Page 22 of Make Them Pay

The word settles between us in the dark like something solid being placed on a shelf.

I close my eyes. The storage unit is not the container. The door opens from the inside. The man across the room answers my questions and picks mint for my water and reroutes around towns full of people he'll never meet because their lives matter even when they're inconvenient.

Tomorrow we plan the rescue. Tomorrow the seventy-two-hour clock starts ticking in earnest.

Tonight I sleep on a concrete floor in an oversized hoodie that smells like someone I'm not supposed to want, and I let the sound of his breathing be the last thing I hear before consciousness finally lets go.

9

Render

The video arrives at six fourteen in the morning on a channel Serafina shouldn’t know about.

That’s the first problem. Not the content, though the content is devastating. The first problem is that nobody outside our tight circle should be able to send anything through this hidden channel. I built it with multiple layers of protection. The fact she got through means either she’s smarter than we thought or someone gave her the way in. It could be the same people that led those men to the cabin safehouse.

I don’t share this with Enley yet. She’s still asleep three feet away on the concrete floor, curled up in my hoodie inside the sleeping bag I gave her. She needs the rest. I need a minute to think before I add more weight to what she’s already carrying.

I open the video.

The camera looks down into a plain cement room with a drain in the floor. The lighting is harsh and flat. Poe sits in a chair, handcuffed to a bolt in the floor. His face is badly beaten. One eye swollen shut. Lip split. Blood dried along his hairline and jaw. Someone worked on him with professional precision. The kind of damage meant to hurt without killing.

Serafina walks into the frame. She looks polished and calm. She puts a hand on Poe’s shoulder like she owns him.

“This is a courtesy,” she says to the camera. “I want the network Poe built. He’s refused to give it to me so far. I respect stubbornness. But it has limits.”

She steps aside so the camera catches Poe clearly.

“In seventy-two hours I’ll start taking your team apart. One piece at a time. Starting with the person who matters most to the man I’m sending this to.”

She smiles, cold and knowing.

“Enley. That’s her name, correct? Poe’s little sister. The one your failsafe took from me. Impressive work. But you took something of mine, and I always collect on my debts.”

The camera pulls back to show searchers going through our old cabin on a live feed. They found it. They found the car too.

The video ends.

I watch it again. Then a third time. Looking for any detail that might help us. On the fourth viewing I notice the shadows in the room don’t match the cell Orchid described in her messages. Something’s off about the layout.

Behind me Enley stirs in the sleeping bag. I’ve got maybe thirty seconds before she wakes up fully. I decide to show her now. She told me she’s not cargo. She wants full honesty. I’m not going to be the one who keeps things from her. I respect her too much.

“Enley.”

She sits up quickly, scanning the room out of habit. Her eyes find me at the table and she reads the tension on my face immediately.

“What happened?” she asks.

“Video came through the hidden channel. From Serafina.”

She’s on her feet and at the table in seconds. She pulls the laptop closer and hits play without hesitation.

I watch her watch it.

The first few seconds she stays steady. Then she sees Poe. Her face changes. The color drains away. Her expression goes blank for a moment, like her mind is trying to protect her from what she’s seeing. When Serafina says her name, a visible tremor runs through her body. She presses her hands flat against the table, fingertips turning white.

The video ends. She doesn’t move.

“Play it again,” she says.