He stomped back over to stare at the older woman in the cage. She was standing right by the bars, looking up at him with big blue eyes. Mark had heard her speak before. She had an accent. Russian, he guessed. She seemed to have been talking to herself ever since one of the smaller guys had unceremoniously dumped her in the cage a few hours ago.
The giant leaned in and took another sniff. Mark couldn’t see the man’s face, but he saw his entire body tense before he started to back up. He didn’t get far, though. He was suddenly jerked forward toward the cage bars, a growl turning into a roar before he stumbled away.
He turned toward Mark’s cage, hand over his throat, blood pouring from between his fingers, eyes wide in panic.
Shocked, Mark gawked at the woman. Her expression hadn’t changed. It was still weirdly bored and unafraid, but now her mouth and jaw were covered in blood. Staring Mark in the eyes, she spit out what he could only guess was a thick piece of flesh.
Another one of the giants dropped his clipboard and ran over. He took one look at the bleeding male on the ground and suddenly charged at the woman’s cage, his arm reaching between the bars to grab her.
She took hold of the man’s arm and dug her teeth into his wrist, ignoring the screams of her victim as she tugged and pulled.
Mark couldn’t look away from what he was seeing until he heard feet running over the top of his cage. He lifted his gaze in time to see a small woman launch herself at the back of the man getting his wrist ripped apart. She wrapped something around his neck and began to pull.
The giant tried to yank his arm away from the blonde, but she just went with him, allowing him to slam her, face-first, into the thick metal bars again and again. The other woman continued to pull whatever she held tight. Mark thought maybe it was rope, but when he saw all that blood dripping on the floor . . . piano wire, maybe? Did people still use that as a weapon?
Apparently. And it was doing the trick. The giant was getting weaker and weaker. The other giant was already dead on the floor from blood loss.
He could hear people calling to one another from outside the container. He could also hear gunshots. A lot of them.
The giant stumbled back now that the blonde had released his arm. But Mark soon realized she’d released his arm because she’d chewed off his hand. She tossed it over her shoulder and moved forward as the giant took several steps back. She put her hands on the bars of her cage and pushed, the door swinging open easily. Mark had no idea how she’d got that open. Or how long it had been unlocked.
The giant dropped to his knees, but somehow, despite the blood loss from his neck and wrist, he was still alive.
The blonde motioned to the other woman. “Move. You take too long.”
“Give it a second.”
“We have no seconds. Move!”
The woman did as told, pulling the piano wire from around the giant’s throat and stepping off his back.
“Give me,” the blonde ordered, holding out her hand; a semiauto handgun was slapped into her palm.
She pointed the weapon at the giant’s head and without a wince or even a blink, she pulled the trigger. The man’s brains splattered across the space between cages, hitting Mark in the face and chest.
Horrified, he quickly wiped the mess off as best he could, just in time to see two more older women walk into the container. They dragged a man with them. One of the smaller scumbags that had kept them all trapped. He was bloody and beaten, a bad wound on his shoulder telling Mark he might have been shot. But he was still able to walk. Or, more accurately, be dragged along.
“Tell them,” one of the women ordered the man.
He spit at the floor and the second woman, an Asian with one side of her head shaved, grabbed his uninjured shoulder. He began to scream, although Mark didn’t know why. But then he saw blood flowing from his shoulder and he wondered how long the woman’s fingernails were. They must be long and thick to cause such damage. She must be strong, too, because Mark could hear the crunching of bone as she squeezed.
“Tell them,” the man was ordered again.
The man barked out a reply in Italian, and the woman who liked piano wire argued back in Italian. She didn’t look Italian, though. More like a dark-skinned Latina with long, black-and-white curly hair that reached down her back. She wore a sleeveless shirt, showing off a colorful skull tattoo on her shoulder that reminded him of an ex-girlfriend’s love of Mexico’s Day of the Dead.
After a few minutes of arguing, she shook her head and said, “He won’t tell us anything.”
“Doesn’t his speaking Italian kind of answer the question, though?”
“It doesn’t answer this.” The one holding the scumbag’s arm pulled something out of her back pocket and held it up. It was a tube filled with liquid. Mark didn’t know what kind of liquid. “There are cases upon cases of this shit in another container. Headed to Italy.”
“Motherfuckers,” the Russian growled. “I say we go over there now and kill them all.”
“No. They’re not our problem. Not yet, anyway.”
“We can’t let that shit go.”
“We won’t. But first we’re going to burn this thing to the ground.”
“Good plan, my friend,” the Russian said before raising her semiauto again and pulling the trigger at the last man.
“Dude!”
“Come on, Ox!”
“What is wrong with you?”
“We were going to keep him alive?” the Russian asked the other women. “For what?”
“I’m not in the mood to argue. Let’s just go get the captain.”
“I say we kill entire crew,” the Russian announced.
“We are not killing the entire crew.”
“Okay, sensitive Sally.”
The four women strode toward the exit until Mark yelled out, “Hey! Heyyyy! What about us?”
The Russian faced him. “What about you? All so pathetic and weak. We should just leave you here to die.”
“Oh, my God!” one of the other women snapped. “What is wrong with you today?”
“She is in a mood.”
“I know. Right?”
The Latina quickly searched one of the huge males until she found keys. She briefly studied each one before choosing a key and using it to open Mark’s cage.
Pressing the keys into his hand, she said, “Make sure everyone gets out in the next ten minutes. Understand?”
“Yeah.”
She started to move away, but abruptly turned back, adding, “So sorry about your trauma. Don’t be afraid to go to therapy after all this. It does help.”
“Therapy?” the Russian repeated. “Only Americans need therapy.”
“You know who needs therapy right now?” one of the women told the Russian. “You. For whatever is going on with you. Deep, every day, hours-long therapy. That’s what you need.”
As the women walked out, one of them, the Asian, spun around at the last moment to point at Mark and add, “And you never saw us, kid.” Then she made finger-guns, clicked her tongue against her teeth, and winked at him. It was weird.
Once the women were gone, Mark quickly helped the others get out. Those who were strong enough to walk on their own helped those who were nearly catatonic with fear, and together they escaped their cages, the container, and the cargo ship.