"Sorry," the DOJ officer muttered as he shoved Range in next to me.
He swept his gaze over to me and I saw he had a knot bulging at the side of his head. I furrowed my brow and went to ask him who I was killing, but Range just shook his head. "Caughta stray elbow in the chaos. Asshole wasn't looking where he was dragging me."
I turned my head forward. "I don't like this."
"Me neither."
"Then why the fuck did we agree with it?"
"Because we have to make the trafficking ring think that they've won. Even if just for a moment. If we're in trouble alongside them, it's less of a risk of retaliation against the girls."
I nodded slowly. "Right."
I wasn't sure I believed it any longer, but Cap and King were certain this would work. Arrest us alongside the raiding of the trafficking ring's buildings, and no one would be any the wiser that we were the ones who'd brought them down.
I still wasn't sold on it. I still wasn't sure this would end the way Cap and King wanted it to. How the hell were the girls protected without any of us around to ensure it?
"Hey," Range said as he scooted closer to me. "Brutus."
"Yep?"
"When all of this is over, I'll help you piece Anna's home back together."
I stared out the tinted window, listening as the engines of the vehicles cranked up. "I'll be shocked if she still even wants to live here after all this."
"We have men posted in the woods," the DOJ agent in the front seat said. "Seven of them. A couple in the trees. If any stragglers from the raids come for the women, we'll be prepared."
"You fucking better be," I growled.
The entire way to the precinct in King's hometown, I thought of Anna. Would she ever forgive me for this?
They putme in a processing room, not a cell. Small, fluorescent, a metal chair bolted to the floor and a table that had seen better decades. I paced the length of it until I'd worn the route into my brain, then sat, then stood again.
I barely remembered getting yanked out of the vehicle. I barely remembered the handcuffs coming off my wrists. I just remembered the four walls closing in and my mind stuck on Anna's face, over and over, like a record with a scratch in it.
The door opened after what felt like hours. My head snapped up.
It was a police officer I didn't recognize, carrying a tray of food and wearing the kind of look that said he'd pulled the short straw tonight.
"Hungry?" he asked.
I crossed the room in two strides. "How are the girls?"
He set the tray down on the table. The nametag on his chest said Connald. "Fine. They're just fine. We got them all in one room together so they're not sitting alone. Made a spaghetti dinner."
Some of the knot in my chest loosened. Just slightly. "Anna. How is she?"
Officer Connald's mouth twitched. "She's a real spitfire."
"Is she all right?"
He nodded. "She's great. Every once in a while she calls out from her room to do a roll call, and the girls all answer back." He paused. "She's keeping their spirits up. Every single one of them."
My chest puffed with something I didn't have a word for. Of course she was.
"Char?" I asked. "Marla?"
"Doing well with their interviews. They've got a lot of information. We're grateful for it."
