Ranger
When I heard her soft snores coming from the closet, I smiled to myself. I heard her scrambling to make her bed in there, which tugged a grin across my face, but nothing ever prepared me for how beautiful her snoring was to me over the last couple of weeks.
I enjoyed hearing the soft sound pouring from her lips.
“Another meal accomplished,” I muttered to myself before I cracked my fingers. “Time to get to work.”
Whenever she was asleep, I worked. But whenever she was awake, she had my full attention.
I got a jumpstart on all sorts of things I was doing for the club.
Reworking some of our security protocols.
Arranging for another anonymous shipment of burner phones to be delivered, just in case.
I had enough burner phones for all of us to go through two of them, but Doc had already been through three and Brutus churned through them like it was his fucking job, so I had another shipment coming in our direction.
I also had footage to go through. I managed to get myself a little bit of covered satellite time.
Because all of our satellites in orbit were wildly locked down with protocols, it was only ever a few minutes at a time before I had to back out without risking getting caught.
But those few minutes were enough for me to pull a great deal of imaging of the state parks that took up and surrounded Redd Valley.
Protected land was one of the many things our satellites policed.
And I had a fuckton of still-life footage to scour through.
I had side-by-sides pulled up. I had thermal images pulled up.
I ran software to cross-compare all of the pictures so that it spit out a list of things for me to look at that were different between all of the pictures.
I got a good idea of the landscape and how it molded itself over the seasons we had here in Redd Valley.
But all of it came to a grinding halt when the snoring stopped and I heard a soft yawn coming from my closet.
I smiled as I swiveled in my office chair so that I could face the closet. “Sleep well?”
All that met me was another yawn, and it made me chuckle.
“Ready for the daily rundown?”
Silence. “Wait, it’s nighttime already?”
“Almost dinner time, in fact.”
“I’m sorry.”
I shook my head as I stayed in my seat. I wanted to gravitate toward the closet. “No need to be. You needed the rest.”
She yawned again, and I heard her shuffling around. “I’d like the rundown, please.”
I clapped my hands and swiveled back to my desk setup. This part of our routine had become the highlight of my days.
Recounting to her what I did so that she felt like she was part of us.
“Perfect. So,” I said as I clicked around, “the shipment of burner phones is supposed to be delivered either tonight or tomorrow night. Which is great, because I’m pretty sure Wrecker needs another one.”
“Why?” she asked softly.
I scoffed. “He’s so hard on his electronics. Him and Amanda probably threw it against the wall just for fun to see what would happen.”
“They do that?”
I chuckled as I continued typing around. “No, but you’d be surprised how many of his phones get ruined because he throws her around.”
I felt the tension pouring from the closet. “Why does he hurt her?”
Shit. “No, not a bad throwing around.”
“There’s a good throwing around?”
I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t want to even mention it. Doc told me not to, but it was clear as day when he looked her over two weeks ago that she was raped.
Repeatedly.
“When two people love each other, yeah,” I said as I paused my typing, just in case I had to field a panic attack.
She had a lot of those.
“Oh.”
I smiled softly. “But yeah. I’ll get you a phone, too, once they arrive.”
“Oh?”
I chuckled. “Yep. Got one with your name on it. Figured you might want to know the time, or the date.”
“Could I call someone?”
“If you’d like, sure. But we’ll have to know who you’re calling so we can make sure you’re safe, and it can’t be a phone call over thirty seconds. Those can be traced.”
She paused. “But you’d let me call someone?”
This was the longest yet she had talked with me, and I wanted to keep it going. “Of course. You’re not a prisoner here.”
She went silent after that. Which was disappointing. I wanted to keep talking with her. I wanted to keep learning about her. But she had to feel safe first, and my guess was she still didn’t feel that way.
God, I only imagined what they’d put her through.
“Is that all you did with your day today?” she asked softly.
I smiled at my computer screen as my fingers kept typing away. “Absolutely not. Wanna hear more?”
“Yes, please.”
“All right,” I said as I clicked around on some satellite pictures.
“I’ve got some aerial pictures of the state parks that blanket and surround Redd Valley.
We’re trying to pinpoint some things and where they are based on our experiences.
The map that you drew us has helped a lot with that, by the way, Marla. Thank you for that.”
