We began to move, and I tried to look out the window. The glass was blacked out, and I could only make out the faint outline of the wrecked truck we’d been taken from.
These men were killers and although they had rescued us from what I was sure would have been a terrible fate, I had a feeling what they had in store for us would be a different sort of terrible.
But if I wanted to keep calm, I needed to distract myself.
“What’s your name?” I asked the girl to whom I was bound.
“Lara.”
“Lara, I’m Evangeline. Eva for short.”
“Pretty name.”
“Yours too.”
She looked into my eyes, her big brown ones red, tears still flowing. “What’s going to happen to us?”
I tried to keep the tremor from my voice, the tears from my eyes, but it took all I had to do it. “I don’t know.”
Gabriel drove, wrapped up in his own thoughts, neither he nor Syn speaking for the first twenty minutes.
“She rattled you,” Syn finally said.
Gabriel kept his eyes on the road, his hands tightly gripping the steering wheel. “She seems different than the others. And familiar.”
“I thought so too.”
“I don’t like dealing in humans,” Gabriel said, glancing out the side window into wide, dark desert. There was nothing there, no one for miles. Arizona was the safest place to hijack cargo meant for the black market.
“Me either, but we don’t have a choice, Gabe, and we both know it. Besides, their fate won’t be any worse than where they were going. Better, maybe.”
Gabriel snorted. “No, just different. I still don’t like it.”
“You’re heart isn’t thawing, is it brother?”
Gabriel glanced at his younger brother, noting the usual dark glint in his eye. He wondered again if Syn enjoyed his work more than he should. For Gabriel, vengeance kept him alive.
“Collateral damage is a consequence of any war, Gabriel. These women drew the short straw, but even so, we’re still their better option. Besides, it’s our revenge. Every time we take over one of these shipments, whether it be drugs or human cargo, we take back a little of what they stole from us.”#p#分页标题#e#
“We can’t ever get her back, Syn, no matter how many of these shipments we hijack.” Gabriel hardened his heart against the memory. He’d learned to do that over the years. If anything, he needed to remember what had happened to her, how she’d been found. That would give him power and strength. It would give him the drive to go on until every bastard who dealt in drugs and humans lay dead in a body bag.
Syn reached into his pocket to take out his cell phone. He dialed Remy, their associate who organized the auctions of the women, but his thoughts were on what was going on with his brother. He knew Gabriel didn’t need Syn reminding him of what they’d lost six years ago when their sister, Laney, had turned up almost dead from an overdose. Syn hated the idea of selling the women as much as Gabriel did, but they had no choice and they both needed to keep their eyes on their goal, which was to eliminate men like Arthur Gallaston, the one from whom they had stolen tonight. They needed to bring him down, and people would get hurt in the process. It was an unpleasant fact, but they had to come to terms with it. Clearly, his brother hadn’t yet.
Syn glanced over at Gabriel. Gabriel’s flat gaze was fixed on the road ahead, the line of his mouth tight as he drove the truck to camp. He knew just what Gabriel felt. He felt it too every time they ambushed a shipment of women.
Remy finally picked up the phone.
“Syn,” came Remy’s voice.
“We’ve picked up the shipment, so the auction is a go. We’ve got thirteen girls. Make the calls, will you?”
“You got it, boss.”
Chapter Four
The sound of the cargo door opening woke most of us up. The sun was just rising, making me wonder how far we’d come from the city. Did my father know I was missing yet? What would he do when he found out?
I didn’t have time to dwell on those questions though as we were slowly unloaded. The memory of what Obsidian had said only hours before still lay heavy on my mind:
Disobedience would be punished. An example would be made.
I shivered when I passed by Obsidian to stand in the still cool morning air, looking around as the rest of the women slowly climbed out, huddling together, awaiting further instruction. We weren’t in the desert anymore, but in a large clearing in a forest. There were three large tents, several smaller ones and one mid-size RV. The larger tents were arranged at the center, the smaller ones bordering them to form a circle. Everything about the camp said primitive and temporary.