Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Two rows of hydraulic operation tables extend before us, six on either side for a total of twelve. Stainless steel reflects the sterile overhead lights.
Six of them are occupied. Men and Women.
All of them are restrained and unmoving.
I sway on my feet and try to battle the feeling of queasiness.
My vision stabilizes, and I hastily take in the room.
Most of them have their legs spread wide in stirrups, completely naked with vaginal and anal plugs inside of them. The arrangement feels less like medical care and more like preparation.
Every table is flanked by monitors and machines.
Heart monitors chirp regularly. IV pumps deliver a constant flow of medication.
Ventilators hiss in measured intervals beside the unconscious bodies, their tubing winding through sheets and restraints.
Oxygen monitors blink softly with dim light.
Wires, tubes, and cables stretch in every direction, transforming the room into a maze of machinery designed to keep its occupants alive but under someone else’s control.
After the initial shock wears off, we take a few wary steps farther into the room.
That’s when I see it. Scars.
Dozens of them, crisscrossing abdomens like a roadmap of suffering. All are in different stages of healing. Some are thin, pale lines while others are angry and red, standing out starkly against damaged skin.
My stomach bottoms out as I take in the worst part of it. Several of the bodies bear large, raised wounds, raw and inflamed. Grid-like sections of flesh missing, leaving a disturbing patchwork of scar tissue and healing skin.
This isn’t medical or humane.
It’s skin harvesting.
That’s when I see her, the woman that jackinthebox149 just purchased. She’s naked and under anesthesia, unmarked with a white sheet over her, stopping right at her neckline.
Based on the time she was purchased, she has only been under for a few hours or less. By the looks of the rest of them, I’m not sure how long they have been here.
Cassidy is still clutching jackinthebox149 to her with the knife at his throat.
As the shock loosens its grip, a woman’s absentminded humming carries through the mechanical noise.
In the back corner, all I can see is a man’s head swaying slightly back and forth, close to the floor. A dark pool of blood widening below him.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
A high-pitched tinkling travels through the space like rocks scraping together.
I latch onto jackinthebox149 and shove him to his knees, squashing my boot on his injured foot. A pained wheeze escapes him.
“Don’t fucking move, and if I hear a sound come out of you, I’ll remove your tongue from your mouth,” I seethe.
He shrinks in on himself, doubling over, any fight he had snuffed out.
Cassidy squints over at me, the knife practically fused to her hand. Her knuckles are bone-white around the hilt. I keep my Glock at the ready, my finger resting alongside the trigger guard.
We wordlessly split apart, creating distance between us as we move toward the woman. She hasn’t noticed us. Her attention doesn’t waver on whatever she’s doing.
As we advance, we cage her in. Then I see what has her so captivated as the scene comes fully into view. Horrific doesn't begin to cover it and for a moment I forget how to breathe.
A man hangs upside down from the ceiling, naked, with his legs spread forming a V-shape, a hook jutting through the area above both of his ankles. His arms dangle uselessly toward the floor. A slow sway sets him in motion back and forth as the weight of him pulls a strained metallic groan.
In front of him stands a woman in blue scrubs, too clean for this room.
Bose noise-canceling headphones sealed over her ears, explaining why she didn’t detect us entering the room.
A surgical mask hides the lower half of her face, but her eyes are unchanging as she is in a robot-like trance.
Blue gloves cling tightly to her hands and in one hand she holds a fillet knife.
The knife is built for preciseness, thin and tapers to a fine point, allowing it to slip cleanly along bone and under skin with minimal to no resistance.
Cassidy and I are rooted in place, struck with stunned disbelief as we watch her analyze the man, or what is left of him, and then slice a piece of skin from his body, tossing it into the cooler propped up beside her.
From his head to his torso, the first two layers of skin have been removed, leaving behind the deepest layer, so he is a yellowish like color. The only skin still intact is on his legs. His internal organs are held in place by his abdominal wall muscles.
In other places, I see muscles and tendons where she cuts deeper. His corneas have been extracted, and all that remains are empty eye sockets. All the skin has been delicately removed from his face.
That’s when I remember an article I came across months ago.
It talked about wealthy buyers paying obscene amounts of money for human tissue because they believed by consuming it that it could preserve their youth.
At the time, it sounded too grotesque to be real.
But after everything we’ve seen over the last two years, I know better.
There are people in this world willing to spend fortunes chasing immortality, no matter who gets hurt in the process.
I jerk my head in Cassidy’s direction; she observes me, and her eyes search mine for what to do next.
I look over to where we left jackinthebox149, stationary and on the floor where we left him. I raise my eyebrow as confirmation.
At once, Cassidy lunges at the woman, tackling her at the waist, catching her off guard, and they hit the ground with a heavy, dull thump, sending the knife flying in the opposite direction.
In the span of a breath, Cassidy is straddling her stomach.
The woman is thrashing all over the place, so Cassidy rears back her fist and it connects with her jaw, forcing her face to the side.
A bone crunching sound fills the room as the woman groans.
Cassidy lets her rage take over and unleashes on her face, landing punch after punch.
Blood gushes from her nose. Then Cassidy hops off her and kicks her onto her stomach.
Containing her wrists and removing a zip tie from her vest, she fastens them behind her, along with her ankles.
I retrieve the fillet knife as Cassidy hauls her to the chair in the corner, strapping her to it with more zip ties.
