Chapter 6: The Take Down

Jason crouched in the tall grass, the cold night air biting through his jacket as he watched the distant headlights crawl along the road. Behind him, five men shifted in the dark, their boots crunching lightly on the frosted earth.

“Two vans,” one of them muttered, a wiry guy named Reese who was once an army sergeant. But now he’s a leader of an underground group that works with the FBI, but they’re not law enforcement. And Jason is part of that group.

Jason crushed his cigarette under his boot, watching the headlights bob closer through the skeletal trees. The second van was lagging deliberately, he realized, maintaining just enough distance to avoid looking like a convoy.

The second van’s brake lights flared crimson in the dark, its chassis listing slightly. The men from both driver seats and passenger seats moved with the synchronized precision of hired muscle, one opening the padlocks, the other yanking open the rear doors with a metallic shriek as Vivian stepped out. Her shoes sank into the mud with a wet crunch.

Inside, the girls blinked against the sudden intrusion of the flashlights. Six in each van, all naked, their skin goosefleshed from the cold. Chains slithered between them like metallic serpents, linking ankles to wrists. One girl, a blonde, maybe 15, lifted her hands instinctively to cover her breasts before remembering the futility.

Vivian’s voice cut through the night air like a blade wrapped in silk, sharp, and cold. “Alright, gentlemen, pick whichever you want from this van only. The other van, the girls, has already been sold.” She tapped her watch, the pale glow of the face illuminating her smirk. “Do what you like, then tuck them back in. You’ve got fifteen minutes.”

Jason exhaled sharply through his nose, his breath curling in the frigid air. Reese adjusted his goggles again, the lenses clicking softly as he scanned the van’s interior. “Christ,” he muttered under his breath. The blonde girl, the one who’d tried to cover herself, was trembling so hard her chains rattled.

The blonde girl’s teeth chattered loud enough to hear, sharp, rapid clicks that sounded almost like Morse code pleading for help. Her skin had taken on a bluish tint in the cold, the goosebumps so pronounced they looked like braille. One of the men, a thick-necked guy with a scarred knuckle, grabbed her by the arm, his fingers sinking into the soft flesh above her elbow. She gasped, but the wind swallowed the sound. He pushed her out of the van into the mud as he began to unbuckle his belt.

Jason’s jaw tightened. The mud sucked at his boots as he took a step forward. “No, not yet; wait until they all have their pants off,” Reese said.

The trembling girl wasn’t just afraid; her lips were turning purple. The others weren’t faring much better; a brunette in the corner had curled into a tight ball, her ribs protruding with each shallow breath. The chains between them clinked softly, a cruel parody of wind chimes.

The brunette’s knees hit the mud with a wet slap as the man hauled her forward by her hair. Her choked gasp barely registered beneath the thick, rhythmic grunts of the others already at work. The man’s belt buckle clattered against her collarbone, cold metal biting into skin already raised with gooseflesh. He didn’t bother unbuttoning his jeans; he just yanked them down past his hips and shoved her face forward.

She gagged before he even touched her body, recoiling instinctively. Too late. His fingers tangled in her matted hair, forcing her mouth open wide enough to hear her jaw pop.

The blonde girl’s gag reflex kicked in instantly, her throat convulsing around the intrusion, tears welling at the corners of her eyes as scarred knuckles tightened in her hair. The man above her exhaled sharply through his nose, his breath fogging in the cold air as he rocked deeper, ignoring the way her teeth scraped raw.

Beside them, the brunette had gone eerily still, her lips slack around another man’s girth, her chest barely moving. Chains clinked between them with every thrust, a sickening counterpoint to the wet, rhythmic sounds filling the clearing.

A big man had chosen the smallest of the group, a dark-haired girl who couldn’t have been more than fourteen, her collarbones jutting like chicken wings beneath her skin. She’d bitten his arm, drawing blood, before he backhanded her hard enough to snap her head sideways. Now she lay limp on her back in the mud, her legs splayed open, her eyes unfocused as he rutted into her.

Vivian’s chuckle was a blade wrapped in velvet. “Don’t worry, boys,” she purred, leaning against the van’s bumper as the thick-necked man grunted above the blonde girl. “These whores won’t remember a thing tomorrow.” She tapped a small vial in her breast pocket. “Special cocktail. Wipe the slate clean. Makes them nice and ... pliable for the buyers.”

The blonde girl’s whimper cut off abruptly as the man buried himself deeper, his grip tightening on her hips hard enough to leave bruises. Vivian watched, amused, as the girl’s eyelids fluttered somewhere between pain and the first tendrils of unconsciousness. “The drug was administered right before we loaded them. It should be kicking in any minute now.”

