The Squad

“No baby, you need…” Jason started to stop me, but I patted him with my other hand, trying to console him since he sounded like someone was strangling him. I imagine I’d given everyone a good scare, passing out like that. I didn’t feel any aches and pains, so my assessment that he’d caught me before I landed face-first on the marble floor was right.

“I’m fine, Jason, I came here to do this, remember?” I was still holding her hand when I got to my feet, and ignoring everyone else around us, all the stares and questioning looks, started to lead her towards the door. “Come with me.” Once again, her husband stepped forward, but she held him off.

“It’s okay Hank, she doesn’t intend to hurt me, do you, Roxy?”

I could only shake my head and fight back the tears as I led her inside. “I need a computer, is there a computer we can use?” I imagine there is a shit ton of them in a place like this, but I had to ask since there were none in sight. She showed me to the room where I’d met the others early this morning after we landed.

I saw the two little girls heading inside and thought for a second that maybe they’d been scared after my fainting spell and was following to see if I was okay, but they didn’t even seem to notice us as they made their way to the elevator to go downstairs.

“In here, do you need a secure modem or…?” I shrugged my shoulders and headed to the desk.

“No, this is fine; they don’t know that I have this, so there’s no way for them to track it even if they knew how.” I opened the secret compartment on the inside of my backpack and found the little gadget I had hidden there.

It had been a while since I looked at it; I now know everything there by heart. I had to be careful, though, because I didn’t want her to see all the information I’d downloaded from my captors before my escape. “Look away for a second?” I couldn’t forget that she’s a Fed. She didn’t argue, just did as I asked without question.

I scrolled through the folders I had on file and found what I was looking for. “Look!” On the screen was a young girl of about twelve or thirteen. She was pretty enough, but it only took one look to see the promise of more to come. Although she was almost a teen, or already there, she didn’t look more than nine or ten because of her doll-like stature.

Cierra leaned in closer with a look of surprise on her face before looking back at me with that same look on her face. “Where did you get this?” I tapped a few more keys and pulled up the notes I’d kept.

“You’re the one who got away.”

“I don’t understand, got away from what?”

My chest started to hurt for another reason. For so long, she’d been some kind of hero in my mind. When I first heard the whispers about her, I was too young to know or understand what the monsters were talking about, but as I got older and heard the story again, I knew what had happened.

“The night your family was killed, it was you they were after.”

“Wha…what?”

“Cierra!” I jumped up from the chair and pushed her down into it. “Breathe. Breathe!” I don’t know where he came from or how he knew that she needed him, but her husband was there in seconds, moving me out of the way and lifting her from the chair to sit in his lap.

“It’s okay baby; I’m here, I’m right here, shh, shh, calm down for me baby, I’ve got you.” He kept rambling to her, words of comfort, love, and encouragement until she calmed down and started breathing normally again. “Tell me the rest.” Her voice sounded tinny, so I looked at him. He nodded for me to go on, and I took a deep breath and forged ahead.

“One of them saw you; you were out with your parents or something I don’t remember where. He saw you and wanted you, so they spied on your family for a while. Do you remember anything about that day? Was there a serviceman, like an electrician, the cable guy? Someone that came to the house to fix something?” I didn’t wait for a reply from her since one wasn’t necessary.

‘That’s how they got in earlier in the day, or maybe it was the day before. I’m a little cloudy on the details there. Anyhow, he came back that night, and when he didn’t find you in your room, he, for some reason, went to your parents’ room. Your mom was the first to wake up, and… you know the rest.” I couldn’t tell her anymore as she’d curled into herself on her husband’s lap.