“Miranda, I’m Alex.” I point to the other cage. “That’s my sister Jane and our friend. She goes by Walker.”

“Why are you telling me this? I’d rather not put a name to your face. We’re not friends in here.” Her tough façade finally crumbles. “I can’t care about you and sister and myself, too. If anything, you’re the distraction we need to get some of the focus off ourselves.”

“I get it. I do. But I’m not the type to let bastards like this get the upper hand. We’re been through some crazy stuff over the last year, but a group of rednecks playing slave-trader aren’t going to be the ones to take me down. I refuse.” I force my most confident voice. “We’re getting out of here alive and in one piece. You too.”

She stares at me like I’m a lunatic. Maybe I am. It could run in the family. “I don’t think you understand these guys.” She looks over at Green and Jackson hanging from the wall. “They’re ruthless.”

“Yeah well, I’ve seen enough out there that I’m not afraid of a filthy human. I have traveled for so long and we’re almost at the end,” I expla

in. “So these guys killing or trading or enslaving us—it’s not happening.”

The girl cracks a smile. “You sound like you believe that.”

“I do,” I tell her, staring out the cage at the men. “And you should, too.”

*

Reality strikes when one of the men that captured us drags a girl from a long hallway at the back of the building and tosses her into Walker’s cage. Her hair is long, brown, and uncombed. She wears jeans and no shoes. Her cotton T-shirt hangs off her shoulder. My stomach hurts just seeing her. When he opens the cage I wait to see if Walker will do anything—fight back—but she doesn’t, instead keeping her eyes down. The cage door slams and he mutters something under his breath.

We all avoid looking at the girl, red-faced and distant, except my sister who offers her the purple coat as a cover-up.

I feel like I’ve slipped into an alternate universe.

It’s not that I haven’t heard about places like this. Or thought about the possibility. With the Resistance, we brought in survivors who’d lived through a variety of traumatic post-apocalyptic hellholes. But Walker and I have spent the majority of our time post-virus with the military, surrounded by men that respect us and armed to the teeth. We had firepower on our side, and as Wyatt called himself, “A fucking fairy godmother.”

I realize now how lucky we’ve been.

Another man comes by whistling an eerie, slow tune. He checks our locks before dropping in two bottles of water and a pack of crackers. I watch nervously as he heads over to Green and Jackson. The redhead lifts his chin and mumbles something I can’t quite hear. Whatever it is offends the man and out of the back of his jeans he removes something dark. I grip the bars of the cage and shout, “No! Don’t shoot him!”

The man glances back at me and holds up the weapon. I realize then it’s not a gun but something different and I hear a buzzing sound as he flips a switch. Blue electricity hums from the weapon and he jabs it into Green’s side. The Fighter’s body jerks on contact, electrocuted by the taser. The Winchester zaps him twice more until Green flops to the side, unmoving.

“Did you kill him?” I shout again, but Miranda drags me away from the bars and covers my mouth.

I fight against her but she whispers, “He’ll punish us all if you don’t shut up.”

I hate it and I hate that man but I know Miranda’s right. It’s not fair to everyone else held prisoner to put them at risk, and I slump against her on the floor. The Winchester gives me one last look before shoving the taser into the back of his pants and exiting out the front door. The sound of bolts turning from the other side echoes through the quiet room.

One look at Walker reveals a green face. Jane fingers her sock and stares at the ground. Did she even see what happened? I never thought I’d see Walker so rattled but she looks bad. I settle myself, realizing my reactions are disturbing the others.

I hold up the bottle of water. “Is it safe?” I ask, breaking the silence.

“Yeah, they save the drugs for themselves and to trade,” Miranda says then nods to a bucket in the corner covered with a thin piece of wood. “But, just so you know. That’s where you go to the bathroom so you may not want to go crazy.”

The water smells like rust but I drink anyway, gagging at the aftertaste. Miranda and I split the sleeve into three and she wakes her sister, Rebecca. I see now that she’s only a teenager—a couple of years younger than me.

“Do they sleep here?” I ask. The crackers taste like salted cardboard but it helps with the nausea building in my stomach. I know Walker is listening so I face her so that she can hear our conversation better. We need as much information as possible if we’re going to get out of here in one piece. One glance at Green slumped against the wall tells me we’re going to have to act sooner than later.

“No, they have a couple of homes on the main stretch,” Miranda says. “We watched them for two days before we got caught. Butch, the one with the side burns? He’s their leader and not as much of an idiot as he seems. He’s mean as a snake but he’s savvy. They keep business hours, believe it or not, and now we’re part of the business.”

No, I want to tell her, we’re not.

“They’ll be back late morning, when the bar opens. But sometimes they have customers earlier than that.” She wrinkles her nose. “Usually the druggies looking for a fix.”

“What’s the routine,” Walker says from her cage. “What happens when they come in?”

Miranda shrugs. “Traders start coming in. Many are just here for the essentials. Medication, ammunition, or even food. But others like the dirty stuff. They know this is the place to feed their habit. A few buy women for an hour. Some for longer.”

“Where do they trade the girls? Do they just walk in here?” Walker asks.

Tags: Angel Lawson Death Fields Horror
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