I was beginning to relax a little. The breeze from the water, the sun shining down in all its magnificent glory and Con talking shit next to me as we pounded the sand was working. It was good to feel the sea air on my face as we ran flat out. It had been a while since we'd come down here for anything other than a stake out. We had all this beauty right in our own backyard and hadn't really had the time to enjoy it before this shit fell on us. Most of my sisters had grown up here and this was a luxury they'd freely enjoyed in the past. Now because of their entanglements with my brothers they couldn't even step foot out their front door without an armed guard. It was getting to me so I can only imagine how the others felt, having to curtail their women's movements. And since the women's last attempt at mutiny I'm sure they won't be seeing outside again for a while. Hopefully this place Mancini was dragging us off to would allow them some freedom
I feel sick. Whatever they'd injected me with had a nasty lasting side effect and left a horrible taste in my mouth. I was able to see the others now and my heart sank. They'd brought us to a house and locked us in a room chained together against the wall. The smell of fear was heavy in the room. Someone had peed on themself and there was a scent of feces as well in the air. The girls were all my age or younger, most of them looked to be no more than fourteen or fifteen. My mind reeled with all the implications of this. I didn't know anyone here, but we all had one thing in common; dread. It was written on the faces of each and every one of us. I looked around the room, no one was saying anything, but it wasn't hard to guess what they were thinking. I fought back the fear and tried to remain calm. There's never any situation you can't get yourself out of if you use your head. My daddy taught me that, in fact it was like a mantra for h
Instead he pushed the paper plate closer with his boot. I fought my baser instinct to tell him to go fuck himself. Asshole! I reached my chained hand out and lifted the bread and whatever was in the middle of it to my lips still without acknowledging him. Leave him guessing. He might have the upper hand when it came to the physical right now, but I'm sure I could take this dolt in the thinking game with half my brain cells on idle. I took soft bites and spent an inordinate amount of time chewing. If I ate any faster I'd throw up and no way am I going to show any kind of weakness in front of this jackass. "Cat got your tongue girl? I know you can talk, I heard you scream. Or maybe that's the only way you know how to communicate." He knelt and reached out as if to touch me. Now here you'd be tempted to glower this asshole into oblivion... and I can't believe the things I'm thinking at a time like this. Instead of the bitch brow that I'm
We were there for hours getting to know one another between bouts of fear and tears. The tough Latin queen from before turned out to be the softest when she broke. All she wanted was her mother and all I wanted was to get across the room so I could put my arms around her and offer comfort. The waiflike kid never stopped whimpering but no one told her to shut up because we all knew what she was feeling. I was suddenly more upset for them than myself. They were still so young, some of them no more than babies. What the fuck did these sick fucks want with them? As if I didn't know. "Let's exchange names and hometowns in case we get separated." I kept my voice steady so they wouldn't know I was afraid. One of us had to be strong for the others and it appears that was gonna be me. "What good's that gonna do?" It was the Latin queen again. I looked at her with steady eyes. "Because we're getting the fuck outta here one way or the other. And
After our run we went back to getting things together so we could leave. Each of us had a duty to perform to make sure that the compound was secure. It had been getting dark out when we decided to do a last walk through of the mansion and that's when Cord found a book with codes. Codes that only the seven of us, and the man who wrote them would understand. I took the book and moved to the secure computer with the others following behind. It was a bit of a shock to see the words as they unfolded on the screen. Not just the meaning, but it was like hearing from the old man again. Like he was reaching out from beyond the grave and the eight of us were going to work on this last job together. I knew my brothers felt pretty much the way I did, gut punched. The codes only left us with more questions than answers and now we were left wondering who the people the commander mentioned were. We were pretty sure the 'he' was the Desert Fox but had no clue who the 'she' tha
"Get a move on, I'm hungry. Fucking women didn't let me eat today with their staring shit." Devon rubbed his gut and yawned. "Now you know how I feel when I'm left riding herd on them." We were walking the yard making sure shit was secure before we headed to dinner. Lo's over cautious that way especially with the girls here. "We've got a long night ahead of us, I can feel it." I almost asked him what he meant but I was sure he was talking on the same level as the shit that's been messing with my ass. "Had a lot of those lately." "Yeah well I'm done with this fuckery. As old William Shakespeare once said, I'm ready to 'cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.' He all but growled at me. Wonder what the hell crawled up his ass and died. He and his mercurial moods were nothing new to me, but this time I didn't have to think too hard to figure out what was bothering him. Now that the laughter was gone it was back to the reality of wh
Dinner was noisy as per usual and afterwards we sat around laughing and talking with the women while Ty was being his usual asshole self, keeping us all entertained with his antics. We were just a family having an evening together with the baby being passed around or more like she was making the rounds, getting her hugs and kisses from all her aunts and uncles; fighting sleep. That kid hates bedtime. Every once in a while my mind would remind me of what laid ahead of us tonight, what it meant, what it signified. Everything we do from here on out is for the old man it goes without saying. Closing the tunnel the men were using to traffic the women wouldn't put an end to their evil, but it would be a first step to stemming the flow of that shit in our own town. We'd all fought for the freedom of others in other countries, I'm fucked if I'm going to see anyone enslaved in mine. The fact that the waters off our own backyard were probably the last o
Yep, we're on the beach. I smelt the water before my feet hit the sand once we cleared the tunnel. The fact that we weren't blindfolded was worrying; we weren't meant to come back. I looked sneakily around for anything that could be of help while trying to keep an eye on the men who were leading us out. There was no one on the beach at this time of night, but I understood why they hadn't shackled us again. It was obvious that there were houses around in the distance and there was a chance some unsuspecting soul might come waltzing by. The threats they'd made to silence us if we cried out may have scared the others but it was just the chance I was hoping for. The farther away we walked from the tunnel the more I wanted to turn around and go back to my prison. I knew that whatever was waiting for me at the end of this trip was going to be worse than anything I'd faced so far. It's strange, but I'd held it together this long and now all