“Wh—what do you mean?”
I heard the tremble in her voice. My God, she couldn’t even talk about that area of town.
“Well, we had a couple of our men go missing with their women not too long ago, and they remembered a lot that happened to them. Where they were. How they had to get back. We were able to line up some of their experiences with the map that you drew us, though there are some things on your map that we don’t recognize.
Hence, the satellite images that I’m pulling when I can.
I’m trying to piece together a road map of where they were, as well as where you were, and how all of you traveled to get back here. ”
“Oh.”
I smiled softly and continued. “Scout’s still going to town with those minutes from those meetings that I told you about, but we’ve basically been able to confirm that this law firm owns the car that chased you down when you first ran up on us.
We’re pretty sure that the cars with the law firm logos on it are the cars being used to kidnap you guys.
We’re also pretty sure that the law firm wrapped up in this is providing in-house counsel to this trafficking ring whenever they get into trouble, probably for major monetary kickbacks.
So those are all good connections to make. Means we’re getting closer.”
I heard her sigh heavily, so I just kept on talking.
“We’re still on lockdown and using the buddy system, so Ghost and I got out for a little while early this morning.
Did our patrols. I prefer the morning patrols.
I enjoy the sunrises over Redd Valley, especially when they’re orange and red.
Wrecker? He’s native to the area. He says that there are no other sunrises that he’s seen quite like the ones here, and I have to agree with him. They’re one of my favorite sights.”
I waited for her to respond in any way, but she didn’t.
I tried not to be disappointed. Maybe I overwhelmed her.
I had the ability to be a talker when I wanted to be.
And apparently, I really wanted to be around her.
“Also,” I said as I swiveled my chair toward the closet, “Cap is compiling a list of all of the women that have gone missing in the area and the surrounding towns dating back a year. Once he’s done doing that, we’re gonna use the buddy system to go door to door here in Redd Valley to ask if there’s anyone who disappeared without anyone reporting them missing.
We know that happens sometimes, for one reason or another, so we want to make sure we’ve got a compiled list going of all of the potential women that this syndicate could have taken. ”
That got her to speak. “Syndicate?”
“Yeah,” I said with a nod of my head as I crossed my arms over my chest. “We’ve pretty much determined that a sex trafficking ring is pushing into town. That’s who took you.”
I heard her let out a shaky breath, and I immediately got up from my chair. I walked over to the closet. I sat down in front of it, wanting to be there with her, even if it meant that I couldn’t see her.
“I know that’s a lot of information,” I said softly, “but you’re safe here. I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it. No one is getting to you here.”
“Promise?” she whispered.
“You have my word as a man, and my honor as a soldier," I said.
That made her pause. “You were in the military?”
I smiled with pride. “Staff Sergeant in the Army Rangers.”
“But you don’t serve anymore?”
My smile slowly slipped off my face. “No, I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t take orders I don’t agree with.”
“Oh.”
I was glad she left it at that.
I didn’t like talking about that part of my military career.
A knock came at the door and she yelped before I heard her shuffling around.
“It’s okay, you’re okay,” I said softly as I stood, “it’s just someone at the door. Announce yourself!”
“It’s Cap.”
“See?” I asked as I turned back to the closet. “Just big ol’ Cap. No one else.”
Her breathing was shaky. “Okay.”
“Okay. I’m gonna move to the door. I’ll be right back.”
“You’re coming back, though?”
“Absolutely, Miss Marla. You have my word.”
She sniffled softly. “O—Okay.”
“Okay,” I said as I reached for the doorknob and cracked open the door.
I glared up at Cap and pointed to the sign on my door that said, ‘no knocking.’
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “The burners are here.”
That perked me up. “All thirty-six of them?”
Cap nodded. “Opened up the box and counted them.”
“What did he say?” Marla asked.
Cap froze. “Was that her?”
I just nodded. “The burner phone delivery arrived. Would you like yours?”
“Yes, please.”
Cap’s eyebrows shot up on his head. “Um, hi. Hello. I’m Cap.”
She paused for a while before she, surprisingly enough, responded. “Hi, Cap. I’m Marla.”
God, she even introduced herself.
Finally, we were making progress.
Cap beamed at me and thumbed over his shoulder. “They’re in the kitchen. Figured you’d wanna organize them and put them up like you do.”
