After a short, brisk walk, we arrive at the Harvest Fields Trailer Park. The meth lab is located at the back of the property, nestled near thick woods. The other trailers have been moved awkwardly away from our destination. Clearly, the locals know the place isn’t safe. How happy will they be in a few hours when they learn their meth-cooking neighbors are gone?
Dressed all in black, Dino is the picture of sexy badassery. I want to hump him hard, but work calls. He tugs down his mask and hides his handsome mug. Once I do the same, we’re on the move.
Dino runs for the trailer where all of the lights are on. He takes a chance with the door being unlocked gets lucky. These guys don’t expect anyone to fuck with them. Not when they have the Sheriff’s Department watching their backs.
First through the door, Dino knocks one guy on his ass and fires on a second one. His voice remains steady and quiet, even while threatening to kill them for breathing.
I move past him and into a back room. One tweaker is on the bed, playing with his puny dick. He doesn’t react when I enter. Too high to know he’s about to die, he only smiles at the battered woman sitting on the bed.
She sees me and inhales roughly. I take in the sight of her and the tied up women on the other side of the room.
“Don’t move or speak,” I warn.
The tweaker smiles wider and reaches for the woman next to him. He’s dead before his fingers touch her.
Turning my gun towards the women, I order them to stay put in my manliest voice. They stare, too horrified to respond. I ease out of the room without turning my back on the women. They’re victims, but so was the sex slave in Guatemala who took a shot at me years earlier. No one is safe in my world.
The pale fucker in front of me has shitty tweaker teeth. He smiles at me as if I’m about to die, but he’s only biding his time.
“On the floor,” I order the asshole. When he doesn’t react quickly enough, I crack the butt of my rifle against his head. He goes down with a thud. “I said on the floor.”
My focus returns to the women behind me. They remain very still even when Dino fires on someone in the kitchen. Glancing in his direction, I see a tweaker gushing blood on the ground. The remaining assholes know their time’s short. Most of them go for their weapons, but one lunges past me to where the women wait.
Careful with my shots, I kill the one looking to take hostages. Dino shoots the guy heading for the door. He kills another asshole in the kitchen. When the guy falls towards a table, Dino grabs his body to keep it from making a racket.
“Clear,” he says, tapping me on the shoulder.
“Stay quiet,” I tell the women before gesturing for them to get up. “Untie that one.”
Beaten down too many times to fight back, the woman on the bed only nods. The women think we’ll kill them next. Or we’ll sell them off to the next pervert. Even wanting them to worry enough to remain docile, I still feel like shit. Their lives weren’t easy before our weapons pointed at them.
Dino leans over and whispers, “You want them or the fire?”
“I’ll do the fire.”
Call me a wuss, but these women and their horrible lives make me uneasy. I could have turned out like them so easily. One bad decision here or there and I’d be someone’s bitch. I can almost see myself in their terrified eyes.
Speaking in a quiet yet authoritative voice, Dino leads the women out of the room. “You will walk into the woods and keep walking until you reach the other side. When you speak to the police, you will tell them Dick Richey saved you. Do you understand?”
The women follow Dino out of the already burning trailer. I hurry outside after dumping as much accelerant as possible. I want only ashes left for Black.
We watch the women shivering in the autumn morning. None of them are wearing shoes. One is only in a tee and panties. They look like survivors of a natural disaster, and I wonder what’ll happen to them next.
“Go and don’t look back,” Dino says. “If you do, we’ll put you down too.”
The women walk into the dark woods, and I wish they had shoes at least. With less than an hour before the sun rises, it's too late to do anything for them.
Dino and I run in the opposite direction as the women. We ditch the trailer park long before a single siren rings out in the quiet morning.
12
Minka
Handing Out Chill Pills
My cell rings just after eleven, and I’m barely able to understand what an angry Hayes is yelling. I tell him he woke me up and to call back later. He hollers into the phone that I better get my scrawny ass over to his office. If I were more awake, I’d be offended about him dismissing my fine butt. Instead, I tell him we’ll be right over. Once I hang up, I turn off my phone, roll over against Dino’s warm body, and return to sleep.
Many hours later, we show up at Hayes’s office where we find Donna gone along with her knickknacks and family photos. A new woman sits at the desk. She’s wearing the same panicky look as the former receptionist. I smile at her, but she can barely return it. I do notice she gives Dino a quick and approving once over.
“Can I help you?” she nearly whispers.
“What happened to Donna?”
“She quit. I’m from the temp agency.”