“Blankets,” I yell over my shoulder. “Rumble, I need blankets now.”
“On it,” he shouts, voice thick and nasally. I do not have to turn to know his face is a mess. He sounded like that when he broke his nose last time. A minute later fabric hits my shoulder. I drape a blanket around the nearest girl like a cape. She flinches hard, then slumps under the weight of warmth.
“Can you walk?” I ask. “I can help you. We will stay low and go straight to the truck. There are two. See that door? Big white box. That is safety.”
“Liar,” the lip-split girl hisses. Her voice shakes but it has steel. “You are just moving us. He said he would move us today anyway. Says we will be trained better. New place. New rules.”
“Who said that?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
She stares at me. I know that look. It is the look of a kid who has learned that names are weapons and information will get you beat.
“You know what,” I say, voice steady somehow, “you can keep his name. Keep it like a fist. But I am not him. I am not them."
Something flickers across her face. Not trust. Not yet. But maybe the shadow of it. She slides her hand into mine like she is expecting teeth. I tighten my grip and pull her gently to her feet.
We move.
It is a stumble more than a walk. The concrete is slick. My boots squeak. Alarms bleat somewhere deep in the yard. The whole building hums with violence. I breathe through my mouth. I taste smoke and copper and fish. A man screams in the office behind us and the scream turns into a gargle that turns into nothing at all.
“Eyes on me,” I tell the girls. “Do not look around. One foot, then the other.”
We pass the mattresses. Two women still tied wrist and ankle. One is making the high rabbit-pitched sounds of a persontrying to scream through duct tape. I veer. I cannot not. I slide the little scissors from my kit under the tape and cut slow so I do not slice her lip. “You are okay. I have you.” The second I peel the tape free, she inhales and the sound she makes is a ripped thing. I lay a blanket over her nakedness and hate burns up my throat so hot I gag. “We are taking you out. Stay. I will be right back.”
I shove the first set of girls into the waiting truck. Tella is at the back, a rifle across his thighs, jaw tight, eyes soft. “You are safe with him,” I tell them. “He looks scary. He is a teddy bear who bites other people. Not you.” One of the girls almost smiles. Tella’s mouth twitches like he is trying not to.
“Jayne,” he says low. “Keep moving. We have to turn this place inside out and be gone.”
“I know.”
Back at the cages I scoop another two out. A woman with bruises blooming like black roses on her thighs. A grandmother with hair gone white in clumps. “Hold on to me,” I tell them, and they do, fingers digging crescents into my arms that will bruise later. Fine. Take what you need.
“Please,” the white-haired woman whispers. “Please do not let them take me back.”
“They will not,” I say. “Swear it.”
We move again. Over the din I catch a familiar cadence, low and lethal. Spike. He is in the office, voice pitched calm. I know I shouldn't be eavesdropping but I can't help myself.
“You have a staffing problem,” he says. “Chrome Creed solved it.”
My heart drops to my ankles. He is talking to Xavier. I know it like I know the taste of his mouth.
“We have your girls. We have your paperwork. We have your phones. If you want any of it back, you are going to cut us in.”
Cut us in.
The words thud through me. For one stupid heartbeat everything tilts. I see Spike standing in a darker room, money in his hands, my face on a poster behind him that reads hypocrite. I want to throw up. I want to run into that office and rip the phone out of his hand and tell Xavier that he can choke on his own tongue.
I hear Spike again. “You deal. We distribute. We take a piece.”
I stop dead. The girl on my left stumbles and I catch her with both arms, steady her against my body. She stares up at me, terrified and trusting me anyway, and that snaps something back into place.
No. This is Spike. My Spike who would burn the world to keep me breathing. My Spike who held a dying boy and bled in the dirt and then cried into my neck until he could breathe again. My Spike who hates himself when he hurts anyone who does not deserve it.
He is playing a part.
He has to be.
I press my forehead to the girl’s for half a breath and make myself a promise. I will not cut him off at the knees in the middle of a rescue because my fear decided to throw a tantrum. I will ask him later. I will look him dead in the eyes and demand the plan. But right now I will choose him. I will choose us.