The woman moans and her head rolls to the side, blood flowing from her nose.
Cassidy stands in front of her and lifts her hand, palm open and unhurried, and delivers a sharp slap across her cheek.
I don’t step in; I don’t need to.
This is hers.
I move to the side, giving her space but staying close enough to step in if she goes too far.
The woman starts to speak, and Cassidy’s hand slaps across her other cheek.
The woman gasps, head snapping sideways.
Cassidy grips her chin harshly, dragging her gaze back up to hers, and then her eyes flick past Cassidy at the man behind her, at what she did.
At that moment, I feel it too, that cold, crawling rage under my skin.
“Look at me,” Cassidy digs her fingernails into her skin.
“Please, you don’t understand,” she pleads, disoriented and fear written across her face.
“Stop.”
Cassidy withdraws her hand from her chin but doesn’t give her any space.
The woman breaks into sobs.
“Please, I can explain.”
Cassidy squats in front of her and smiles.
“Oh, you will,” she whispers ominously. “You just haven’t realized yet that you don’t get a choice.”
I brace myself against the counter off to the side, planting my forearms against it for balance, still holding my Glock, observing. This is Cassidy’s arena now.
The woman’s eyes flit between us.
She stutters, “I, I don’t know what you think you saw.”
Cassidy’s hand shoots out, grasping her jaw until her lips part.
“I don’t think,” she spats out. “I know.”
Cassidy inches closer; her voice deceptively kind, “Let’s try this again.”
She takes her time releasing the woman’s face, her fingertips trailing along her jawline in a gesture that almost resembles affection.
“Who are you working for?”
The woman’s throat bobs as she swallows, then shakes her head, “I’m nobody, I’m just staff.”
A knowing look crosses Cassidy’s features.
Then she stands up, hitting her thighs with both of her hands and turns in my direction a bit, “Ghost.”
I already know what she wants from me.
I shove off the counter and proceed to place the knife down on the metal tray nearby her, bringing it into view.
The woman freezes mid-breath.
Cassidy inclines her head, studying her like she’s something to be dissected.
“You were very focused when we walked in,” she states without a trace of emotion. “You’ve done this so often it doesn’t even register anymore, does it?”
Her stare hardens.
“That’s not ‘just staff’.”
The woman recoils, her head moving in frantic denial. “You have no idea, if I don’t do it, someone else will.”
“There it is,” Cassidy cuts in.
She crouches in front of her again, leisurely this time, making it known she’s completely in control.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
The woman’s voice cracks, “They’ll kill me.”
“That’s not your problem right now.”
The room goes utterly silent.
“I am,” Cassidy reveals, her voice softens, somehow making the words more terrifying.
“And right now,” she admits in a whisper, “I’m the only thing standing between you and what comes next.”
Cassidy extends a hand toward the knife and holds it up closer to her face, inspecting it, specks of dried blood still on it.
The woman breaks.
“I don’t know names,” she wails. “Everything is compartmentalized; we receive shipments. I’m in charge of selection and packaging.”
“You’re that detached, you call human beings shipments?”
Cassidy runs the tip of the knife from the end of her eyebrow down her face and stops at where the cheek begins, thick fatty tissue.
The woman goes rigid, fear ravages her.
In a split second, Cassidy plunges the knife all the way through her cheek and severs it in two.
A ragged scream rips out of her.
The nerves are detached, and the wound is bleeding profusely down her body.
She’s choking on her own blood now, emptying her mouth in agitated bursts.
“Where are these people coming from?”
She delays too long on answering the question, probably weighing what it will cost her.
Cassidy skips the pretense and acts; her arm retracts in a flash as she stabs the woman’s other cheek and, with both hands on the handle, slices through all the way to the corner of her lip again.
She cries out in pain while she dissolves into sobs, her head dropping forward as more blood copiously pours down her face, staining her blue scrubs red as the blood splashes when it connects with the floor.
Sputtering, she claws for air to answer, “There are no exact locations, only that it comes through different channels. Mostly cartel routes and sometimes private.”
She whimpers, the sound catching in her throat.
Cassidy’s attention shifts to me, her eyes pin mine. The last question, and I already know what it is before she voices it.
Her focus locks onto the woman again. “How many are here?”
This time, the woman garbles as her mouth is full of blood, “Down that hallway are two bedrooms. In one room, there’s a doctor and a nurse. In the other bedroom, I’ve never asked.”
Cassidy’s eyes thin as she circles the woman, pure rage radiating off her.
She halts beside her, considering her next move as the pressure in the room mounts.
“Please, just let me go, I’ve told you everything.” As she hacks up blood.
Cassidy studies her again. “You told me what you could. I saw what you did with your bare hands. What you are doesn’t get mercy, you get The Reaper.”
Her fingers wrap around the handle with her thumb locking over her index finger as the blade points forward, arching her arm behind her back, she takes in a deep breath, her upper lip lifts, exposing her teeth, into something feral, and she stabs the woman in the neck repeatedly, deepening the lesion.
Ensuring to rupture the carotid artery. Bright red blood sprays everywhere, pulsating in a high volume as large splashes and mist-like droplets cover Cassidy’s face and upper body.
Time distorts around her until she finally stills and looks up, breathing heavily.
I tip my head, gesturing toward the door in the back corner. “Hallway.”