I wait for Maria to leave, and then I get dressed and slip silently through the house unseen, the same way I always do. I’m heading for Rafael’s office, determined to talk to him, when a faint noise halts me. It sounds like the whimpering of a girl; a sound I’ve heard far too many times to count. Tilting my head to the side, I backtrack until I’m standing outside that door, the one that leads to the death room in the basement. I tentatively push the handle down, and it opens easily. Voices drift up the stairwell, and there’s that whimpering again. I tiptoe down the carpeted stairs to get closer. The door at the bottom is open a crack, and I peer through it, seeing Samuel leaning against the wall, his arms folded over his chest. Someone else is out of sight, but I can hear their footsteps on the concrete, the creaking of the chains where someone is hanging. I shift, getting closer, and the person comes into view. A woman. Her wrists are bound and chained the same as the man they brought here before. Clothing hangs from her body, bloody and torn. I watch as a hand suddenly appears around her throat, a hand I know well. I recognize Rafael’s black rose tattoo, the roman numerals that adorn the fingers of his right hand.
“I don’t have time for your lies. I want those fucking girls back, do you hear me?”
“I don’t know where they are.” Her voice is cracked and weak.
He laughs, a cold sound that sends an icy shiver up my spine. “Oh, don’t you worry, I’ll hunt them down like dogs.”
I have to fight down the bile rising in my throat. I can’t listen to anymore, so I turn and run up the stairs as quietly as possible, taking care to shut the door behind me. I round the corner and run straight into Carlos.
“Whoa.” He puts his hands out, grabbing my arms to steady me. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say, shrugging out of his hold and rushing around him. As soon as I’m outside, I drag a cleansing breath into my lungs. Lies. Everything he told me was lies. Rafael’s no different to any of the others, and what does that mean for me? What is he going to do to me? He said he’d protect me, but how can I believe him now. I want those fucking girls back. I squeeze my eyes shut. I was wrong, he is a monster, only much worse than the ones I’ve encountered before. They never pretended to be anything other than what they were. I go into the gardens, passing the flowerbeds that I once loved. The blood-red roses now seem that much more ominous, so I keep walking, passing the barn that Rafael taught me to shoot in. I keep going until I reach the paddocks with the horses in and climb through the fence.
I’ve come here every day in the last week. The horses soothe me. Their quiet presence and the way they trust so easily settles my frayed nerves. On the far side of the paddock, there’s a hill, which drops away to a barn at the bottom. I climb through the fence and sneak inside the barn. The white horse whinnies at me when I walk in, tossing her head as I approach. The name plaque on her door says she’s called Sky. An old man walks around feeding the horses hay and cleaning out stables, but he never seems to care that I’m here.
A banging sound comes from the front of the barn, and I pet Sky once more before walking toward it. A trailer is parked up, and two men are fastening the back closed. The trailer rocks back and forth as the horse inside kicks at the metal box. Another guy slips through a small door at the front before joining the other two. They shake hands and exchange conversation for a moment. I stare at that small door, beckoning to me like the doorway to heaven itself. Indecision plays through my mind before I do something that I know there’s no turning back from. I move quietly across the short distance between the barn and the trailer, then open the trailer door. As soon as I step inside, I’m only inches away from the face of an enormous horse. He snorts and stamps his front foot. I swallow heavily and lift a shaky hand to his nose, petting him. He quiets, and I slip into the gap between the metal partition and the wall where another horse would stand. I just hope they don’t look in here. I crouch down, and the horse kicks at the walls again when the engine starts. I can barely breathe as I wait for the trailer to move. When it does, it sways from side to side, bumping over the road until it stops; I guess at the gate. My companion starts kicking the hell out of the trailer again, and I silently thank him because the guards on the gate probably don’t fancy looking in here with an angry horse. No one opens that door, and the trailer jolts forward again.