The Girl

The hallway stank of urine. The humidity made it worse. You could almost see the yellow vapors steaming up off the filthy linoleum floor. There were other smells, too: stagnant tobacco, old sweat, the sour mildew odor that all neglected spaces shared.

We had some time before the auction started, so I gave my equipment another once-over. Pollock was waiting outside in the van, ready for the getaway.

"How's it in there?" she asked over my earpiece.

I took in the grimy, dim atmosphere. "Like a David Fincher set."

"That's the 'Seven' guy, right?"

"I'm impressed," I said. "There's hope for your movie tastes yet."

"Whatever. Listen, my inside told me the auction should be starting around 3."

"Her camera working? Numbers still the same?" I asked.

"Actually less than we originally thought. Two of the buyers backed out, so that leaves five Triggers on the floor. Uh...maybe six. Barker's there."

I blew out an irritated puff of air.

"I heard that." she said, "Look, if he recognizes you he may try to play cowboy, but I'm betting he'll just duck and cover."

"He still off-limits?" I asked, hoping she would say "no".

"He's officially representing his daddy, so yes. He stays alive. Anyone else is collateral."

"Your inside?"

"She's disappearing as soon as things pop off."

"Well," I said, "Guess we just wait."

We sat in comfortable silence, reflecting. We tried to do that before every job, our little team. There was never a guarantee we would make it out alive. Best to go in clean and calm.

A soft hiss in my earpiece as Pollock came back on.

"The target’s on the floor."

"Ready to move. Your inside have eyes on?"

"Yeah...huh."

"What? What's wrong?" I asked. A 'huh' from Pollock is never positive.

"Nothing's wrong," Pollock answered, "Just...obviously I'm not seeing this HD, but it looks like she's wearing shackles."

"That's...rare."

"Maybe she's a fighter," Pollock said. "Be careful. She probably won't realize she's being rescued. If her hands aren't free, you might risk a bite."

"Copy," I answered, and switched on my bodycam. "You got me?"

"I have you."

"Moving forward. Tell your connect to make an exit."

I crept toward the end of the hall, straining to hear sounds from the auction room. I was waiting until everyone was focused on bidding so I could take them by surprise. I didn't want this to turn into a bloodbath, but I would probably have to do some violence before grabbing the girl. At the very least I would have to neutralize whoever was guarding her.

I turned the knob on the door slightly. Unlocked. Good, I could slip the flashbang in unnoticed. I heard footsteps on the other side of the door walking past, low voices murmuring, but overall, it was oddly subdued.

One voice rose up, stilling all the others. The owner was speaking in a peculiar way, like he was most at home in a 19th century courtroom or behind a country pulpit. He had an accent to match; something syrupy and willowish.

"Gentlemen, I need not revisit my earlier excitations about this singular specimen standing before you. Indeed, even now you bear witness to her extraordinary gaze, her exquisiteness, her-"

"Just start the goddamn auction", another voice snapped.

"Very well," the country lawyer/pastor said in that same sonorous tone, unfazed by the interruption. "The bidding starts at $10 million".

I'd never heard of anyone going for $10 million. Never. These girls fall into the sex work underground and vanish. No broker would ever pay $10 million for a single girl. It was a ludicrous price.

"Pollock," I whispered. "They just started the bidding at ten mil."

"What? That's insane."

"I don't like this." I said. "Something is way off. We're gonna have a talk with management about this later."

"It's gonna be more than a talk. See you two outside. Don't get yourself dead."

I cracked open the door slowly, peeking through the crack.

The girl was standing naked in the center of the room, shackles fastened around her hands and feet and running through thick metal loops attached to the concrete floor. They looked like they weighed about a hundred pounds apiece. Iron, maybe. But however much they weighed, she didn't seem to much feel it.

Her feet were planted wide, chains pulled taut. Her eyes were a deep glittering emerald. Her skin was pale and freckled, glowing under the fluorescents. A mass of copper hair cascaded down to her shoulders in twisting waves. Muscles stood out in sharp relief, straining against the chains.

Definitely a fighter. Those shackles were a problem, though. This was going to be a running fight and I needed her free.

No guards flanking her, only a lanky man with an amazing white pompadour. He was immaculately dressed in what looked like a velvet suit, complete with cravat. He had to have been the owner of the antebellum voice. And I bet he had a key.

"Breaching" I said to Pollock, and rolled in my flashbang.

The bang went off, lightning and thunder filling the room. I came through the door and quickly scanned. Most of the buyers were flat on the floor in a loose knot, bodyguards on top blindly trying to get their bearings. I flanked far to my right and popped a smoke grenade, then put a round into the furthest guard.

The confusion and the smoke did its work. Gunfire erupted within the cloud, punctuating the shouts as the bewildered and panicked bodyguards shot at any vague shape that moved. One screamed, "I'm hit! Oh God, Oh God!"

I only had a few seconds before someone thought about the girl. I kept low, moving quickly to Mr. Cravat. He was dazed, blinking rapidly and opening his mouth wide trying to reactivate his hearing. The girl hadn't moved. She was staring fiercely at me, green eyes blazing.

Mr. Cravat saw me too late as I pulled my knife. It wasn't gonna be a clean kill, but time was of the essence. I pushed the knife straight into his throat then punched it through, severing every vein and artery on the left side of his neck.

Blood sprayed out of his wound like a geyser, soaking the girl. He dropped to his knees, then plopped face forward onto the concrete. I searched his waistband and almost immediately found the key. It was large and ancient-looking, like something out of the Middle Ages.

The smoke was beginning to dissipate. I didn't have long before the survivors realized what was happening. I quickly unlocked both of the girl's ankle shackles.

"I'm rescuing you," I said. She looked at me in silence, those eyes never shifting away.

