There’s a rapid response from the team leader who’d come up with us, describing who they’d seen, how many men. No description of Andy.
“The fucker’s bolting!” Raoul barks at me, about to take off after them.
“We need to find Andy!” I yell back. He gives a curt nod, and then we pair up and work our way from room to room, finally making our way down a long hallway.
Halfway down the hall, a door flies open, and a man steps out. His eyes narrow, and then his hand swings up. Before I can shout an instruction, another shot has my ears ringing. The guy drops to his knees, then topples backward, a neat bullet hole in his forehead.
“Jesus, Raoul! You’re supposed to fire a warning shot!” I snap at him.
“That was it.” He shrugs. “You’ve been warned,” he says down to the corpse as he steps around it. He looks back at me. “You know, I could really get into this law enforcement shit. I can see why you like it.”
God help us!
I hear a sound from the door the guy had emerged from and flatten myself against the wall. Raoul does the same. We slide along it, then I duck my head around the doorjamb. I scan the room quickly and see nobody, then step inside. Raoul is beside me, sweeping around behind the door and then taking in the room's contents.
It’s dim inside, and my eyes take a while to focus. When they do, what I see makes me sick to my stomach. Every wall is covered in hundreds of framed photos. Bound naked women. Men who clearly are dead. I feel the muzzle of my rifle dip as I take it all in.
“Jesus Christ,” Raoul mutters. I say nothing. I’m too busy running horrified eyes over the waves of human misery documented in front of me. And then I stop as I see a face that’s too familiar to pass by.
Younger. So much younger. But it’s her. Even asleep and obviously just a girl, I can recognize her. It’s Andy. The sheet she’d been sleeping beneath has been pulled away from her body, and it seems that whoever took the photographs had posed her body for maximum exposure. Every intimate part of her is on view. I feel a flood of heat rush to my face as an emotion that’s part rage, part agony overwhelms me.
“Mateo…” I feel something tug at me. “Mateo!” Raoul barks sharply.
I spin around and jam the muzzle of my rifle beneath his chin.
“Don’t!” I roar. “Don’t you fucking look at her!”
He lowers his eyes. “It’s okay. Mateo…it’s okay.”
I force myself to take a deep, calming breath as I stare at him. I’m shaking with the hatred I’m feeling for the bastard who did this to her.
“Look,” says Raoul. “There’s more— Not her!” he adds quickly. Nearby, I see what he’s pointing at. The images alongside Andy’s are gruesome in a way that would have me losing my lunch if I’d eaten recently. There are photos of a young man with the top of his head blown off. One has been enlarged to show a close-up of his wrecked features. There’s a note scrawled in marker beneath it that reads,So long, Carter!
“Fuck. It’s Kyle Carter,” I half-whisper.
“It’s what our guy was telling us about, Mateo. Whitlock’s trophies. He fucking used them as artwork, the sick fuck.” I sense that Raoul is as unsettled as I am by it all. I suck in yet another breath, then look around the room. It seems to be some sort of informal seating area. Another door leads off it, slightly ajar. I go still, straining to hear any further signs that someone might be inside. It’s not easy to pick up much when my heartbeat is pounding so loud, but I’m almost sure I just heard something. A low murmur, perhaps.
A moan?
Without waiting for Raoul, I charge across the room and kick the door open. And again, I freeze at the sight of what’s in there. A woman is bound naked to a huge bed, the mattress littered with goddamn sex toys. I hear the sound again. Definitely a moan. And I know who I’m looking at. Of course I do.
Jesus… Fuck!
Raoul comes up behind me. Then I feel him withdraw immediately. It’s a mercy that he does because I would have ripped his eyes out if he’d lingered even a second.
“Andy!” I choke out, covering the distance from the door to the bed in under three strides. The face I look into is barely recognizable. She peers up at me through lids she can hardly open. “God! Oh, God!” I drop to my knees at her side, tugging at the cuff around the wrist closest to me. “Andy? Speak to me, baby…”
I free her hand, then quickly reach for the next, my eyes still on her ruined face.
“Andy… Please, baby, please!” My voice breaks as I plead with her to come back to me.
“…Teo…” The sound hisses past split lips, so faintly I can barely hear it. “Mateo…?”
“Yes, I’m here, baby…I’m here!” I go down to the shackles on her ankles, unbuckling them with shaking fingers. Bruises have already formed up her calves and inner thighs, and I feel rage surge again as I see what they’ve done to her.
As the tension of the bindings loosens, her body sags, and then she starts to shudder violently. Her breath comes in labored gasps that are more terrifying to me than the bruising.
Jesus…what did they do…?
