Unfortunately, it’s not worth the price.
Butch drifts in and out of the bar, cleaned up and never paying us much mind. It seems the sex traders, even now, like to hide their faces behind that two-way mirror. I’ve gone over every escape plan, every grand idea at least a dozen times and none click. The only way to get out of here is to get out of here. We need out of the cage. A weapon would help but so far I haven’t come up with a way to get one.
I’m in the middle of hunger-induced fantasy about breaking both of Butch’s legs when one of his men saunters up to the cage. I search his hands for water but he’s only carrying the key. Fear knots in my belly and I watch helpless as he unlocks the door and nods at Miranda. “Get up.”
Panic flashes in her eyes but she looks down at Rebecca. She juts her chin and pushes her shoulders back. I get it. If her sister can survive, so can she.
“You’re strong,” I remind her quietly but I struggle with the urge to vomit as the door clinks shut and they disappear down the hall.
“Any ideas yet?” I whisper to Walker around the lump in my throat.
“I just need an opportunity,” she replies, but doesn’t get a chance to explain further because the man who took Miranda returns alone. He’s headed back in our direction. Miranda said that in her time here the sex trade moved slow. Maybe one or two a day. People just didn’t have the funds or materials to barter. But the guard is back again, this time stopping at the other cage. My hands clench around the bars as he looks around Walker to Jane.
“New girl, yeah you,” he says, pointing to Jane. “You’ve been picked.”
Jane stands, brushing off her backside. If she’s scared, she doesn’t show it. My sister is a complete and utter enigma. She’s terrified of the smallest thing outside the Fort, but this guy? She looks at him like he’s beneath her. Well, just like she looks at the rest of us.
“That’s not going to happen,” Walker says, moving between the guy and Jane.
He laughs. “No? What are you going to do about it?”
There’s a beat, an infinitesimal pause, and I swear the guy realizes he’s screwed one second before Walker lunges at him. Faster than a blink she chops him across the windpipe with her hand while simultaneously kicking him in the knee. He flails and she grabs his arm, flipping him over her shoulder. He lands with a thud, his head cracking on the cement floor.
“Get the keys,” I shout to my sister, but she’s frozen, watching the scene unfold. I rattle the cage to get her attention. Rebecca stands next to me, eyes wide.
Walker’s got the guy on the ground, her foot crushing his throat, by the time three other men race from the back. The tell-tale sound of electricity buzzes in the air and I follow the noise, seeing the spark of a taser. Walker bolts for the door, racing past tables and toppling chairs but a burly man stands at the entrance, blocking her escape. Two of the men grab her, one getting punched in the nose in the process while the one with the taser tags her on the back of the neck. It takes two zaps, but she falls.
I wait for them to bring her back to the cage. Instead it takes two men, one with a bloody nose, to drag her in the other direction, down the hallway Miranda disappeared down earlier. Just as they turn the corner movement catches my eye and I see Jane walk out of the cage. Walk, not run. She kneels by the man Walker assaulted. She touches his cheek.
“Stop!” The remaining man shouts. He grabs her by arm, holding the taser as a threat.
“He’s injured,” she says, barely sparing the man or the fired-up taser a second glance. She continues to check his pulse as though the man isn’t a threat. My sister is either more insane than I gave her credit for, or she has way bigger balls than I realized.
“Yeah, your friend beat the shit out of him. Back off. I’m not letting you do the same.”
“I’m a doctor,” she says. “I can help him.”
He pauses, taser still raised. He’s a medium-sized guy, balding and with more gray hair than not. Even now the saggy skin from his belly hangs behind the fabric of his Kentucky Wildcats T-Shirt. The hard lines on his face imply he’s not used to having a woman tell him what to do. At least not recently.
I don’t blame him for not wanting to take a chance after Walker’s assault. They don’t realize Jane’s harmless, although it’s pretty obvious.
“She really is a doctor,” I say. It’s a lie. Well, not the medical kind he’s talking about but she’s a doctor of sorts. “And she’s pretty useless in a fight.” He gives me a wary look. “Seriously, you should let her look at him.”
“I’ll zap you if you try anything.”
“And he’ll die from internal bleeding if you don’t let me help.” Jane sweeps her brown hair over her shoulder and begins her examination. Rebecca and Jennifer, the other girl from Jane’s cage, watch with me. They think they’re watching my sister perform an act of kindness. I know she’s never done such a thing in her life.
So I wait.
The injured man groans and coughs. From the cage I can see the bruises already forming on his neck.
“Help me turn him,” Jane says in an authoritative voice. When he doesn’t react she looks at him with hard gray eyes. “Now.”
He makes a decision and moves into action, kneeling by Jane and using both hands to gain leverage under his friend’s back. I eye the taser sticking out the back of his pants.
“Hold him like that,” she says, and I catch the tiniest movement with her left hand. She slips something out of her sock and in a quick stroke, she stabs the man in the neck. He grabs for the spot, his fingers finding the stick end of a needle, but his eyes roll to the back of his head before he can act.
She picks up the needle, inspects it, and puts it in her pocket.