I grunted and sat on the edge of the bed, rage rolling through me. Emma sat down next to me.
“Let’s stay,” she said. Before I could disagree, she spoke over me. “At least for a little bit. Let’s figure out what they’re all about.”
“I think that’s a very bad idea,” I said. “These people are killers, Emma. I’ve seen it.”
“Maybe they are, but maybe they really want to help.”
“You can’t just trust everyone.”
She frowned. “I know that.”
“You can’t just trust these people.”
“Like I trust you.”
I clenched my jaw. “I proved myself to you.”
“Let them do the same then.”
“Fuck,” I said.
Emma stood up. “I’m going to go look around.”
“What? No. Stay here.”
“You wait for me,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
She walked over to the door and knocked before I could stop her. A second later, another woman opened the door, this one a bit older than Kasia though dressed in similar clothes.
“Hi,” Emma said. “I was hoping I could take a look around.”
“Sure,” the woman said, “but only one of you at a time, at least until another guard can come look after the big boy here.”
Emma grinned at me. “Hear that, big boy? You’ll have to wait for an escort.”
“Emma,” I said, “please just stay here.”
“I’ll be fine. What are you afraid of?”
“I’m coming then,” I said.
She smiled and then stepped out into the hall.
The guard looked in at me. “I’ll get an escort for you. Just sit tight.” The door shut and locked.
I stood there, staring at the closed door, anger welling up in me. I couldn’t be mad at Emma for any of this, since she was only doing what she felt was right. She was making it hard to protect her, though, running off like that.
No, I was pissed off at these fucking Spiders. They talked about freeing women and saving lives, but so far all I’d seen was death, violence, and jail cells. They talked a big game, but I didn’t trust them, not one tiny bit, not yet.
They were going to have to prove themselves to me. I sat down on the bed and waited.
I was willing to give them a chance, if only because Emma wanted me to, but at the first sign of any sort of fucking shit, I was going to get us far away from here and never look back.
18
Emma
Marta, my escort, followed me like a shadow. I tried to engage her in conversation once or twice, but she just didn’t seem all that interested in talking.
But she did let me walk around wherever I wanted.
As I wandered the house, I felt like I got a much better sense of who these people were than I could have from anything they might have told me. Upstairs I passed a ton of rooms, most of them containing young women. They all smiled at me, but when I tried to talk to them they usually ignored me or spoke a language back that I couldn’t understand.
“Sex slaves,” Marta commented to me after the third girl ignored me. “Not from here.”
“Really? These are the girls you saved?”
She just smiled at me, and I knew the conversation was over.
The doors to their rooms were open, and they seemed free to move around the house. I was surprised by how big the place was. It clearly used to be an old farm house, but it had been added on to over the years. The walls were old and the wallpaper was peeling, but it was clean and comfortable.
I went downstairs and found more women in the kitchen. They were cooking something that smelled absolutely amazing. A young girl with bright red hair smiled and said something to me in a language I didn’t understand. Then she held out a bowl of a dark brown soup.
I took it and took a bite. “Delicious,” I said.
She smiled and nodded and then went back to work. The women were cooking and preparing more food, probably to feed the whole house. I devoured the little meal in a second and placed the bowl in the sink. Marta stood by the doorway, watching me but smiling.
I found more guards wandering around the grounds, holding rifles, though nobody seemed to be in a hurry. They mainly just smiled at nodded at me as if I were just another guest there.
There was a large dining room, a living room with a television, several bathrooms, and another large sitting area. I moved out the back door and stood on a large porch with rocking chairs. An older woman was sitting in a chair, knitting something.
“Hi,” I said to her.
I was surprised when she looked up. “Hello, dear.”
Marta stood close behind me. “Can I sit?” I asked her.
“Of course.”
I sat down next to her.