Page 8 of Ballistic

After months of searching, I’d finally found her. Hopped up on whatever drugs they’d given her. Hedonic, from the looks of it.

One of the guards from earlier stumbled along, his eye swollen and bruised, and behind him, Rhys carried his gun over his shoulder, smoking a cigarette. He kicked the asshole forward, and the guard tumbled to his knees before quickly scrambling back to his feet.

“Kneel, cocksucker.” Rhys stood about six-two, decked out in leathers like a biker. He owned Smoking Guns Tattoo Parlor and happened to be a pretty decent guy, but take a decent guy and tell him about a human trafficking ring happening in his backyard, and you got the look on Rhys’s face. Both disgusted and uncompromising, as he strolled up and flicked his cigarette, before sliding the gun off his shoulder to aim at the guard. “You answer any question incorrectly, and I’m gonna take a moment to study the splatter patterns when your brain hits that brick wall behind you.”

“Where do I find Tesarik?” I stood over him, watching his eyes for any sign of bullshit.

Jutting his chin, he sneered back at me. “Choď do pekla.”

“’The fuck does that mean?”

He didn’t answer.

Dust kicked up in a cloud before the sound of gunfire reached my ear, and the little prick jerked in response.

“I don’t know.” Not even his thick accent got in the way of his words that time.

Another shot pinged off the cement beside him. “Don’t make me blow a hole through your head, man. It’s fucking gross.” Rhys lowered the gun and smiled. “Almost pissed himself that time, though, didn’t he?”

“I tell you the truth. Ve don’t know anything. He comes and he goes.”

“Comes and goes from where?” I asked again, signaling Rhys to hold off on the next shot I could see him lining up in my periphery.

“I don’t know. He doesn’t tell us. Nobody tells us. Ve just guard the units.”

“And fuck the girls, right? You beat and fuck the girls, too, right?” At a flash of the girl’s bruised body, anger flared inside my muscles, and I hammered my boot in the bastard’s face. With a crunch of cartilage and a splash of blood, his head kicked back on a grunt. “How’s that feel, asshole?”

“Please … I don’t—”

“Shut the fuck up!” As I lurched toward him for another kick, he cowered, raising his trembling hands to block his already-bloodied face. “You’re nothing but a raping piece of shit.” I stuffed my hand down into his jean pockets and fished around for a pill bottle, finding one inside his coat. Little blue bottle with little pink pills inside. “This what you’ve been giving ‘em? Fucking them up on Hedonic? Keeping ‘em locked inside these units until they’re so fucking starved for touch and those pills, they’ll do whatever you tell them. Sound about right?”

“Ve give pills ven they ask for them. It’s vot we’re told to do.”

“Well, guess what, fuck-face? You’re under new management.” I stuffed the pill bottle into my coat pocket.

Xavier strolled up, shaking his head as he shoved his hands into his sagging jeans. “All empty.”

“Except one,” I clarified and glanced back to the van still parked where I’d left it.

“What should I do with shithead, here?” Rhys asked, pointing the gun toward the guard again.

I shoved my gun into my pocket and backed myself toward the van. “Lock him in one of the storage units. If he’s lucky, someone will give a shit and find him. If not, the fucking rats can eat ‘im.”

The guy scrambled forward, as if to get to his feet, and another shot pinged beside his knee still on the ground.

Rhys’s boisterous laughter echoed behind me as I jogged on ahead. “We’ll see you back at your place!”

I raised a hand to acknowledge him but didn’t bother to look back.

The girl was in for the worst night of her life, and I needed to get her somewhere safe.

4

Nicoleta

“She fucking punched me.” A male’s rough and raspy voice sliced through the blackness, piercing my eardrums. “’The hell she take?”

I arched, letting the wave of agony move through my muscles. Tiny prickles danced across my skin, like the patter of a million bugs crawling over me, the intensity twisting my stomach with nausea. My eyes felt as if they’d been glued shut, refusing to open at my will, and scratchy cotton dryness clung to the back of my throat.