War Bringer (4 page)

“If I wanted my eggs protected, I wouldn’t put foxes in the coop.”

He stood and started to climb back up the rocky ledge.

“Wait! What about me?”

Max gave Pete a lopsided smile. “Turn around and climb up. I’m leaving you the truck. It’s still running. Guess you have about a quarter of a tank left before you got a long walk home.”

* * *

Fiona woke in an unfamiliar room. The bare walls looked as if they’d last seen new paint about a century ago. Bars were on the window, dimming what light the filthy panes allowed in. Daylight. How long had she been unconscious? Had they drugged her?

It wasn’t a very large space she was in. There was a room divider midway that didn’t quite reach to the ceiling. She moved, relieved to discover she was no longer restrained. Her hand went to her neck, feeling for the team’s security necklace. It was gone, as was the security bracelet Kelan gave her. And the garnet earrings he’d surprised her with after her first week at school. Her feet were cold…and bare. At least she still had her clothes on.

She sat up and the world began to spin around her. She groaned and braced her head in her hands.

The floors creaked as three young women crowded the opening of her alcove. “She’s awake!” one of them announced.
 

She tried to speak, but her voice was drier than a dirt road. “Water, please,” was all she could manage to say.

The youngest of the girls left then came back with a plastic cup full of tap water. Fiona guzzled it down as she looked at the four women staring at her. Their expressions ranged from tension to boredom.
 

Who were they, and where was she?

“What is this place?” she asked them.

“Typical,” the bored girl huffed. “They never know.”

The girl standing next to her was barely more helpful. “It’s a place your old self would never know and your new self will wanna forget.”

Fiona frowned at that cryptic announcement.
 

The bored girl rolled her eyes. “You’re in a cathouse, honey. Out in the middle of Colorado’s big, empty nowhere.”
 

Two dogs started to bark outside. The youngest girl jumped. Her eyes got big, then glazed over. The dogs ran from one side of the house around to the front, snarling at something.
 

Fiona went to the window, but whatever was happening was on the other side of the house. There was a mechanical sound like a garage door opening. The dogs were going crazy.

“Do yourself a favor,” the bored girl said as the group left her room. “Stay put in here and don’t make a sound.” She shook her head. “No matter what you hear.”

Someone came into the house. “Haley, girl, I’m early today. Couldn’t wait,” a man announced. “You don’t look happy to see me.” There was some shuffling of feet. One of the girls was being shoved into the alcove next to Fiona’s. “Don’t matter. Seems whatever you do works for me.”

Fiona’s heart started to beat hard. There was a scuffle. A bed creaked. She heard the man’s heavy breathing, then the bed creaked in time with his grunts.

Fiona covered her mouth with her hand. It seemed to go on and on. No one screamed. No one fought.
You’re in a cathouse, honey,
the girl had said. Were they prostitutes? None of them looked even as old as she was.
 

They had to get out of here. She looked up at the bars on the windows. Maybe there were other windows that weren’t barred. Or the front or back doors. Maybe they had a phone here—she could call Kelan. God, he had to be worried sick by now.

Fiona slipped silently to the ground to hunch against the wall, afraid any more movement would make the floorboards creak. Someone turned on a radio, covering the sound of the girl’s whimpers.
 

Fiona knew she was a coward, shaking in this corner as she passively witnessed another woman being raped. She thought of her training with Angel. He always said if avoidance was an option, take it. But would Selena huddle here and do nothing?

No, she wouldn’t.
 

But she wouldn’t have to. She knew how to gut a man while he still stood.

After a bit, the man finished. He said something to the girl that Fiona didn’t quite hear. There was the soft sound of clothes being adjusted, then he made his way through the house. Fiona heard a door being closed, then the garage door opening. The dogs outside started to bark.

Fiona stayed locked in place, uncertain if it was safe to move about. She heard the girl get up and go into the bathroom. After a few minutes, Fiona got to her feet then moved silently to the edge of the partition. She peeked around the other side. Everything was straight in the girl’s room. The bed was made up neatly, the blankets tucked in tight, like the bunks down in the bunker of Ty’s house.

