and memory stick between my legs.
They steered me down a long hallway by my wrists. The black cloth sack over my head stunk like dirty socks and old man farts. I didn’t even want to imagine what else had been in here before I had to breathe through it. It took everything in me not to gag as I counted my steps and memorized the path.
It might warrant a visit to our doctor to ensure I didn’t get crabs on my eyelashes or some disgusting shit.
It wasn’t like I could bleach my entire head.
They shoved me through a door straight at the end of the hall, but not before I heard Hunter shouting profanities at some other guards. He must have come back for me.
The idiot.
“Leave us,” a deep voice commanded from the other side of the room.
Gumba one and two released my arms. Then, without a word, they slammed the door shut behind me. I stepped back until I could lean against the wall. Heavy footfalls came in my direction. Then whoever it was, snatched the dirty cloth bag haphazardly off my head, causing my hair to go all static.
“Strip,” the bald brute told me.
“A little difficult with my hands tied behind my back,” I told him.
From the look of him, he must be back up muscle. With the black wife beater and dark blue jeans, he wouldn’t be working the floor. This had to be seen as somewhat of a respectable place, after all. Even if they were selling humans to the high bidders to do whatever they pleased, the assholes still had to keep up appearances. Everyone I saw working security tonight was wearing a suit and tie. This guy was the one you called when you didn’t want your suit to get bloody.
Too bad for him.
I wouldn’t be the one getting bloody tonight.