"You motherf-!" someone yelled in my direction, gunshots from his piece punctuating the last two syllables of his greeting. I spun toward the sound and answered with two rounds of my own. I saw the fuzzy outline of a figure drop, then pulled the girl down and shielded her as I tried to unlock her wrist shackles.

"Give me the key." she said in a commanding voice. Her eyes bore into me. There was no fear there at all. None.

Plans never survive first contact. Trying to unshackle the girl and survive a gunfight with multiple professionals was relying on almost supernatural luck. If she could free herself, I could concentrate on fighting. It was safer for her anyway. If she stuck close, she may catch a stray bullet. I went with my gut and gave her the key. "Find somewhere to hide," I said.

I moved away from the girl and fired a few more rounds off. The smoke had dissipated, so I could pick my shots a little better. One caught a bodyguard right under the collarbone, causing him to drop his gun. I slid on my knees toward a concrete pillar for cover, cracking off another shot one-handed and catching the wounded guard in the stomach. He slumped over. The others returned fire, concentrating solely on putting me down. Good. Hopefully the girl had found a hiding place.

Then I heard an animal scream coming from where I had left her. I turned ready to fire at a new threat, then froze.

The girl was rising to her feet with a predator's grace, blood streaking her face in warpaint stripes. Her eyes shone like viridian in twin pools of black.

The gunshots had stopped, echoes reverberating in the emptiness. Everyone was staring at the girl as she coiled herself into a wolf-like crouch and opened her mouth in another scream.

Across from her, the two remaining bodyguards raised their guns. Barker had survived the initial gunfight, and I saw him scrambling backward toward the far wall, crawling over the wounded and the dead.

The next instant stretched out in slow motion. The girl was looking past me, eyes glowing, sharp white canine teeth bared at her would-be slavers. Her muscles were ropey under her white skin. The mane of her hair streamed out behind her like flames. In that eternal moment, I saw a demon from the darkest corners of the occult, a fiend of unearthly beauty that could command legions of avid, despairing worshipers to destroy themselves for her.

Then Pollock's voice snapped everything back into real-time.

"Jesus!"

A bodyguard fired in my direction, the bullet striking the pillar next to my ear. I flinched and returned a badly aimed shot, missing my attacker considerably.

I caught movement in my periphery, copper and white. The girl glided past me like a wind, moving so quickly and smoothly over the warehouse floor it looked like she was skating across one of the frozen ponds that dotted the rural town of my childhood winters.

She hit the first shooter at an angle, almost casually running her fingertips across his neck as she slipped past him. His throat unzipped, spraying a fan of blood into the shimmering air the girl left in her wake. He grabbed his neck with both hands, trying fruitlessly to keep the claret inside his tubing as it spurted out between his fingers.

The second shooter immediately turned and emptied his mag in the girl. Or tried to. But either she was too fast or she was bulletproof, because she didn't even slow down.

Her mouth distended like a cobra's as she leaped onto him and bit into his throat. He screamed in a gargling kind of way, but then sank with glassy eyes under the girl’s weight.

This had turned into the weirdest cock-up. I holstered my piece and moved slowly toward the girl, hands held outward. Her eyes darted toward me, but she never moved, never released her hold on her victim. Apparently she didn't consider me a threat.

I began speaking slowly and loudly. I don't know why I did that, but it seemed appropriate at the time.

"I'M MOVING TOWARD THE EXIT. I MEAN YOU NO HARM." I enunciated.

The exit door banged open. Coming through was Pollock, gun drawn. Normally bad protocol for a getaway to involve themselves in the action, but this had gone a little beyond protocol. The girl released her victim and sprang toward Pollock. Pollock dropped into a crouch, aiming high on the girl's chest.

"NO!" I shouted. I was sure that the girl was about to decapitate Pollock as she tried to squeeze off a shot, but miraculously, both women stopped. They faced off, Pollock low and tight and the girl high and wide, dripping blood.

"I'm with the man who tried to rescue you," Pollock said in a low voice. "We just want to help you escape. But you can understand why I have a gun pointed at you right now."

The girl relaxed, just a little. The muscles softened. But those predator's eyes still burned.

"You’re not working alone, yes?" she asked.

"Yes. Or rather, no we're not working alone." I said. "We were sent here on assignment."

"Your masters didn't tell you why they sent you for me?"

That word didn't sit well with me, but it was valid enough. I wasn't gonna argue either way.

"They never tell us why." Pollock said.

The girl regarded Pollock, then turned her gaze to me. The green fire had been replaced with something bottomless. She drew me into those depths, drowning me.

Then I was back in myself and her eyes were back to normal. Or, what passed for normal.

"I believe you," she said. "But I know why. And I know who sent you. I'll be visiting them. Tonight."

Then she was gone through the door like a breath. She could've easily killed us both. She could've killed everyone in the room and it would have been a blur. She slowed down to make a point.

Barker was still against the wall, scrambling. Pollock holstered her weapon, strode over to him, and kicked him viciously in the side of his leg. That brought him around. He looked balefully up at her through gritted teeth.

"It's all over now," she said to him. "The hell outta here. Take your buddies with you."

Out of the 6 buyers, only 3 were still alive. The rest were lying on the concrete full of bullet holes, along with the dead bodyguards.

Barker got up, limped over to the other buyers, and helped them to their feet.

"What--" One of them began.

"I don't know." I interrupted. "Leave. Now."

Barker began to say something, but then stopped. His face was pale and greenish. Then he and the other two hobbled out of the door.

Pollock looked around at the carnage. "Guess we better split too."

"Yeah. Guess."

The silence was deep. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears.

"So," she sighed. "Wanna grab a coffee or something?"

Did I ever.