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“I have kids too,” another guard cajoles. “Jimmy and Katrina would be upset if I don’t come home.”
“Would they?” I ask, narrowing my eyes. “And how long have you worked here?” He clamps his lips shut, and I nod. “That’s what I thought. Somehow, I think Jimmy and Katrina will be fine without their evil father.”
Without me saying a word, Club swipes his blade across the guard’s neck. The sounds he makes echo around us as he collapses and bleeds out. We’re silent as the noises die away.
“Who are you people?” the woman asks, her eyes still narrowed, completely unfazed by the sight of her guard dying. That tells me all that I need to know. She doesn’t care about life, adults and children alike.
I move over to her and bop her nose with my bloody hand. She leans away with a look of disgust.
“Who are we?” I repeat, tilting my head. “I suppose we’re your worst nightmare.”
She snorts. “No. You’re not.”
I see ghosts in her eyes. I often hear that people who have been hurt will hurt others, but this woman is too far gone to save. We choose what we become. We either let the evil that hurt us destroy our soul and make us the very same thing or we do something about it. There’s no helping someone like this, and even if we could, I wouldn’t want to. The kids in those rooms deserve better. They deserve for their demons to die.
“Kill them,” I say. Heart and Diamond take out the other two guards, leaving only the warden. “Are you afraid of death?”
The woman tips her chin up. “I have died many times over. Death doesn’t frighten me.”
I want this woman to suffer for what she’s done, but she’s as unmoving as a boulder. I want her to scream, I want her to cry, but something tells me she won’t do any of those things. Something tells me she’ll go to her death without complaint, probably the same way she faced life—cold and uncaring.
“Allow me,” Diamond murmurs as he kneels beside her. He doesn’t brandish a knife. All he does is look into her eyes. They stare at each other for what seems like forever before Diamond whispers, “Tell me your nightmares.”
Her lips part, and I can tell she struggles with her answer, as if she doesn’t want to speak the words. Ultimately, Diamond is his own beast, and the word slips from her lips in a barely audible whisper.
“Fire.”
Heart giggles. “Being burned alive is the worst way to go, I hear.” He tucks his knife away. “I’ll go grab some gasoline.”
He disappears downstairs as Diamond looks over at me. “There are no children up here.” He reaches into the warden’s pocket and pulls out a ring of keys. “You three go get them out. Heart and I will take care of this one.”
I look at the woman again, at the way she stares unflinchingly at me. Anger fills me again. It’s not enough. It’s not enough!
Without thinking, I swing. My fist connects with her jaw, and she goes down with a gasp and a grunt of pain. “That’s for Noah,” I spit. I jerk her back up by her hair. “And this one is for the other children.” I grab her arm and twist, breaking it just as Roger once did to me. This time, she lets out a satisfying cry of pain as I drop her arm and kick her down. “Evil fucking bitch.”
No one stops me. No one keeps me from hurting her. Each of them nods in understanding before we separate. We pass Heart on the way downstairs, two large metal containers of gasoline in his hands. He whistles a happy circus tune and grins at us as we pass.
“I hope you brought the marshmallows,” he says. “We’re going to have one hell of a fire.”
Watching him climb the stairs, I realize I love that man.
There are ten cells total. As we unlock each one, Spade encourages the children to follow him out of the house while Club counts them. Some of the rooms have ten children. Some have even more. A few are empty. They are all too skinny and frail. Spade has to carry a couple of them because they are too weak to move on their own.
“Fuck,” I curse once we reach sixty kids. “Dr. Louis is going to be busy.”
One of the rooms holds only a single kid, an older girl. Her eyes are hollow as we open the door, and she scrambles back.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” I tell her, holding my hands out. “We’re getting you and your friends out of here. We’ll take you somewhere safe.”
“You promise?” she croaks. As she lifts her head, I get a good look at the bruises around her neck in the shape of a hand.
“I promise.” I nod, fighting my anger so I don’t scare her. “We’re going to burn this hellhole down.”
She nods and hesitates, tears forming in her eyes. “I can’t walk. I . . . I need my wheelchair.”
My heart twists. Fucking monsters!
I kneel and meet her eyes. “I don’t know where that is right now, but we can carry you out. Would that be okay?” She hesitates when Spade steps around the corner and kneels with me. “This is Spade. He can help you.” I notice the small, grungy stuffed animal clutched in her hands. This girl has to be fifteen at least, maybe older if she’s been malnourished for too long. When she moves, I realize it’s an animal I recognize. “Spade has a tiger.”
