“Yeah, like I said. I was approached by a man on September 21. He said he could get a doer for me.”

“What do you mean when you say, ‘a doer’?

“Look I told you already. Why are you asking again? Do we have a deal or not?”

“We need your testimony for the record, Jill. If you’re to be believed, there’s someone tampering with the legal system in this city and that’s pretty big. Put it this way. If someone is doing that, what’s to stop them from doing it to you?”

“Who the fuck would want me as a slave? They’re only doing it to other people!”

Just then the interview door opened and the Superintendent himself poked his head in. “Errol? May I have a word?”

“Superintendent Standish! Yes sir, of course, sir. Can it wait a couple of minutes though? We have something that could be big. You’ll be personally interested for sure,” newly promoted Detective Errol Tyson said, forgetting himself in his excitement and consequently talking in front of the CI.

“I’m sure it is very important Errol. But this cannot wait. I apologize, miss. The detective should be right back,” Standish said to the CI.

As soon as Errol stepped into the superintendent’s office, two men entered the interview room where Jill, the CI sat, and put her in cuffs. The young woman was confused and aggravated at being treated like a common criminal even though she was one. She loudly made her opinions of the treatment of her, clear.

Her attitude didn’t slow the men down even a little. Once she was cuffed, they moved her out of the building. Jill was never allowed to resume giving Errol her testimony.

“Sir? I have a CI in interview 3 that says someone offered to sell her a freeman!” Errol blurted excitedly as soon as the door closed.

“That does sound big,” the superintendent replied. “Unfortunately, our girl Jill in there, escaped Meadowview this morning. She’s a nutter, Errol. More important to you right now should be this,” he said, lifting a picture showing Detective Tyson holding an envelope and a wad of credits.

Tyson looked at the photo in confusion, not even wondering how the superintendent could know who the woman he was, much less that she’d escaped a mental institution that very morning. The picture had his entire focus.

“That’s a picture of me at graduation!” He said, realizing that taken in the wrong light, the picture could look bad even though the cash had been a present from his father.

“Why should getting a graduation present from my father be concerning, sir?” Tyson carefully asked.

Standish ignored his question. “I need you to relinquish your badge and weapon, pending a full investigation, Errol. You’re officially on paid leave as of now. Your CI is already being taken care of.”

“I haven’t done anything! I graduated second in my class, sir! My dad was so happy he gave me cash to express his pride in my achievement!”

Superintendent Standish said made no reply to that and only shook his head sadly. He expected Errol to comply with his request and he was not disappointed.

As if expecting at any moment that a bunch of his buddies would jump out of the closet, Errol slowly reached for his badge and gun. As soon as Errol’s gun was on the table, the superintendent accepted it and had Errol sign a digital form, relinquishing responsibility for it.

“Even as he was signing the form, Errol was getting angry. “You know this is total BS, sir. I wouldn’t be DOING this job if I was crooked! It’s got to be a prank!”

“You’ll be hearing from Internal Affairs shortly, Mister Tyson. A couple of D’s will be in momentarily to escort you off the premises.”

“I don’t need a fucking escort! This is crap!” Errol raised his voice, his calm completely destroyed. Since I’m on suspension, I will fucking see myself out!”

Errol spun on his heel and left the room, slamming the superintendent’s door, immediately regretting it, yet at the same time satisfied at the loud clap of wood against wood. Errol strode through the office ignoring everyone, snatched his jacket off the back of his desk chair and stormed out of the building. Many pairs of eyes followed his departure, wondering what had made the normally placid detective upset enough to slam the super’s door.

Even as he headed for his pod, Errol knew something was wrong. Not the false accusation of bribery, but something else. As he put his finger on the scanner in his personal transport, he realized what. He’d never mentioned the CI’s name. How could the superintendent known she’d escaped the loony bin that morning? Had the superintendent been spying on him?

Superintendent Standish was concerned. Barry or Mark should have taken him here in his office, like he’d wanted. Instead, Errol was out on the streets because the Collection Team Manager had insisted that the CI was a bigger threat and had to be handled by both operatives together, first.

Matthew Standish wasn’t worried or anything, just concerned. As soon as he’d tapped into interview room three’s audio feed, per normal protocol, he’d realized what he was hearing. He quickly hit the button on his phone that connected him with the Collection Team Manager.

After a brief discussion, Standish had hit a few keys on his screen and had produced an automatically generated file on Errol, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Errol was defrauding the government and taking bribes.

Of course the information was all bogus, but it was absolutely realistic material, just with Errol’s details instead of the true criminal’s and photographic evidence that matched the report to back it up.

This report would convince anyone who sought to verify it, that Errol Tyson was indeed guilty of various crimes. The people that ran the acquisition program pulled no punches when it came to maintaining secrecy.

Superintendent Standish spared a moment to lament the loss of such a gifted young detective. To him, it was an unfortunate price to have to pay but a necessary one. Again he slowly shook his head sadly. The cost of being in law enforcement had been high in this instance. Errol had been a promising asset to his force.

