“Yes. Why?” he answers.
“We have reason to suspect that some men are using these facilities to hold women.”
“Women?” he repeats.
“Yes. So, grab the tools and we’ll take any extra you have to cover more ground.”
“The owners aren’t going to let us cut off the locks on all these units,” he tells me.
“Good thing I’m not asking for their fucking permission,” I reply. “And you aren’t either. Do you want to help us find these women, or do you want to sit around and wait for some asshat to give us the green light?”
“Let’s do it,” he says with a nod.
“There are so many…” Charlotte says from beside me as we look at the illuminated rows of storage units before us that stretch back a hundred feet or more.
“Let’s head to the back first,” Verek suggests. “If you want to hide something, you wouldn’t choose the first few rows.”
“That works for me,” I agree.
The firefighters hand out the tools they have on them, and then we split up into small groups, each taking a row.
“I don’t hear anything,” Charlotte says as we head for the back with Verek.
“They may be sick fucks, but I doubt they would be stupid enough to leave women who are able to yell for help,” Verek says, to which I clear my throat loudly in warning. “What? It’s true,” he replies.
Each lock takes several tries to snap with the old bolt cutters we were given, the extra seconds seeming like an eternity. And of course, each one we open, we only find the usual stored shit – furniture, cars, bikes, boats, but no women.
We’re on the eighth unit out of ten in our row when we lift the corrugated steel door and I shine the flashlight on my phone over what looks like a mostly empty container, when there’s suddenly movement in the back.
It takes my brain several seconds to translate what my eyes are seeing before I spin around, standing directly in front of Charlotte to block her view.
“What is it?” she asks.
“Verek?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“Yeah…I…yeah,” he mutters as he eases past us with the light of his phone leading the way.
“Roman?” Charlotte looks up at my face and asks.
“We’ve got you, okay, sweetheart?” Verek says quietly behind us before I hear the bolt cutters snapping something metal, probably another lock. “Roman? Don’t let anyone else in here!”
“I won’t,” I respond as I back Charlotte up a few steps away from the front of the unit.
“What is it?” she asks and then she peeks around my shoulder before I can get her far enough away. “Tessa!” she screams at the top of her lungs. “Oh my god! Tessa! I’m so sorry!”
“Shh,” I tell her when I wrap my arms around her tightly to keep her from running in there and taking in even more of the scene. I’ve seen quite a few things that haunt my nightmares, but this storage unit just took the top spot. “You don’t need to see her like that. She’s alive. Verek’s going to get her free and then take her to get checked out by the paramedics and…” I clear my throat painfully, “…covered with some blankets, okay?”
“But…she needs me!” Charlotte sobs. She finally stops fighting and slumps against my chest.
“I know she does. You’ll see her soon, I promise,” I say as I stroke my palm over her hair and down her back. “What she’s been through…it’s worse than hell, but she is alive. She’s alive, Charlotte.”
“She’s alive,” Charlotte repeats. “She’s…she’s…” Without warning, she turns her head and vomits right next to our feet. And I don’t even blame her. I feel sick to my stomach too, certain that the image I just saw will be burned onto my eyelids and never forgotten.
“You okay?” I ask as I pull her hair back into a makeshift ponytail.
“No,” she answers while wiping her mouth with the bottom of her shirt, but she doesn’t throw up again.
A moment later, Verek strides out with Tessa cradled against his chest, his leather cut draped over her. “How is she?” I ask him as he hurries back toward the entrance where the ambulance is waiting.
“What do you think?” he sneers before he walks out of sight.
“Tessa! I’m right here!” Charlotte calls out. “I’m here!”
“Come on. I’ll take you over there so you can see her as soon as she gets checked out,” I tell her as I guide her back around towards the entrance, hoping the other women are found but worried they may be in worse condition. Tessa was here less than a goddamn day; and from the quick glance I got of her, she looked half dead, or like she wished she was with her head and arms locked in some weird ass fucking medieval stock, a piece of duct tape wrapped around her head to bind her mouth.
And while I know Charlotte has been beating herself up about Tessa going missing, I can’t help but feel responsible myself.
The girls were in my city, and she was taken right outside of one of my businesses. How the hell does something like that happen?
One ambulance turns into two, and then a third and fourth as more women are found. It’s an unbelievable scene as the cops show up along with the owner of the storage unit whose anger quickly transform into disbelief when he finds out what his tenants have been storing in his facility.
The entire time, I keep my arm around Charlotte, holding her to my side next to Tessa’s closed ambulance while we watch the whole ordeal unfolding before us.
Finally, the back door of the vehicle opens and Verek jumps down. “Tessa is asking for you, Charlotte. She wants to know if you’ll ride with her to the hospital.”
“Absolutely!” she exclaims in relief before she stands on her toes
