I pushed all the guilt away. “What did you guys talk about?”
Ruby nodded. “As much as we could in ten minutes’ time. I told him what I knew, that I thought the orphans coming into the society were stolen, or bought, and he told me about them not even being fully human. That none of us are.”
I bobbed my head in understanding and she continued.
“I also told him I’d found evidence that the marks we kill don’t have genuine crimes in their files, that a Chief Baker exists but he has nothing to do with the society unless he’s really good and hiding his ties to us.”
“I knew it!” Liv hissed.
“We found the breeder farm,” I reminded Ruby. “I actually found my mom. We freed them all, so you don’t need to worry about that anymore.”
Ruby shared a look with her fellow hunter, a tall male about twenty years old. It was a sketchy look.
“What?” I asked. Feeling like a bomb was about to drop.
Ruby cleared her throat. “After Sterling died, I did some digging. I’ve had to be careful, because I assume Maz knows I met with Sterling that day if she followed him.”
I licked my lips nervously. “And?”
“You know how there are hunter societies all over the place? Chicago, New York, New Orleans, Los Angeles…?”
I nodded. “Yeah…” Not to mention the international ones.
Ruby chewed on her bottom lip. “Aspen, in each of those cities there is a magical enclave of hidden supernaturals. And within that, there is a breeder program with orphans that are bought to supply the system with hunters … assassins.”
The edges of the park blurred then as dizziness washed over me. “Wait, what?”
But it made sense, right? I knew there were hunters all over because there were vampires and witches and werewolves all over that needed hunting … I just assumed they all came from the Magic City enclave in Idaho.
“How many?” My voice shook.
Ruby pulled out a small piece of paper. Words had been scratched out and rewritten and lines connected to other words; there was even a crudely drawn map. “So far, I have confirmed six breeder programs in the US throughout the various hidden magical enclaves.”
I was too shocked to say anything.
Six. Six slave encampments like the one that my mom was in. It made me sick to my stomach.
“How can you even find that out? They are so secretive, we barely found ours, and only because we knew someone who had heard about them.”
Ruby glanced to the dude with her and he cleared his throat. “Sterling tipped us off to the purchases, and from there it was easy. There’s a lot of dates, but I was able to follow the money trail and see whenever Maz wired a certain amount. In our day, it was ten thousand. Now it’s fifty.”
“Fifty grand for a baby. That’s sick!” I jumped up, feeling bile rise in my throat. “She’s a demon, she’s the fucking devil as far as I’m concerned. We have to kill her!”
Ruby stood and met me head on, a fierceness flashing in her eyes. “We will. Trust me, no one wants that more than you and I, but there are other players involved. She doesn’t do this alone. Fiona in New York, and Alonzo in Chicago, to name a few. We need to map out all the ringleaders and take them all out at once. Otherwise, they will rebuild once we kill Maz.”
I tipped my head back and screamed in frustration, causing a few passersby to glance at me worriedly.
“Hey…” Ruby reached out and grasped my shoulders. “We can do this. If we put all of our resources together, we can stop them all.”
“Maz drained our bank accounts, we have no money,” I said.
Ruby nodded. “I’m probably going to be cut off next. I’ve been transferring money to another bank and pulling out cash weekly. I’m not talking about money though, Aspen … you have other assets at your disposal.”
I frowned, confused.
“Sterling told me you had … a connection with the vampires. That you had a way inside Magic City. That much is clear if you’ve already broken up one breeder program there.”
Oh, that. Luka.