Jill awoke in a cell. Not a jail cell and definitely not a police station or sheriff’s office. She’d been in plenty of those, that she immediately knew the difference. This cell looked like it belonged in a castle dungeon and was only about 2 meters deep. The walls weren’t just cement, but actual stone and the only light was in a cage outside of the cell.

There wasn’t even a commode for her to use if she needed a bathroom. Just a bucket, if that was its actual purpose. Even so, it was chained to the floor as if there was a concern it could be used as a weapon.

The other thing that immediately became clear to Jill as the fog of sleep lifted, was that she was naked. Not naked as in only wearing underwear. Naked as in not wearing a stitch of anything!

Her head pounded from whatever they’d injected her with and that made Jill loathe to shout, but she did it anyway because all the other dozen or so cells she could see were empty and she needed answers. Mostly, she needed to know where she was and to get Shadow on a private screen.

Her cell was being monitored and Chuck and Shelly were notified before Jill was even aware of her surroundings. Their task was to dispose of Jill after they’d interrogated her. Loose ends such as a friend or family member that Jill might have shared her story with, were not to be tolerated.

As soon as Jill heard someone in the distance, she resumed shouting her demands more in order to get whoever’s attention than to have her demands met. The first person she saw was Shelly. She shut her mouth, mid rant.

This was not a cop, Jill knew that instinctively. Those guys that had cuffed her were, but this woman most certainly was not. No cop of any description would dress like this woman did. She looked like a cross between a hooker, a stripper and a rich bitch.

She was wearing spiked, patent red heels, black stockings, a tiny black leather miniskirt that allowed a couple of inches of bare skin to be seen, and a shoe-matching red satin and lace corset top.

The corset covered everything. Barely. It featured a plunging neckline that cupped and separated her huge breasts, lifting and displaying them like an invitation. The other feature was that the corset was real, not merely for show. It cinched her waist to amazingly small proportions. She had to have had help donning the garment and it had to be difficult to breathe, yet the materials used to create her ensemble screamed exceedingly good quality.

There was a male behind her, again obviously not a cop, unless there were slave cops now too.

This male was wearing a simple loin cloth but didn’t act like a slave would, with shaved head, bowed shoulders and sporting twenty pounds of chains and manacles. This slave was buff, walked erect and confidently, had a full head of hair and was without as much as a collar to identify his class. Nor did he seem uncomfortable in his ‘outfit’ either. In addition to his loincloth, he carried a metal pole with a trigger at the end. No slave would be given a weapon, Jill knew.

“Ah, you’re awake. Neat!” The woman said in a little girl’s voice that in no way matched her attire, “Guess what?” She asked then didn’t wait for Jill to guess. “You’re gonna die after we’ve finished playing with you!. You’ve been a very naughty girl and we get to kill all the naughty girls around here, yay!” the female exclaimed as if Jill should be as excited at the prospect, as she seemed to be.

In addition to the petulant child’s voice, high-pitched probably due to the corset, the woman spoke in a British accent. Jill wondered if the cops had killed her and this was hell. Jill fainted.

Jill was awakened with a touch from the pole against her small, saggy tit. She screamed as consciousness returned, assisted by 20,000 volts from the cattle prod.

“Wakey, wakey lady! My name is Shelly but you can call me ... well ... anything you want, really!” Shelly giggled. Shelly’s squeaky voice and words proved to Jill that she must be quite mad.

Jill, clutching her burning boob, used her other hand as leverage and tried to scoot her butt away from the pole that was still held between the bars by the male. While still in range of the electric stick, Jill too quickly discovered a cold, rock wall behind her back.

“Who ... who are you? What do you want? Where are the cops? I know my rights!” Jill tried one last time to assert herself.

“We already told you, silly! Maybe you weren’t listening. I’m Shelly, she said, indicating herself and curtsying, “And this is Chuck!” The man bowed his head in acknowledgement of his name. “We’re going to kill you after we play with you! The nice men who have you to us said so! And there’s so many ways, too!” Shelly said, then pouted. “But we can only kill you once. Isn’t that a shame?”

“No! you don’t have to at all! You don’t need to kill me! I’ll do anything you want, Shelly!” Jill promised the mad woman. “There’s even stuff I’m really good at!” She added for good measure, keeping her speech simple so the crazy woman-child could understand her. “Lots of fun kids games!” She added, unable to think of a single one.

Shelly ignored her. “You see, we were talking about it earlier,” Shelly said conversationally, putting a finger to her mouth as if in deep thought. “After he’s had his thingy in all your holes, Chucky wants to cut off your ears and watch you gobble them up. He likes ears and is sure you will too. Crunchy! Then he’ll open you up and gut you so you can see what your insides look like.

“But me, I think it would be way funner to put his cattle prod up your ass and see if I could get it all the way through you. What do you think? Will it fit? It’d be so cool, right? I know!”

“No! Look, just let me go, okay? I know lots of people. I can get you TWO people to play with!. That’s one each. Then you can do both things! Just take me back to Lawrenceville and I’ll get them for you. You can even go with me, like a road trip, alright? You choose what sort of people you want and I’ll get them. Two of them. One each,” she repeated in desperation.

