“You did well, given what you had available. It’s relatively clean.”
“It’s infected, though, isn’t it?”
“The infection might be from the injury itself and not your lack of cleaning. Infection happens sometimes. We’ll take care of it.”
A little bell chimes, and I peel my eyes open. The rest of the triplets are coming through the front door with the three men from the back of the truck. They usher them to sit against the wall opposite the couch I’m lying on.
“Rhodes has the man in the barn with the branding irons,” a triplet says. “What do you want to do with him?”
“Save him for Az. I think he’ll enjoy him for dessert,” Voss says.
I glance up at the triplets. “Is he going to eat the guy?” I ask, mortified.
Laughter meets my question.
“No,” Voss says, brushing my hair from my forehead. “We’re calling hunting the hunters his main course. The guy who burned numbers into our skin is dessert.”
“What was the appetizer?”
“I’m sure he’ll find that on the way.”
I yawn and close my eyes again. “Can I go to sleep now?”
“Yes,” Mark answers. “Sleep, Brek. You’re safe now.”
With another yawn, I fall into darkness. It’s blessedly quiet and dream-free.
35
VOSS
We endedup staying on the reserve for a few days. Primarily, we spent that time scouring the area for anything we might have missed that Malcolm and the tied-up guards didn’t know about. At this juncture, we didn’t find anything.
“It’s a strangely straightforward operation,” Imry notes as he taps away on the computer. “The bookings are handled automatically online. Money is handled through ‘charitable contributions’ to a specific bank account. We’re going to need you to track who has access to the money.”
I have one of the laptops in my possession that we grabbed from the offices. I’m limited in what I can see, though. I need my laptop with the programs and processes I’ve built over the years.
Bennett comes into the room and smiles. “We’re all set up.”
Yesterday, as we were going through the offices, a new set of hunters showed up. One at first, followed by two others. It was then that we came up with a new plan. We sent the hunters out with their loaded weapons. After giving them an hour toget settled, Rhodes and his pack followed. The pack hunted the hunters. They returned hours later with wet fur, running around like happy puppies.
For the time being, Bennett, Rhodes, and the pack will remain here, presumably running the human game operation uninterrupted until I track down the person or persons responsible. For the time being, we don’t want it to appear that they’ve been found out.
Which is somewhat of a challenge. There are almost three dozen men and two women who we released and have begun returning to civilization. We want them to tell their story. Partially because we need to track down the Shuttled drivers who abducted them. But also because we need this to be public.
However, if it hits the news before I’ve tracked down the people running it, they’ll get away and likely start over somewhere else. More than three dozen people who had vanished from their lives without a trace are suddenly going to show back up in society with branded numbers on their hands.
There wasn’t a lot we could do about that. They deserved to go back to their lives. That means I’m working hard to find any information I can on who is behind this. Unsurprisingly, no one who actually worked here knew who paid them.
I’m racing against time to find answers before the police get involved. The one thing we have on our side is that none of them know where they are or where this was taking place. We’re doing our best to keep that from them as we return them to their lives.
We’re hoping the police will be far off on their search, and we’ll be long gone with some disgusting people in our custody before the cops come close to sniffing around the correct location.
“Then I guess we’re going to go,” I say.
He beams at me. “Be safe,” he says and turns for the door. One of Rhodes’ pack is standing there. Watching. Waiting for Bennett. It’s been a trip seeing how those damn wolves have taken to Bennett as if he’s their puppy.
It’s only slightly less fascinating than Rhodes himself. I thought for sure he’d be perpetually single, just as his dad was always going to have a different person on his arm. They were balancing the cosmos.
