Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Tyler takes out his phone from his vest as soon as we are inside. The light from the screen highlights his sculpted jawline while he types fast.
I know he is texting the rescue crew and letting them know they can come inside now. Every minute counts if we are going to get them out of here alive. After the text is sent, he puts his phone back in the pocket on his vest.
The warehouse sprawls endlessly before us in artificial lighting while murky shapes crowd the corners of the room. Rainwater drips from our clothes onto the concrete floor creating patches of water while low distorted music hums, making goosebumps form down my arms.
Then one of the girls makes a weak sound.
I almost miss it from the storm clattering the warehouse roof.
A torn little cry comes from the nearest cage, feeble and frightened, cleaving my attention to her.
She can’t be older than twenty. Bruises mark her ribs and wrist, and the emptiness in her eyes tell me that this is something that will reduce her to a shell of who she once was.
Her body is drawn into the corner of the cage, desperate to take up as little space as possible, quaking helplessly as I near the bars.
Her entire body recoils.
“No,” she rasps out agitatedly, scrambling backward. “Please don’t!”
“It’s done.” My voice comes out rougher than I mean for it to. “We’re getting you out.”
The look she gives me is filled with pure heartbroken disbelief, as if hope is something too dangerous to hold onto anymore.
Of course she doesn’t believe me, not in a place like this.
I take stock of the tremendous warehouse again.
The steel wire tool cages, each enclosed with the same wired ceiling, line both sides of the warehouse like animal kennels, towering nearly ten feet high. Most are empty with only three occupied.
Fury courses through me like electricity searching for the next cable.
Tyler plants himself next to me with urgency, squatting near the cage as he maneuvers the bolt cutters from the duffel bag, the metal glinting in the harsh warehouse lights.
“We don’t have long,” he informs me with a steadiness I don’t feel like I possess.
Every inch of this place feels diseased. Bleach overpowers my nose. Even the cages look contaminated, the depravity has suffused into the steel so deeply, that nothing that encounters this place will ever come out clean again, no matter how much bleach they use.
It finally clicks, what music is wafting through the warehouse.
A warped, cheerful melody that any child would remember. It belongs in a circus tent, not in a place built on suffering.
My skin crawls at the contrast.
On impulse my fingers find my favorite knife’s handle and clamp around it.
Tyler situates the cutters around the cage lock.
The metal snaps apart with an earsplitting crack.
The girl shrinks intuitively, her shoulders drawing inward as if she’s bracing to be hit.
“Just breathe,” Tyler directs her tenderly, full of dependability. “No one is going to hurt you anymore. It’s over, you're safe.”
Safe. The word feels wrong in a place like this.
I yank the cage door open and kneel in front of her, my eyes never leaving hers.
“You need to stand up for me, okay?” My voice is warmer this time. “There’s a rescue team outside waiting to take you somewhere you’ll be protected and far away from this place.”
Her entire body shakes as she whispers through her cracked dry lips, “They said they’d kill us if we tried to leave.”
Everything inside me hardens into pure intent.
“They’re not touching you ever again.”
The words fall from me with the weight of a coffin lid shutting right before it’s lowered into the ground.
Tyler proceeds with ruthless efficiency to the next girl trapped behind steel bars.
The cheerful circus tune continues playing, clashing horribly with the stifled laughter winding through the warehouse.
As if none of these women matter and they are just for entertainment.
I guide the girl upright considerately; she winces and wobbles as soon as she puts weight on one of her ankles.
My hands feel clammy and sticky as the anxiety, and the overwhelming protective need to get them out of here right away without being detected takes over.
“She’s injured,” I relay to Tyler.
He inclines his head without looking away from the next lock. “The crew's almost here.”
Another cage opens, then another.
The girls shuffle out using the cage walls as support, panicked and disoriented as the lights capture their malnourished forms. One clutches her chest attempting to cover herself while another begins sobbing hysterically, gulping in breaths.
I inspect the girls' faces one at a time, always searching for Marie and Sofie. They aren’t here.
The anger inside me calcifies into something fatal.
Then headlights beam momentarily through the partially opened bay door.
Tyler checks his watch. “Right on time.”
