Twisted and Tied (Marshals 4)

The heavy coat was thrown off, and a teenaged girl emerged from underneath, clad in booty shorts and a tank top that were too skimpy for March in Chicago, where the weather went up and down so fast that it could be sixty on one day and thirty the next. The shoes she had on, platform strappy heels, also made no sense. When she went down, the heel twisting under her, I hopped off the table to go help, and when I moved forward, she looked up.

“Jesus,” I gasped because it hit me. “Wen?”

She heaved out a sob, got her feet under her just as security reached her, and charged forward, closing on me in seconds and hurling herself into my arms.

I clutched her tight, tucking her head to my chest but still careful not to crush her since it was like holding a baby bird. I had no idea what the hell was going on. The last time I saw her, she was not this skinny, was not wearing mascara that was running down her face in black rivulets, and certainly was not dressed to walk the streets. I was horrified and filling with slow, seething rage as every protective instinct inside of me went off. The urge to shelter her thrummed under my skin.

Security guards moved forward, and I took a step back, bumping my bed. They might have advanced a second time, but Eli was there, hand out to still them.

“We need you to hand over that patient,” one of the guards ordered, addressing me. “She assaulted her guardian and hit a nurse who was trying to help her and—”

“You need to step back,” Becker informed them, opening his coat so they could see the badge hanging from the chain around his neck. “We’re federal marshals, so you need to explain what the hell is going on here.”

“There, there,” Wen cried, pointing at a man bolting for the exit.

“Stop,” Ching bellowed, drawing his gun as people screamed around him and dropped to the ground. “Or I’ll be forced to fire.”

The man did a slow pan, and the arrogant smile slowly crumbled as he took in Eli, who had pulled his gun as well, and Ching, both advancing on him. From his reaction I bet he had been ready to face security guards, not federal marshals. “I haven’t done anything wrong,” he assured them.

“We’ll see,” Ching informed him, holstering his gun, pulling the zip ties from the pocket in his cargo pants as Eli covered him.

The guy wasn’t looking at Eli anymore, though; it was Becker, his gun trained on him, who was suddenly making him shake.

“Benjamin James,” Becker said as Ching shoved the guy to his knees and secured his hands tightly behind him. “Picking up where Rego left off? You pimping out underage girls?”

The shaking turned into a tremor, but I didn’t care. It was Wen sobbing in my arms, holding on so tight, who had all my attention. Lifting her head, I looked down into her face.

“What happened, sweetheart? Where’s your sister?”

“Han,” she gasped, “she got hurt real bad. The man… he hurt when he—when—Miro!”

Howling cries then, and she dissolved in my arms as I lifted her and put her on the bed I’d been on. She weighed nothing, a mere slip of her former self, and I wrapped her in a blanket that Ira, now off the floor where Eli had pushed him, handed me. Swallowing down my desire to go kick the shit out of James, I made myself stay there and be strong for Wen, letting her lean forward and bump her head on my chest.

“We gotta go see Han, okay?” she pleaded.

“Sure thing, honey.”

“And you won’t let them get us again, right?”

“No, you know I won’t.”

She nodded. “I knew you wouldn’t. I told Mrs. Cullen to let me call you, but she wouldn’t. I told her we weren’t going to school, but she said for Chinese girls to miss studying wasn’t a big thing because I was just going to be a maid anyway.”

My stomach roiled, and the anger swept through me, but I kept my voice calm, solid, matter-of-fact for the trembling girl. “You’re going to be a doctor like your father was.”

She lifted her head and gazed at me with wounded, terrified eyes. “Can I still be a doctor after what those men did?”

Fuck. “Absolutely,” I assured her, confident in my answer, letting her hear the certainty in my voice as I tucked her head back against my chest.

Glancing over at Eli, I saw him swallow hard, watched his jaw clench, and knew, like me, he was holding on by a thread not to tear James limb from limb.

“Oh, don’t you guys worry,” Ching said, darkly certain, a cold grin on his face that was by far the scariest expression I’d ever seen on him. “Prison’s gonna be a blast for this one, I’ll make sure.” I remembered that just like some of Dorsey’s family, some of Ching’s were serving time as well. “No one likes guys who hurt little girls.”