Jason’s fingers twitched toward his sidearm before he caught himself; this wasn’t the time. Not yet.

The blonde girl’s whimper dissolved into a wet gurgle as her body went slack beneath the man. Her eyelids drooped, her pupils blown wide. Vivian’s smirk widened. “See?” She flicked the vial with a manicured nail. “Like clockwork.”

Jason’s fingers curled into fists at his sides. The blonde girl’s body had gone limp, her chains slackening as the drug pulled her under. The man atop her didn’t seem to notice or care, his rhythm unbroken even as her head lolled to the side, her cheek pressing into the mud. Vivian’s vial wasn’t just erasing memories; it was turning them into dolls.

Reese’s voice cut through the noise, low and urgent. “Two minutes.” His goggles glinted as he tilted his head toward the tree line where the second van had parked, its engine still running, exhaust curling into the night. Jason gave a fractional nod. Timing was everything now.

Reese’s gloved hand flashed twice, the signal. The night erupted.

Reese moved first, his silenced pistol coughing twice, a wet thump as the thick-necked man collapsed mid-thrust, his skull fragmenting against the blonde girl’s thigh. The other men barely had time to fumble for their zippers before bullets punched through windbreakers and denim. One managed to half-turn, his pants sagging around his knees, before Jason put a round through his temple. The clearing filled with the muffled pops of suppressors and the heavier thuds of bodies hitting mud.

Vivian’s smirk froze as Jason’s billy club hit her left kneecap. She crumpled with a scream that wasn’t quite human. Jason then stomped on her wrist.

“Your time of molesting underage girls is up,” Jason said, Vivian’s wrist snapped beneath his boot with an audible crunch, her scream dissolved into choked whimpers as the vial rolled free from her limp fingers. Jason scooped it up, holding it to the moonlight, where the liquid inside swirled with an unnatural iridescence.

Behind him, Reese was already dragging the unconscious blonde girl out from under the dead weight of her attacker. The other girls lay where they’d been dropped, some still twitching from the drugs, others terrifyingly still. Chains pooled around them like discarded jewelry. “Medevac’s five minutes out,” Reese grunted, shrugging off his jacket to drape over the blonde’s shivering form. “Assuming they don’t get lost in this godforsaken place.”

Jason pocketed the vial and turned toward the vans, his boots sucking free from the mud with a wet pop. The blonde girl’s chains jangled as Reese hauled her upright, her head lolling against his shoulder like a broken doll’s. Her skin was ice-cold. He swore under his breath and ripped open the nearest van door.

The floor was littered with discarded fast-food wrappers and zip ties. Jason yanked a stained moving blanket from a stack near the driver’s seat, the scratchy industrial kind used to wrap furniture. It stank of old cigarettes, but it was fabric. He tossed it to Reese, who caught it one-handed while propping the girl’s limp form against his thigh.

The second van’s doors creaked open under Jason’s gloved hand, revealing a tableau of slumped bodies. Chains pooled between them like discarded necklaces. A redhead slumped against the van’s ribbed interior, her cheek pressed to the cold metal, drool stringing from her slack mouth. Her fingers twitched in unconscious mimicry of piano scales, the motion grotesquely graceful against the violence of the scene.

“Jesus Christ,” Reese muttered behind him, his breath frosting the air. He’d propped a blonde girl against a tire, her head lolling forward, a blanket slipping from her shoulders. The redhead’s chains slithered as Jason crouched beside her, not just ankle cuffs, he realized, but an intricate web of restraints linking wrists to throat collars, forcing the girls into perpetual arching postures even in unconsciousness. Efficient. Sadistic.

One girl, dark-haired, lay slightly curled on her side. Her ribs stood out in sharp relief beneath skin mottled with bruises older than tonight. Jason touched two fingers to her throat. The pulse week. Her pupils, when he peeled back an eyelid, were pinpricks swimming in sea-green irises. The drug’s signature.

A whimper cut through his thoughts. The smallest girl, who couldn’t have been more than 10, was twitching on the van floor, her limbs jerking in the chains. The drug interacted badly with developing endocrine systems. Vivian’s buyers must’ve wanted them young. Expendable. His knuckles cracked as his fist clenched.

Jason kicked Vivian in her face before crouching beside Vivian’s writhing form, his boot pinning her shattered wrist to the mud. Blood seeped from her mouth in thick, dark rivulets, soaking into the frozen earth. Her breath came in ragged, animalistic hitches, half-sob, half-snarl. He leaned in close. “You are one sick bitch,” Jason said, his voice low and deliberate.