Not long after, dark silhouettes pass under the narrow opening of the rolling bay window.
Three members of the crew file inside, blending together dressed in black rain gear with medical bags and blankets strapped across their backs.
The woman directing them simultaneously drops beside one of the girls.
“Oh my God,” she gasps and draws one of her hands to her mouth, at the state of them.
Another rescuer wraps a blanket around the stunned brunette closest to me while the third begins checking injuries with professional expertise.
The entire room shifts into controlled chaos.
One of the girls dives at me and snares my wrist as her fingers tremble. She refuses to let go, taking me by surprise.
“Please,” she begs me with tears welling in the corner of her eyes. “Don’t leave her there.”
My heart threatens to come out of my throat.
“Where?”
Tears flow incessantly down her face.
“The back room.”
Tyler’s eyes find mine and I search them. My stomach knots because what I see is something I haven’t seen before- he’s at war with himself.
The room where the livestream is happening and where the final girl is.
The twisted carnival music throbs louder somewhere rooted inside the building now accompanied by obscured cheering floating through the speakers.
The last remnants of panic dissolve knowing these girls will be safe and is replaced by a determination to end this.
“The rescue crew and the girls have evacuated the building, they’ll be sticking around for the last girl,” he states evenly.
Thunder grumbles outside of the warehouse walls.
Then I peer into the horribly lit hallway that goes further into the building where the carnival melody is on repeat.
Now there’s nothing left between us and the wickedness in the back room.
The walls seem to creep closer together the farther we go.
Tyler lowers his voice calmly. “Masks on.” He secures his own while I do the same.
The circus music becomes more pronounced with every step.
Tyler falls into place beside me, Glock raised, every movement is hurried especially since the clock is working against us.
Then I hear it. Pitiful whimpering, it sounds like the girl is in absolute agony.
We approach the rusted steel door at the end of the hall.
Tyler looks at me, eyes full of venom, ready to attack.
This is confirmation, letting me know this is it.
I have my Glock up, ready to go as I extend my hand clutching the handle firmly.
I ease the door open, not ready for what awaits on the other side.
The warped carnival music crackles through the speakers, blaring enough to mask our entrance completely.
Tyler slides in first and I’m right behind him.
We stand concealed in the doorway, watching these vile men who have no idea death just walked into the fucking room.
I holster my Glock and switch it out for my blade.
The employees are too engrossed in the livestream unfolding beneath the circus lights.
One man sits hunched at the computer station, the glow from dozens of chat messages and donation alerts flashing across his face while he confirms the VIP’s request into a headset like he’s taking a fast-food order through a drive thru.
Beside him, another man stands behind a mounted camera focused entirely on what is happening for the livestream.
Every note scrapes down my spine while ghastly laughter occasionally filters through the speakers between songs while a prerecorded audience applause plays, the tune will most likely ingrain itself into my mind for the rest of my life.
The copper tang of blood overpowers my sense of smell next as we take in the sight before us.
The back room looks like someone tried to recreate a circus from memory after losing their fucking mind.
Faded red-and-white striped fabric hangs across the ceiling in humongous drooping sheets covering the walls, smudged with dirt and shredded in places purposefully for this livestream.
Rusted carnival lights are strung haphazardly above, blinking in frenzied spurts of red, gold, and sickly blue while exposed wires snake along the walls and ceiling, like veins.
The entire room throbs beneath the shifting lights, throwing misshapen shadows cast over everything inside.
The concrete floor has been painted like a circus ring, the design was made to look worn with muddy footprints, blotches of grease paint, and tarnished marks cover nearly every inch of it.
Half crushed popcorn litters the corners of the room alongside ripped ticket stubs, empty liquor bottles, and discarded clown props.
Hideous clown masks sit on shelves on the left side of the room along with portraits of demented clowns.
Gigantic clown faces have been painted in random places along the curtains, not cartoonish but petrifying.
Their smiles stretch unnaturally wide with razorlike teeth beneath peeling paint while water damage causes their faces to sag like melting flesh.
Some have glowing bulb lights outlining their mouths and eyes, several spasming hard enough to strobe the room intermittently.
One clown mural has cracked directly through one eye, making it look split open.