It was Colton. White-blond hair flashed as he directed a reasonably large Boston Whaler-style vessel toward us. I’d studied these in our marine ecology classes; they used to be a very popular fishing boat in the early 21st century. It was a center console, half-cab style. White with black lettering up and down the deep side.
The wolf-Walker’s grin was huge as he cruised into the side of the dock and threw a rope across to Brace. Then the two of them made quick work of loading the dozen or so females on board. Lucy, Chrissie, Golden Girl – whose name I’d just learned was Eva – and I followed across last. I needed to stick with the group until I determined which was my half. Chrissie or Eva.
As soon as the opportunity presented itself, I’d use my moonstale. Brace took over from Colton, and somehow knew exactly how to maneuver the fishing boat. He settled into the white leather captain’s chair, and those of us still able to sit scattered around the built-in leather benches. The battered females pretty much collapsed wherever they could fit. They were squished, but at least they were safe.
“What happened to all of you?” I asked Chrissie.
She was sitting on my right side, Eva on the other side of her.
I’ll have to go the long route to avoid running into any ganger vessels. This was why Brace had taken over. His advanced senses would keep us from trouble.
“Smugglers.” Chrissie leaned forward and rested her hands on her knees. “We were in Manhattan. I had intel that there was a convoy of smuggled females due to cross downtown, and we were planning on interrupting the gangers. But before we could take them out, they knocked us down with some sort of electronic pulse. Eva knows a little of the technology; it disconnects the synapses in your brain for a short period. We were knocked unconscious long enough for them to drug us.”
Eva picked up the conversation. “When we finally came to we were on a boat, and then we ended up in that room. The one with all the mirrors. There were about two dozen of us, a lot from the vigiladies group, but also others.”
Vigiladies – I liked that. It was great to see females taking back their power. Alone we were vulnerable, but together women could do anything. I hadn’t been kidding when I said Chandra would be proud of Chrissie. Instead of rolling over and dying from her emotional wounds, she’d embraced her destiny and saved others from the same fate.
Eva continued her story, her voice starting to shake for the first time. “There was a voice, over a loud speaker. He called our numbers.” She held out her arm, and I noticed that there was a large black ‘12’ inked on her palm. “We had to step into the center of the room, and then we were … bid on.”
Lucy, who was next to Colton a few seats down from me, leaned forward. “Why were there so many dead females?”
Chrissie made a low, angry noise from the back of her throat. “Any that weren’t purchased were disposed of, the rest of us were forced to drink from this cup … it tasted like cherries and poison. Then we were dragged out onto the docks.”
This was pretty much as I had figured, but I still wasn’t sure of my theory about why Chrissie and Eva had been in that fenced area. I asked them, rather than guess any longer.
“They wanted us to fight each other. The two men who had purchased us, they were trying to use the other girls as leverage.” Eva’s voice was hard and low, that huskiness fading out under the memories. “You arrived just in time.”
They’d been using the females as a form of entertainment. Turning friend against friend. Knowing that to save yourself from rape and torture, most women would do anything. Even hurt someone they cared about. It was this type of power which gangers and rich evil men thrived on.
I had really hoped I’d been wrong about what they were doing. Dammit! I wanted to go back and kill all of those males we had missed. There was no reason for them to exist any longer. No reason at all.
Chapter 7
We’d been traveling for an hour and I was totally ready to get off this stupid boat. Chrissie believed we’d been on docks somewhere in the Brooklyn area; although that was only a guess, since there weren’t many landmarks for them to determine.
Brace decided to head south, and the Whaler moved swiftly on the water. So far there was no pursuit, and thankfully most of the females were moving past their drug-induced stupor. They still lay around and were very quiet, but many of their faces had finally relaxed. Losing the wide-eyed look of fear.
I’d never been out of downtown New York; no one on the boat had been. We asked around. I knew I should be opening my necklace, figuring out which was my girl and getting all of us back to First World. But I needed to know that these women were going to end up somewhere safe. It felt like a job I had to finish.
Chrissie, who had been dozing, sat up straighter and rubbed at her eyes. “Why are you here, Abby?” She went from asleep to awake in an instant. I’d bet she had learned to sleep very lightly in the last few years. “Can you tell me now about those marks you wear and how you found us on the docks?”