Vivian’s laughter bubbled up through the blood in her teeth, a wet, gurgling sound that morphed into something horrifyingly playful. “Jason,” she gasped, “you are in so much trouble now.” Her good hand fluttered toward her ruined knee.

Jason didn’t move. Vivian’s pupils were blown wide. Her tongue darted out to catch the blood dripping from her split lip. “You think this is a rescue?” She giggled, the sound skewing into a cough. “Those girls were already sold and paid for. You just ... interrupted delivery. The men will find you and kill you. They will get their property back. Your dear Carson is already gone with the senator someplace you will never find her.”

Jason’s fingers dug into Vivian’s throat before he realized he’d moved. “Where?” The word came out strangled, like he was the one being choked.

Vivian’s lips peeled back in a crimson grin. “Senator Whitmore’s private jet left twenty minutes ago.” She wheezed a laugh as his grip tightened. “Carson’s already halfway to Caracas by now. Special delivery. You’ll never find her.”

Jason’s grip on Vivian’s throat loosened just enough for her to suck in a rattling breath, just enough for her to see the flicker of horror in his eyes before he crushed it back down. Her smirk widened. “Oh, you didn’t know?” she wheezed. “Whitmore’s got a thing for fresh meat. After he’s done with her. He’ll feed her straight to the sharks and then get another girl. Says it’s more ... ecologically responsible. But then he may keep her as a slave, like her mother.”

Reese’s footsteps pounded closer, his breathing ragged. “Medevac’s two minutes out—” He froze, taking in Vivian’s grotesque grin and Jason’s stillness.

“Get her out of here before the police get here,” Reese said.

Jason hauled Vivian up by her hair, her shattered wrist flopping grotesquely as he dragged her toward the black SUV. Her laughter bubbled up again, this time with a wet, wheezing quality that made Reese grimace. “You’re wasting time, darling,” Vivian slurred, her head lolling against the passenger window as Jason wrenched the door open. “Carson’s already—”

The door slammed shut on her sentence, the impact jolting her broken knee. The bulletproof glass muffled her scream. Jason didn’t glance back as he strode to the driver’s side. Reese was already herding the medevac team toward the vans with sharp hand signals. The blonde girl’s limp form was being loaded onto a stretcher, her small fingers curled like a child’s in sleep.

Jason’s gloved fingers flicked open the small leather case, the kind medics use for emergency syringes. Inside, nestled against black foam, was a pre-loaded autoinjector filled with something viscous and pearlescent. Vivian’s eyes tracked the movement, her smirk faltering for the first time as she recognized the twin to her own concoction.

“Oh, you wouldn’t—” Her words dissolved into a shriek as Jason jammed the injector against her leg. The plunger hissed.

Vivian’s body arched like a bowstring, her shattered wrist flailing against the seatbelt as the drug hit her bloodstream. Her pupils swallowed the irises whole, black pools expanding until only a thin ring of hazel remained. Jason watched, impassive, as her thrashing slowed to twitches. Her mouth hung slack, a thread of saliva connecting her lower lip to the leather seat.

The burner phone’s plastic casing cracked as Jason thumbed in the number with unnecessary force. Three rings, then Harrison’s voice, rough with sleep. “Carson is not in the cage,” he said before Jason could speak, the words thick like he’d been drinking. “Got here twenty minutes ago. Just a fucking dog bowl.”

Jason’s knuckles whitened around the steering wheel. Behind him, Vivian’s head lolled against the window, her breath fogging the glass in uneven bursts. The medevac’s rotor wash sent dead leaves skittering across the road as it lifted off with its cargo of broken girls.

“I’m going to check out the airport,” Jason said.

The SUV’s engine roared as Jason tore onto the highway, Vivian’s slack body lurching sideways with the momentum. Her head thumped against the window, no reaction, not even a flutter of eyelids.

Reese’s voice crackled through the earpiece: “Medevac confirms 10 girls will be ok, but two girls are in critical condition, the blonde and the little one.” A pause. “Jason, what about Carson?”

“Senator Whitmore has her on a plane headed to Caracas. I’m heading to the airport.”

The SUV’s tires screamed against the tarmac as Jason took the exit ramp at a speed that would’ve peeled paint off lesser vehicles. Vivian’s body slid across the leather seat like a rag doll, her head thumping against the passenger window with a dull thunk. No reaction. The drug had turned her into a breathing mannequin, pupils blown, lips parted, a thin line of drool connecting her chin to her collarbone.