“Thanks,” I said as I slipped out of the room. “I’ll be back, Marla.”
“Okay.”
I was glad that she let me use her name more and more.
Even though she finally introduced herself to me a few days back, I didn’t want to overdo it.
If there was anything that Wrecker taught us about his time as a prisoner of war, it was the fact that sometimes, familiar things like a name or even a favorite food could become overwhelming.
So I tried to keep a lid on the want to treat her as normal. To treat her as if nothing happened.
I was glad she let us use her name now, however.
There was excitement around the phones. The girls automatically exchanged numbers while I preloaded all of the crew’s numbers onto the phones before I divvied them out.
We didn’t need to change over phones as often as we did, but there was no measure too great or too small for the venture we had taken on.
I was paranoid about technology, and for good reason.
Especially since we had tire tracks appearing all around our compound a few miles out.
I didn’t want to tell Marla that part yet.
I didn’t want her to think they were coming after her, when in reality, the crew made ourselves a target because we were protective as fuck.
“Aaaaall right,” I said as I slipped back into my bedroom and closed the door behind me, “one locked down, safe as hell burner phone, coming right up.”
I heard her shuffling around in the closet before she came close enough to the cracked opening in the door for her shadow to spill out into the room. She slid her hand through the little opening, and I smiled as I slid the burner phone into her hand.
“I’m glad you’re letting us use your name a bit more,” I said as her hand disappeared back into the closet, along with the phone.
“Why?” she asked softly as a small light illuminated through the wooden grating of the sliding closet door.
I could’ve sworn I saw her form hunched over the phone in there.
“Because it means you’re getting less skittish with us,” I said as I sat down next to the closet. “You weren’t a fan of us using your name in the beginning.”
“Sorry about that,” she muttered.
Her voice was so strong now that she’d been talking so much.
I wanted to keep hearing her speak.
“No apologies,” I said with a shake of my head. “Wrecker said it was very normal. He was captured once behind enemy lines, and he said that he couldn’t stand to hear his name for weeks after the fact. Said it reminded him—”
“Of the way his captors said it,” she finished.
My heart shattered. I hated that she knew. “Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
I didn’t know what to say after that. I sat there for a while, listening to the little tippy-taps of her fingers against the screen of the phone.
I leaned my head against the closet door, just listening.
Was she typing out a text to someone? Playing one of the games I preloaded onto it for her? Was she logging into—
“Don’t log into any of your social media,” I said quickly. “If you have them, that is.”
There was silence for a while before she spoke. “That stuff isn’t really my thing.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Okay, good. The other girls weren’t happy that they couldn’t access it yet, but lockdown is lockdown for a reason.”
Silence fell between us once more before my eyes found the charger of the phone sitting on the floor next to me.
“Oh, here, take this,” I said as I slipped the charger through the cracked opening of the folding closet door. “There’s an outlet somewhere on the wall of the closet. You’ll be able to keep your phone charged in there as well.”
I saw the rest of the cord disappear into the closet as she picked it up. “Thank you.”
“You don’t ever have to thank me for the necessities, Marla.”
“Oh.”
And with that, I smiled to myself as I stood. “Ghost is taking the evening watch with those cameras I told you about. You know, the ones in the law firm?”
“The security cameras, I remember,” she said softly.
She remembered.
She retained the information I gave her.
Fuck. Yes. “Yep, those are the ones. I turn those cameras over to him once night falls, so if you need anything at all, I’ll just be putzing around on my computer. You won’t be interrupting anything.”
“Okay.”
As I pushed myself up from the floor, I made my way to my desk in the corner.
I knew she’d have a direct line of sight of me through the crack in the closet door, and I wanted to make sure it stayed that way.
My back hated the fact that I slept upright in my desk chair, but if she ever woke up in the middle of the night and peeked out that crack, I wanted to be the first thing that she saw.
I wanted her to know that I wasn’t leaving her alone and vulnerable, no matter what.
I was hopeful, really. Hopeful that she’d pull through this.
Hopeful that we’d all make it out of this.
Hopeful that we’d be able to push back the syndicate with the information we gathered.
And hopeful that she’d be able to reclaim some sense of normalcy for her life again.
If that was what she wanted.
All of us just had to play our cards right.