Chapter 33
KILLA
“Any ideas?” I ask Slash as we stare down at the dark marking.
“You think they had something on here?” he asks.
That was my thought too. It’s a perfect rectangle; the ground doesn’t look or feel the same as any of the other.
Savage slams the heel of his boot into the ground a few times. “Not something on here, but something under.” His eyes flare with intrigue.
“You think there’s something buried under there?” Slash says. “Like a bunker or something?”
The hairs on my neck stand, and I glance around the field; we could be sitting ducks. We’re spread out, all in various parts of the property, and I have an increasing urge to get Cass as far away from here as possible.
Savage moves into the tree line and returns with two thick tree branches. “Morgue, try to lift that side with Killa.” He gestures toward me. “Slash, you help me.”
We move into position, and he uses the tree branches to dig beneath the surface. “There’s definitely something under here. I’m guessin’ it’s metal. When I have these in place, I want you guys to pull your end, right?”
Morgue and I nod.
He wedges the branches into the ground and beneath whatever is under the dirt, and Slash and he move to the farther corner.
“Gonna have to get your hands in the dirt,” Morgue says as he digs around in ground. “’Bout five inches down, I can feel a wedge.”
“Grab it and lift on three,” Slash says.
“One.”
My fingers dig into the dirt, and I take hold of the wedge.
“Two.”
I tighten my hold on what is definitely something metal.
“Three.”
Our roars echo through the field, and the noise of the ground being ripped apart fills my ears, but it’s the smell hitting my nostrils that has me stumbling back and struggling to keep a grip on the metal.
“Push it back,” Savage barks out.
We all grunt as we push the metal to the side.
“Jesus, fuck, it stinks!” Slash bends over and heaves, spewing his guts up on the ground like a pussy.
“The fuck is this?” I stare down into the corner of the dark hole and slowly release the metal, leaving the space below only partially covered so I can take it all in.
“Death,” Morgue says, and he would fucking know; the man grew up around corpses.
“Looks like a shipping container,” Savage says.
“Shine your phone into it,” I tell Slash.
He swipes at his mouth, leans over, and shines the torch into the darkness, and each of us kneels to get a closer look. The stench is almost unbearable, and for a moment, I wish I had my T-shirt to cover my nose.
“What the hell?” Slash screeches.
“Hell’s about right,” I say, staring down at multiple rotting corpses. Rats scurry over the skeletal remains, and I wonder if one of them is my sister.
The same girl who cared for me when there was no other, the one who wiped my bloody knees with a tenderness foreign to us both.
As Slash moves the torch along the pile of decomposing bodies, something catches my eye, so I rummage in my pocket to take out my phone, and my heart hammers.
Is that?
There’s no way. Right?
A small blue toy car sits in the nearest corner of the container.
“Son of a bitch,” I mumble. My mind whirls back to months ago when the video clip presented to us showed a small boy in a dark space, looking utterly petrified.
How have I not seen it before now? That very same little boy looks at me with such bright eyes.
It’s not lost on me how different they now appear, yet they’re still the same.
The little boy I love like he’s my own.
Cass did that. Cass has transformed the horror from his eyes. She’s given him the strength to shine, and while I recognize her courage, it only emphasizes the cruel weakness I’ve bestowed upon her, making my heart pang with crippling guilt.
“What is it?” Slash asks.
“He kept the kid in here,” Morgue confirms while I stare transfixed at the toy car.
Those very same little cars he delights in playing with.
“What?” Slash exhales in horror, and I remain frozen.
How the hell can someone be so sadistic? No wonder my boy has such twisted nightmares.
“You’re going to make it hurt, brother. Make him fuckin’ pay.” Savage squeezes my shoulder, and unadulterated rage seethes from his wild eyes.
“You guys ain’t gonna believe what we found,” Raider says as he approaches. “What the fuck is that?” He points toward the open container with a grimace.
“Metal coffin. At least a dozen dead,” Morgue states.
“A shipping container, to be precise,” Savage clarifies.
“The hell?” Raider says, coming to a standstill, and he lifts his T-shirt to cover his nose. Lucky bastard.
“What you got over there?” Savage asks, with a flick of his chin in the direction of the property.
“We found a girl in a cage.” Hope springs into my chest, and he glances toward me, but he shakes his head solemnly. “She ain’t Alisha. She’s younger.” He stares at us pointedly. “Much younger.”
Jesus, this is bad. “Fuck.”
Raider nods. “Venom is loading her into the truck.” He lights a blunt. “What we gonna do with that?” he asks, pointing toward the cesspit.
Savage stands and clears his throat. “Gonna have to tip off the pigs. I’ll get Carson on it, make sure none of these are Alisha.” He swipes at the sweat gathering at his forehead, probably already thinking of the next headache.
Though Carson is a pig, he’s our go-to guy within an establishment we hate. Thankfully, he hates a lot of the system he works for too, and while he isn’t thrilled about having an MC in his town, it’s clear he would rather deal with us than the likes of the Vipers.
If he wasn’t a pig, I might actually like him.
I stare down into the darkness, and I already know she’s not down there. I can feel it. She’s still out there, fighting for a way to come back to me, and when she does, I’ll be waiting.
Between time, I’m going to fucking live.