From here, we have a clear view of the warehouse, and it looks dead, too quiet.
We both know better. The things going on inside are beyond horrific.
Tyler presses the ignition button, shutting the vehicle off.
He grabs his laptop from the backseat and angles it toward me, surveillance feeds of both interior and exterior flickering across the screen in grainy black and white.
“There.” He shows me the feed of the two cameras inside alongside the livestream feed.
One reveals a hallway lined with steel wire tool cages, at least twenty or more. Each one with the same wired ceiling, towering nearly ten feet high.
I can make out three naked women, one in each cage. Near the girl closest to the camera, I can make outa bucket and a large sipper water bottle hooked up to the wires, the kind you use for rabbits.
Then Tyler switches to the other camera feed.
My stomach curls in on itself.
One huge room located in the very back of the warehouse behind the cages.
Where the livestream is going to take place tonight.
On the other side of the screen, viewer counts explode in the corners of the screens while hundreds of comments flow downward faster than I can read them.
VIP subscribers’ commands on what they want to see tonight and the bidding keeps increasing.
$500,000
$900,000
$1,200,000
The numbers keep multiplying.
My jaw clenches so hard it hurts.
“Cass.”
“They’re taking requests,” I respond, my voice sounds wrong.
Tyler doesn’t answer, because there’s nothing to say.
Comments continue pouring down the screen.
Something cold spreads through my chest, not panic or fear. The kind of rage that becomes surgical and comfortable at the same time.
Tyler shuts off the feed, not letting me read the rest.
The screen goes black, and the silence that ensues feels loaded.
“There are five guards confirmed, patrolling the exterior,” Tyler tells me nonchalantly, shifting us back to the plan.
I stare out at the warehouse while rain distorts the floodlights into bleeding gold smears.
“How many women inside total?”
“I counted three in the cages, so one of them must be doing the livestream in the back room.”
A booming clap of thunder splits the sky.