“Nah! I like your eyes. I want them for my collection. I take really good care of them, I promise!”

“I can find you a girl with eyes just like mine! It’ll just take a little longer. Pleeeeease!” Jill begged.

“Nope. I love YOUR eyes. Just think!. After I take them out you’ll be able to see everything forever! Isn’t that exciting?” Shelly insisted, her voice taking on a petulant tone.

Jill desperately searched her imagination for something else to offer. These two were not into childish games as a prelude to murder, that was certain. Psychopaths yeah. Childish thinking, no. Chuck wanted to screw her, not play tag or hide and seek.

There HAD to be a way out of this. She was dealing with crazy people. How hard could it be to convince a couple of crazies to do what she wanted? She did it all the time! Suddenly an image of her daughter, Carly, came to mind. She’d come home stoned and drunk again. Carly was a lost cause anyway.

“My eyes are no good anymore. Really! But I know a really pretty girl. She’s really, really pretty. A young, pretty girl for you to kill. A girl with eyes just like mine, only better! Younger!. It’d be way more fun to kill a pretty girl, right? How about a boy? Would you like to kill a nice boy with eyes like mine? Better than mine?”

Jill didn’t even know why she’d asked that. The thought of her son Kurt had just popped into her mind and she’d blabbed the suggestion before she could contain it. She’d never let them kill her precious son! Probably not, anyway.

“Or would you prefer someone older?” Jill backpedalled from her last thought, hoping they would show interest in a stranger instead of Kurt. She knew she was babbling. Anything, as long as she didn’t die.

She would happily give up Carly, maybe even reluctantly, Kurt too, if there was absolutely no other way, but if she could convince them to take a stranger or two, for her own life, it seemed like a bargain to her at that moment.

“You’d give up others to save your miserable life after a single touch of the cattle prod? What a cunt!” The man finally spoke with a sneer.

He too had an accent although Jill had never heard a South African speak before, so she had no idea where he might be from. Nor did she care.

“So I’m a cunt. What do you care? I don’t want to die! Let me live, okay? Fuck me or something if you want. I’ve been told I’m a really good fuck. Just tell me you’ll consider it, okay? Look. I know I’m nothing special but I can get you someone special. Two even.”

“Nope, those two nice men gave us you as a present, so we love you! And no one has got eyes like yours. They make my private’s all tingly.” Shelly declared.

Shelly’s act had broken a lot of people before, but this chick was just being an absolute pushover.

Jill could see the writing in the wall. If she couldn’t negotiate something far better than a stranger to take her place, she’d be dead. Painfully dead. Miss Shelly? I have a daughter, okay?”

Jill was frantically looking for a sign in either of their expressions that would give away their interest. So far she’d seen nothing. Then she mentioned a daughter. That seemed to peak their interest.

Jill, despite feeling a little bad for offering to throw her daughter under the bus, couldn’t help herself from trying to sell them on any other idea than killing her.

“She’s better than me. Not old and wrinkly with saggy tits. Pretty, pretty eyes. And she’s been a naughty girl too. We’re both naughty girls, but she’s even naughtier. You’d be doing me a favor by letting us switch places. Would you like that?”

“So it would be like a gift exchange? But we’d get a better toy?” Shelly asked, pretending confusion.

Yes! I can get her for you. She is way prettier than me and she has eyes just like mine. She’d be a much better fuck and I’m sure she’s never even been fucked in the ass before.”

Jill could see that she was already losing Chuck. His expression was hardening once again as if he was getting angry that he wouldn’t be getting as good a deal with Carly. Her window of opportunity was closing and she couldn’t fail THIS negotiation. Jill had to increase the stakes. But how? Who else could she offer? Kurt? No! He was a good boy! What about a trade off? She wondered.

“Maybe you’d like to make my son fuck her ass? You wouldn’t be allowed to kill him though. Maybe you wouldn’t even want to kill Carly after you fuck her? She’s so pretty and you could fuck her again and again later! She could be your umm ... sex slave! Yeah. Make her your sex slave! I’ll help. I’ll hold her. Me and Kurt. We’ll do all the work. That’d be good, right?”

Chuck glanced at Shelly. This was only his third interrogation but he thought he’d seen it all, until Jill came along. She was offering up her daughter and her first thought had been for them to kill her child instead of her.

Now she was trying to convince them to take her daughter’s body for a life of depraved sex at their hands and was offering a bonus of her son, who Chuck knew was only 9, to demonstrate how to anally rape his sister. This was one fucked up woman!

Jill was desperate. She didn’t doubt for a moment that they weren’t joking about their intentions. Jill could smell a lie a mile away. These two were serious and seemed single minded in their intentions. She had to pull out all the stops to save herself even though she had no idea why they wanted to kill her in the first place.

She realized she really would seriously consider letting them have Kurt if that’s what it cost. Even though he was her favorite. She was still young enough that she could have more children but she only had one life. It wasn’t much, but it was hers.