22. Wolff #2
I pull AJ inside and slam the door shut behind us, jamming a thick metal bar through the locking brackets just as fists and bodies crash into the other side.
The impact shakes the entire frame. Metal shrieks as the bar bends inward.
Shouting in Russian breaks out from behind it, their fists pounding on the door.
“AJ! We need to find a way out!”
I grab her arm and yank her with me into the maze of crates and containers.
She’s breathing fast beside me, half-running, half-stumbling to keep up. “There are too many of them! Wolff, I can’t— I can’t breathe—”
We rip tarps off crates as we run, searching for weapons, tools, anything.
Nothing.
I can’t see any doors or windows. Just towering rows of cargo containers stacked like steel tombs.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I find a crowbar wedged behind a crate and snatch it up just as a deafening crack splits the warehouse.
The door bar is giving.
“Shit!”
Sprinting back, I slam my body into the door, bracing it with my shoulder. The impact from the other side nearly folds me in half. The steel buckles against my spine.
I shove off before it crushes me flat.
“Wolff! Look!”
AJ is halfway down the warehouse, pointing into the far corner. A blue shipping container sits mounted on a transport truck.
A way out.
I stagger toward it and wrench open the driver’s door.
“AJ, get in!”
Another crack behind us.
The door won’t hold twenty seconds.
I rip down the overhead visor and find the keys jammed into the mirror compartment. AJ gets one foot into the cab, but then she freezes. Her whole face drains of color. She’s staring past me. At an orange container across the aisle.
“No.” The word barely leaves her mouth before she bolts.
“AJ! What the fuck are you doing?!”
She’s already running. Screaming something I can’t hear over the pounding in my skull. I grab another crowbar from the truck bed and chase after her. Then I see inside and the blood in my veins turns to ice.
Cages.
Rows of welded cages stacked inside the container like animal crates. Women. Children. Men. Packed into them.
Their faces are hollow. Eyes sunken. Bodies skeletal beneath torn clothes. Some don’t even react when the doors open. Others scramble to their feet like frightened animals, shrinking back from the light. The stench of piss, shit, and fear hits me like a wall.
Fucking hell.
“Wolff, please!” AJ is sobbing now, yanking at the cage locks. “We have to help them!”
Trying to catch my breath, I look back toward the warehouse door. The steel bar is folding.
Seconds.
That’s all we’ve got.
“AJ! We have to move!” I grab her arm, but she fights my hold—clawing, twisting, screaming.
“No! I won’t leave them!”
“Get in the fucking truck!” I drag her backward, moving as fast as I can.
She drives her elbow into my jaw. White light detonates through my skull. I lose my grip, my remaining strength nearing zero, and she tears free.
“AJ!” I shout, and my head thuds in response.
She snatches up the dropped crowbar and runs straight back to the cages. My knees nearly buckle. My hands are shaking. I can barely see straight.
She slams the crowbar into the lock.
Again.
Again.
Again.
The prisoners inside begin screaming, grabbing at the bars, the cages rattling against the floor.
“AJ! STOP!”
“That was me, Wolff! I was in those cages! I can’t leave them! I can’t!”
The lock snaps.
The cage door flies open. Bodies spill out in a wave of chaos—stumbling, crawling, falling over one another in panic. And then, the warehouse door slams inward.
Gunfire erupts.
Automatic rounds thunder through the space, ripping through steel walls and flesh alike.
I snatch AJ around the waist and haul her backward, just as bullets rip past where she was standing. Screams fill the warehouse. Prisoners scatter in every direction. Some make it toward the open loading bay. Others are gunned down before they get five feet.
Bodies slam into concrete.
Blood sprays across the crates.
I shove AJ behind me as rounds ricochet off steel beams, sparks raining around us. She’s screaming so powerfully she can barely breathe as I drag her toward the truck.
A woman carrying a child is hit beside us—both drop in a spray of red.
I throw AJ into the passenger seat so hard she nearly falls through the other side. Then I run around the truck as bullets punch holes through the metal frame inches from my head.
Diving into the driver’s seat, I slam the door shut. The engine roars alive as I slam it into gear and floor it. The truck busts through the warehouse doors, clipping steel on the way out, fishtailing into the storm.
In the rear-view mirror, men pour out of the warehouse into the snow—armed, shouting, firing as escaped prisoners scatter across the white ground. Some are gunned down before they make the road. Others disappear into the snowstorm.
The truck fishtails again on ice, and I wrench the wheel straight, nearly going cross-eyed with how my head is hammering.
“We can’t leave them!” AJ screams as more gunfire cracks from behind us, pounding both fists against the dashboard. “We have to go back!”
“We’re not going back!” My hands stay welded to the wheel, gaze flicking to her before focusing on the storm.
Tears stream down her face. “They’re like me!”