Fiona looked at the bars blocking the window in that room. God, if there was a fire, how would they get out?

She left the bedroom and went into the main room. The house was tiny. It had only the two bedrooms, both of which had been partitioned into two sleeping quarters, the bathroom, and a bigger room that had a couch at one end and the kitchen at the other, with a table in between.

The other girls were in the kitchen; the one who was bored before was stirring something in a pot on the stove. Smelled like SpaghettiOs. For breakfast.

The girl looked over at Fiona. “You got a name?”

“I’m Fiona.”

“I’m Bess.” She pointed her spoon at the other girl and said her name. Fiona didn’t see the youngest of the group, and when she realized what that meant, her stomach threatened a revolt.
 

“What just happened?” Fiona asked.

“What do you think?” Bess answered without looking up from the stove.
 

Fiona pointed to the bathroom door. “She can’t be more than fifteen.”

“So? Geez, what a precious world you must have come from.”

“Why didn’t you stop it? Why didn’t all of us stop it? It was one man. We could have taken him.”

“Why? So we get rid of one. What do we do with the forty others that come by after him?”

The youngest came out of the bathroom, pale-faced and tear-stained. She crossed her arms and didn’t look at anyone.
 

“That’s Haley,” Bess said after giving the girl a brusque once-over.

Fiona frowned. “I’m not staying here for this.”

“Where you gonna go?” the other girl asked.

“I have friends who will come right now to get us. Let me use a phone.”

“No phone here.”

“A computer, then. I can email them.”

“They’ll be shot if they come for you.”

Fiona smiled. Her friends weren’t the usual kind. “No, they won’t.”

“Look, we got nowhere to go,” the girl seated at the table said.

“Then come with me. I’ll find you someplace to go. I’ll get you help.”

“You even try, they’ll kill you. And us,” Bess said.

“Who will?” Fiona asked. The girl at the table shrugged and gave her a blank look. Bess stabbed at the boiling pasta. Haley never looked up.

“Well, then, answer me this. I had earrings and a bracelet on when they took me.” She didn’t want to accuse the girls of stealing them, but she desperately needed to know if she’d had them when she got here…if they were still here somewhere. “Did they fall off when they brought me in?”

“Never saw them,” Bess said from the stove. Her back was to the room. She didn’t see Haley’s gaze shoot over to Fiona.

“Okay. So, I guess I’m outta here.” Fiona turned on her bare heel and started for the front door. The windows that were in the main room were also barred. Hopefully, one of the doors was unlocked.
 

Haley ran ahead of her and blocked the door. “You can’t go out there.”

“Why?”

“The dogs.”

Fiona smiled. “They are just dogs. Probably, they’ve been mistreated and are touchy. They’re not going to hurt me.”

Haley shook her head, her brown eyes big. “They’ll kill you. They were trained to kill us.”

Fiona looked from Haley to the other girls. Their faces were tense. Well, whatever. She’d worked with Eden, helping her train some of the dogs she had at the kennel at Ty’s. She knew how to be calm and assertive with dogs.

“Let her go,” Bess ordered. “It’s her funeral.”

“I’ll send back help,” Fiona told the girls.

“Don’t bother,” Bess said.

Fiona frowned. “This is no way to live.”

“It’s better than living on the streets,” the girl at the table said. “Here at least we have food.”

Fiona looked at the two open SpaghettiOs cans. She remembered feeling sorry for herself after Alan died, having no family, no home. No one. But she did have family. People who loved her and cared for her. She had her friend Mandy, then the whole team, and Eden and Ivy and Casey and Zavi. And Kelan. Tears filled her eyes. They had to be worried sick. Kelan especially.
 

She gave Haley a reassuring smile as she gently pushed her aside. “I will send help. I promise.”

She turned the doorknob, and was glad it wasn’t locked. She opened it. The dogs were not out front. Maybe they wouldn’t even know she was outside. She glanced around the yard, looking for a gate. It was off to the side, by the drive. All she had to do was get from the front door to the gate—and through it—before the dogs caught up to her.
 

