10. CHAPTER 5 #2
Priest slides his gun back in place and runs his fingers through his hair. “I fucking hate the orders.”
We settle in by the window. Priest is next to me, his body tight, hands flexing. We live in a fucked-up world and do fucked-up things, but there’s a limit. Our society blurs the lines with every ritual. But there’s still a line. And what’s going on here is over that fucking line.
Justin is leaning against the wall a few feet away scrolling on his phone, stopping to type every so often.
“Put your fucking phone away,” I snap at him.
“I can multitask. It’s not like anything is happening right now.”
Priest goes to lunge for him, but I manage to pull him back. “Put it away or I’ll shove it up your fucking ass. We’re working.”
Justin pockets the phone. He doesn’t look pissed about it.
He doesn’t look anything about it. That’s the problem with Justin Carter.
He rarely shows any emotion at all. Women are probably being raped twenty feet from where he’s standing, and he’s probably thinking about what he’s going to eat when he leaves here.
Fifteen minutes pass by in silence. We don’t hear anything more from the building. Then the back door slams open.
“Be ready in case we need to move.” I tap Priest’s arm.
A woman runs out. She has dark hair and is barefoot, wearing a t-shirt that hits her mid-thigh and nothing else. She’s probably in her early twenties. The moonlight illuminates her enough to see that there’s a bruise covering half the left side of her face, and she’s running quickly into the grass.
“We have to do something,” Priest growls.
She doesn’t get far before the man that Justin identified as Hargrove steps out. He spots her in the grass and doesn’t even rush. He walks after her like he knows she isn’t going to be able to get away.
“Hey, bitch!” His voice cuts across the lot. “Get your ass back inside. Now.”
She doesn’t stop. She runs harder, barefoot on the gravel and grass, heading for the chain-link fence at the edge of the property. She’s fast but she’s limping, and the ground must be shredding her feet. Hargrove is closing the distance without breaking a sweat.
He catches her by the hair, and he yanks her backward so hard her feet leave the ground and she hits the gravel on her back. The sound she makes isn’t a scream. It’s as if all the air was ripped from her body.
The second man comes through the door. He grabs her ankle as she tries to crawl, and the two of them start dragging her across the gravel toward the building. She’s clawing at the ground and kicking as hard as she can, but neither one of them gives a shit.
“Fuck this.” Priest is already moving.
I’m right behind him. Dane said don’t engage unless the situation changes. Well, the situation fucking changed.
We close the distance fast. They’re focused on her, so they don’t hear us coming until it’s too late.
I grab Hargrove by the back of his neck and rip him off her.
He swings at me, but I catch his fist and twist his arm behind his back.
I slam him face first into the side of the building, breaking his nose against the brick.
Then I knock him to the ground on his stomach.
“Stay the fuck down.” I pin him there with my forearm across the back of his neck.
Priest has the second man on the ground. Knee in his spine, arm wrenched so far behind his back that one more inch would snap it.
“Fuck, dude. This one pissed himself.” Priest glances over at me and jerks the man’s arm just a bit more to make the fucker squeal. “Seriously, what is it with these pussies tonight?” He leans closer to the prick. “Not so fucking tough now are you, asshole?”
The woman is on the ground where they dropped her.
She’s curled on her side in the gravel, shaking, bleeding from her knees and palms where the rocks tore her up.
She looks up at us—three masked men with glowing faces—and the terror on her face tells me we aren’t what she was hoping for when she made her run.
“We’re not going to hurt you.” I keep my voice steady, hoping it will calm her down. “We’re getting you out.”
She doesn’t move. But from the look on her face, I can tell she doesn’t believe me. I don’t blame her. We aren’t the good guys, but we aren’t the bad guys either. At least not this level of bad.
“Justin.” I look over my shoulder to see him standing there watching us like the useless prick he is. “Help her up.”
Justin comes around the corner when we move, but he doesn’t engage with either man. He’s standing by the back door, looking inside the building at the room where the rest of the women are. He stuffs his phone into his pocket.
“Justin,” I growl.
“Yeah, I fucking heard you.” He walks over to her and crouches down. She flinches back.
“Hey.” His voice is gentle. “Nobody’s going to hurt you. Let me help you.”
She stares at his mask. Then she lets him take her arm. He pulls her up, and she flinches when his hand touches her lower back to guide her toward the lot. Who knows what hell she’s been though.