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I’ve seen a lot of pain and suffering during my time in the Corps, but nothing has prepared me for what I see inside this small house. I’ve been a witness to squalor and poverty on levels I never knew imaginable until the Marine Corps. I saw people doing their best with nearly nothing, living with dirt floors, and nothing more than what would equate to weeds from the yard to eat while I was in the Middle East. But the chains on the walls, the blood spilled on the floor, not belonging to the men Hound’s team took down, are eye-opening.
“This isn’t as bad as it will get,” Rivet says as she walks closer to me.
I nod, knowing she’s right.
We’ve gone over many of the past cases Cerberus has been involved in. Kincaid and the older guys who started the club didn’t want us to be surprised. They didn’t want us to let emotions get the better of us. They wanted to make us aware of what we’re facing, wanted to know if we thought we could handle it, and they were always adamant that it’s always worse in person.
I help Legend wrap one of the dead guys’ bodies in a blanket from the bed and carry him out of the house.
Hound is speaking with an official from the closest town. He was the one who called and reported this house. Tears mark his face as Hound gives him the news. His daughter was not inside.
I’ve heard more than one conversation leading up to this infiltration tonight. The man who reported his daughter’s abduction and pointed to this place as being responsible for taking her knew about it for years. In fact, intel says he’s been getting kickbacks from the organization running this place for quite a while. When he demanded more money for his silence, his daughter went missing. He, of course, didn’t admit any of this to Cerberus when requesting our help, but Max is very good at finding shit out.
The woman didn’t deserve to be punished for his crimes, but the families aren’t ever safe. Life isn’t valuable to these people. This man is just as culpable for his daughter’s abduction as he is for every woman, man, and child who has been cycled through this place.
I turn my attention back to the small house, watching as Harley and Scooter carry another man’s body from inside.
Chapter 3
Devyn
I shake my hands out as I descend the stairs, nervousness running through every extremity.
I didn’t sleep last night. I couldn’t shut my mind off. The lies I told months ago have come back to haunt me.
As I enter the kitchen, finding both my parents in there despite them normally avoiding each other at all costs, I still haven’t decided if I’ll tell them the truth now or wait until we all arrive on campus.
Maybe I’ll be able to convince them that there was some sort of mix-up, and the college lost my information and gave my room to someone else. This is the problem with lying. You always have to tell more lies to cover up the first one. It compounds and builds until your entire life is a lie.
My parents haven’t been very active in my life, but one thing they’ve been adamant about is that my life's goal of being a fashion designer isn’t something they support. They disregarded my dreams, as if I asked for ice cream for dinner rather than wanting to eat grilled chicken and steamed vegetables.
“There’s no money in fashion,” my mother said dismissively five years ago when I spoke of my dream. I wanted to choose Home Economics over advanced accounting because there was a chance we’d eventually use a sewing machine.
I took the classes she wanted and worked on my fashion projects on my own because I never wanted to disappoint them.
They rehomed Vaughn’s dog after he died because the sight of her was just too hard for them to deal with. As a young child, I felt as if I were just as disposable, and I never wanted to rock the boat. I didn’t want to be shipped off or traded because I made their lives difficult.
Neither parent looks up at me when I enter the room, but there’s a heaviness in the air. It’s all too familiar. I can’t recall a single loving moment between my parents other than the crude drawings in my journal. I imagine they fell apart after my brother’s death, but it leaves me wishing I could remember happier times. I have no idea why they’ve even stayed together. My mother now stays in the room that was Vaughn’s, and I rarely see them speak to each other. It’s as if they’re independently living in their own worlds, and this house just happens to be the place those worlds overlap.
