“This is where they bring the young girls to check their virginity. If your hymen is intact, you're worth more, and you don't get raped while waiting for them to sell you. The older teens who weren't virgins…” she shuddered at the thought. “But this is also where they do medical 'treatments.' The man they called Dr. Farnes was a veterinarian. I heard him talking about it once. He said he made a lot more money taking care of this kind of cattle.”
Hector's men had relaxed a fraction, and the look they gave Mila told me they at least had no suspicions about her intentions. Mason stood at my side while Victor started rummaging through the drawers and cabinets. Hector's men took their cue from him and got to work, tearing the room apart.
“There are a lot of antibiotics in here, some STI treatments,” Vick’s voice echoed from inside the metal cabinet he dug through.
“Yeah, they gave some to us when we got here. A lot of the girls were sick when we came in.” She stared off into space, reliving horrors I could never understand. “I was sick too, now that I think about it. I had a cough, but not as bad as some of the others.”
Hector's men were taking pictures of bottles and rifling through drawers. The papers they were flipping through didn't appear to excite them, but they would be stupid to act in any other way if they found something valuable.
“You’re not worried about what they might find?” I whispered into Mason’s ear while everyone else was distracted.
“I am,” he stepped over to Vick and whispered, “watch them.”
Mila drifted out of the room, barely paying attention to us. This place was triggering memories in her, her eyes widening at each new thing she took in. Mason and I followed her.
“This is where they kept us,” she murmured as she pushed open a door. The room was much larger than the last, packed with cages, literal dog crates, and other oddly assembled fences and gates to keep them trapped. The smell of piss and shit was strong, and I wondered how recently the syndicate held people here.
Mila's hands shook, and I reached out to offer her some form of comfort, but she snatched it back instantly. “Don't bother, Claire. You already made it clear you have no issues with locking people up. Even if it is in his pretty gatehouse, I'd rather not have you try to comfort me right now.”
Fuck, I am an asshole.
I put my hand right back down, knowing that I needed to respect her personal space no matter how guilty I felt, and I feltimmenselyso.
“I am truly sorry for saying that,” I told her as I left the room. I couldn't stand to be in there any longer, and while she wasn't happy to be there, it seemed she needed something from it. I knew she didn't want me beside her for that.
“What do you make of all this?” I asked Mason as I stood beside him in the hall. We had looked through the rest of the rooms finding more supplies, upsetting instrumentation, and filth. The last room in the hall was a bathing room with a series of shower heads and a steel tub. That must be where they prepared them before they were sold.
“There’s a lot more going on here than I thought, and I’m sorry you have to see it.” He tapped his finger thoughtfully against this chin.
“I needed to see this, Mason.” I watched the wheels turn behind his eyes, “What are you thinking?”
“IthinkI should have come and checked this place out sooner. Also, this is about the size of the library's basement, yet there is still another door. The one Mason referred to stood at the end of the hall, and I couldn't help but notice the resemblance in its placement to the hall I found when I was in the library. While one was opulent and the other something out of a nightmare, they were shaped precisely the same. We waited for everyone else to finish their perusal, holding each other's hands.
“The auction house is through here.” Mila walked up beside Mason and pointed toward the only locked door. The suspicion I'd harbored since we entered this building grew into a wild thing. I tried the password again, but this time it didn't work.
“Are you sure the security system is down, Mila?”
She pulled her computer out of her bag, looking to Victor for assistance. He rolled his eyes as he held out his arms to aid her by holding the laptop in front of her, and she set to work. “Positive. That door is nothing more than a lock at the moment.”
With no further words, Vick and Mason worked together to kick the door in. After the third hit, the door splintered around the lock. Cold air poured in from the doorway. The wet smell of it reminded me of long-forgotten memories of crappy apartments with leaks in the ceiling.
The passageway was dark. We felt along the wall for a switch and eventually flipped on a row of flickering lights lining the stone wall. The walls were slick with ice as if water seeped in and froze. We moved carefully, despite the absence of anything but the lights, the old, damp walls, and a door waiting at the far end. There was no way we were still inside City Hall. We were in a tunnel, and I had a feeling I knew exactly where we were headed.
This door was also locked, but when Mason and Vick kicked it in, I was unsurprised to see the hallway I had found.
“The auction house is definitely through here. I can't believe how many things are coming back to me.” Mila shivered roughly, unaware of the basement break-in or the many winding roads leading me to and from these places.
The men started picking through the rooms on this side just like they had on the other. There was a distinct improvement in the conditions. These rooms were luxurious, though their contents were just as unsettling. Beds and delicate cages, BDSM, and torture implements all lined up in opulently renovated rooms. But I couldn't focus on that; I needed that last bit of confirmation.
I opened the door leading to the place I had been only once before and stepped out into the same auction house I'd found in the library's basement.
The two were connected the whole time.
They kept the girls in utter squalor on the City Hall side, and the men came here to buy them and use them as they saw fit in the lavish trappings privately afforded. Instead of fighting my nausea, I doubled over, emptying the contents of my stomach onto the finely woven Persian rug.
Chapter 13
Mason