Chapter 9 #3
I pull the lighter from my pocket before he gets the chance to tuck the joint away for later. That will not do.
Rolling my new Zippo over my fingers, like one would a coin, they watch, mildly amused by the simple trick, when the lighter lands between my middle and index finger. After thumbing the lid open, I strike the flint wheel, and the enticing blue flame springs forth.
“ Allow me .” I hold the flame out to him, maintaining a neutral expression as if indifferent to whether or not he accepts. When he hesitates, I allow the smallest, crooked grin to pull at the corner of my mouth and stare him down. Words are not required to convey my opinion of him...
Pussy!
He caves under my emasculating assessment. Leaning forward with the laced joint in his mouth, he takes a few puffs to ignite it. As I anticipated he would, he takes a few hits before passing it to his partner.
“So, what are you? Some kind of magician or something?” he mockingly asks, cocking his chin at the Zippo in my hand. I presume his resentment stems from my influence over his willpower… what little of it existed .
“You could say that.” I offer him another smile. “I intend to make an appendage or two disappear inside your little gash upstairs.”
His partner chokes on his smoke, fighting back a surprised laugh… I need to get upstairs, quickly!
“Enjoy the joint, gentlemen, as thoroughly as I intend to enjoy myself tonight.”
“ Forty minutes ,” the resentful one reminds me, pulling a nice, long drag as he scowls.
I turn from them, sneer unseen, and make my way up to the girl’s room to await their rapidly impending deaths.
M y knuckle raps lightly on the motel room door.
“Who’s there?” a timid voice calls from within.
“The man of your dreams,” my sarcastic reply.
“I’m so sure...” I barely hear her little scoff, but she opens the door and steps aside, allowing me into the room. She doesn’t lift her eyes to meet my gaze, however.
The dingy room reeks of pot and pussy. The girl before me is a shell of the one whose picture had been planted all over the news back in North Carolina…
and she looks beat, in every way. I note the raw wrists and bruised arms, which she wraps around herself.
I shut the door and continue to appraise her.
Dark circles under her eyes, rug-burned knees, and her once normal and healthy body of a typical nineteen-year-old is now frail and obviously malnourished…
I grit my teeth.
I know I am fucking scum …but I never allowed merchandise to be run ragged like this… I never held them prisoner .
“You can call me whatever you’d like. Or you can call me…” her voice drifts on a tone gnarled with moroseness, “ Caroline …”
Caroline … As if her existence wasn’t miserable enough, trafficked into this life of sex slavery…they mock her with a constant reminder of what her life had been before she was stolen… Caroline, taken from the Carolinas. That’s vicious, even by my standards.
“I’ll do whatever you like…” she goes on, staring blankly at the carpet. “Nothing is off limits…”
“ Cassidy .”
Her face lifts. The distant expression in her eyes shifts to something more present as the sound of her real name registers.
“That is your name, isn’t it?”
She doesn’t answer. Fear eclipses her hazel eyes… Fear of punishment. She’s wondering if our encounter is a test of her broken spirit. If the will to escape still lingers. Her silence is evidence that she once tried and suffered the consequences.
Cassidy Jones. I know you did not ask for this life, and I am sorry I inadvertently brought these fiends into your world. Perhaps I am just as guilty as they are…
“I have searched for you, for a long time, Cassidy… Come with me now, and I will bring you back home to North Carolina. You will see your family again. I give you my word.”
The pulse in her neck quickens. Hope overtakes the fear in her eyes and demeanor. She straightens slightly, like a neglected houseplant finally given a few drops of water.
“ How?” she whispers. “If I leave this room, they’ll kill me.”
“They’re a bit preoccupied at the moment… killing themselves .”
Confusion contorts her expression.
“Come now. Time is of the essence.” I extend my hand to her. “There will be a changing of the guard soon. I was to be your last client this evening, then it would be back to your dungeon, would it not? Is that where you prefer to be?”
“No…but…”
“ Miss Jones , it has been a taxing journey to find you. To say that I am eager to put all of this behind us both is an understatement of the highest degree. I am leaving this state, right now , traveling back to your native Bermuda County . Am I leaving with or without you? Final offer .”
Her eyes dart nervously toward the door, then back to me.
“They are of no consequence, now,” I assure her.
“Who are you?”
“The dealer of death and new beginnings.” I attempt what I hope is another friendly smile. “But you may call me Legion .”
“Why are you doing this?” she whispers in lingering disbelief.
“ True love , Cassidy… I daresay the vexatious emotion has a way of driving one to madness, does it not?”
Another blank, hazel stare, though this time, she tentatively accepts my offered hand.
I hurry her down the stairs toward my bike. The two traffickers are no longer within view. I suspect, though I have no time to confirm, their corpses are lying on the pavement beside the van.
Another vehicle pulls into the lot as we mount the bike. The driver’s eyes immediately dart in our direction, and he recognizes the girl instantly. His surprise morphs rapidly into rage.
Understandable…all things considered.
Before he can draw his gun, I pull mine, firing several rushed shots at him.
The rounds punch holes in the driver’s side door and window, spider-webbing, then shattering the glass. He takes cover within the van as I continue firing, shifting aim at the tires before my magazine is out of ammo. Two of them blow out.
I don’t give him the chance to return fire.
With the girl clinging fearfully to my back, I take off on the bike for the Carolinas, engine roaring so loudly, I could just make out his threatening shouts…