She couldn’t tell from where she stood if the gate was locked. If the dogs really were crazed beasts, she took a significant risk trying to leave without knowing if the gate was kept locked.

She closed the door quietly so as not to rouse the dogs. “Is the gate locked?” she asked the girls behind her.

Bess shrugged. “Never tried opening it.”

“It probably is. We’re completely locked in here,” the girl at the table said.
 

Fiona didn’t look at Haley, who was watching her with enormous eyes. Fiona crossed the room to the backside of the house. There was a small alcove off the kitchen. A glass door with iron bars taunted at the freedom beyond. The window was filthy, smudged by years of accumulated dust and wear.
 

One of the dogs saw her at the door and ran up the steps, snarling. She could just see its big teeth flashing through the grime on the window. When his big body slammed against the window, she was instantly grateful for the bars that kept him from coming through the glass.
 

Nevertheless, she tested the doorknob. It was locked.

She returned to the kitchen through the short, jumbled laundry room. The girl at the table was eating her canned pasta. Bess leaned against the counter, a bowl in hand.
 

Fiona went to the garage door. It was made of steel and was also locked with a deadbolt.

The only way in or out for them was through the front door…and into a yard that may or may not have a locked gate. Haley hadn’t moved from her post by the front door. Fiona looked at the girls. Bess appeared mildly irritated, the others utterly hopeless.
 

“Give me a knife,” Fiona said to Bess.

The girl shook her head, then opened a drawer and took out a standard dinner knife.
 

“No, I mean a real knife.”

“Don’t have any.”

Fiona didn’t accept that answer. She went over to the drawers and started pulling them out, looking for any kind of sharp knife, hopefully longer than a paring knife. Bess hadn’t lied. Fiona sent her a dark look then checked the cabinets. There was a large iron skillet. It would have to do. She could use it as a club or a shield.
 

No one tried to stop her. She paused in front of Haley. The girl reached out to grab her forearm. “Don’t do this. Please, don’t do this. They will tear you apart.”

Fiona didn’t give in to that hysteria, though she fully believed the girl was right. “I need your help.”

“No.” Haley vigorously shook her head.
 

“Go to the back door and keep their attention.” Fiona took her arm and led her across the room. “Make noise. Keep them occupied. Buy me some time to get to the gate—and back if it’s locked.”

“And then what?” Bess asked. “You get out and leave us?”

“No. I get out and open that garage door. We all leave.”

“It’s a bad idea,” Bess said.

“You got a better one?”

Bess met her gaze. Her eyes were hard. Fiona hurried to the front door. Bess followed her. She looked at the girl who seemed to be a leader of the others, wondering if she would sabotage Fiona’s escape plan by summoning the hellhounds. She had no choice but to give it a try.
 

A car came down the road. Fiona couldn’t see it for the cornfield between the house and street.
 

“Showtime, girls. Slurp your food down and get in your places,” Bess ordered. “You”—she pointed at Fiona—“get back in your half of Haley’s room and keep your trap shut. No one’s supposed to touch you, but who knows if they can resist fresh meat.”

Fiona looked at Haley. Her eyes were glazed over. Once again, she quietly retreated to her space. “We can fight them,” Fiona whispered as she entered their room.

Haley had withdrawn deep into her mind. She didn’t respond. Whatever fight she had was long gone. Once again, Fiona had no choice but to crouch in the corner of her room. Men came continuously over the next few hours. The other girls giggled and made jokes with their johns, but Haley was always silent.

It was late afternoon before Fiona could venture out of her hiding space. She went to the back door to see what the dogs were doing. She couldn’t see them, so she banged on the door. Instantly, they began barking and lunging at the glass.

“What are you doing?” Bess asked.

“I’m getting out of here”—she looked at the two girls who were in the living room—“with or without your help.”

Haley came to stand at the door to her room. Bess frowned as she looked at her. “Wait,” Bess said to Fiona. “Wait.”

Fiona and Haley both looked at Bess. She went into the laundry room and rummaged through something Fiona couldn’t see. When she returned, she held out Fiona’s security bracelet.
 

“Is this one of those security bracelets?” Bess asked.