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  “I wasn’t there when they needed me,” Jonas says, lowering his head. “All I could do was listen to them begging for their lives, helpless. Memories of faces grow distorted over time, but their screams stay the same forever. It’s a sound you try to forget, but it never goes away.”

  Hearing Jonas tell his story, my heart sinks. His own confession to Mateo is his last effort to plead for help, not only so he can find his own closure, but so I won’t have to experience the same loss.

  “Imagine the horror of being locked in this cage,” he says, “and not being able to help your family when they need you the most. Imagine what Avery is going through. Her world right now is upside down. You can help her daughter. You can save yourself from losing your loved ones. You can do something good here, Mateo. Help us find El Toro.”

  Mateo turns to see Jonas’ pleading wet eyes and steps toward him.

  The Reverend leans back, his arms spread apart, on guard, as though he’s afraid the prisoner will swing at him or even worse, see the cell phone tucked away in his pocket.

  Mateo leans over and pushes his face so close, Jonas can smell his breath.

  “You think you know things, but I swear, you’re wrong.”

  The two lock eyes for a moment, then he turns back and walks away.

  Jonas stands.

  I can hear it in his voice, he’s losing his patience but trying hard to not let it show.

  “Tell me about the boy you took. He wasn’t going to be sold as a product, was he? He was being taken as a punishment. His father did something, didn’t he? That young child was going to pay the price for his father’s mistakes.”

  Sometimes, no answer is an answer. Jonas has no doubt what he says is right, because Mateo says nothing. Instead, he shakes his head and scoffs.

  No more sound comes from the phone’s speaker.

  Spencer and I wait and look to each other until Mateo’s deep voice breaks the silence.

  “You tell that puta on the other end of that phone in your pocket, she gets no help from me. I hope whoever purchases her hija gets their money’s worth. And as far as your concern for me and my soul, Reverendo, you needn’t worry.”

  Jonas’ mouth falls open and his eyes widen. He can tell, Mateo means every word, and those words will his last for today.

  Sometimes no threat is a threat. Even though Mateo stands motionless across the room, Jonas can feel the tension in the air. His hands shake more, knowing he had better not ask anymore questions because he too, is locked behind bars.

  “Your point has been made,” says Jonas, slowly stepping forward and extending his hand. “Good luck to you.”

  Underneath Mateo’s thick skin, and behind his empty expression, Jonas can see the worst kind of fear there is, the fear of the unknown. The tall prisoner reaches for the Reverend’s open palm and the two shake hands.

  Jonas’ skin is clammy and between his fingers leak a cold sweat. He tries to pull away, but Mateo squeezes tighter as the buzzing sound blasts through the opening cell door.

  Breaking free from the grip, Jonas hustles from the cell and toward the exit, not once looking back.

  21. YOU’RE NOT GOD

  I like to think of my daughter as tough and not one to back down.

  I like to believe she’s a strong willed soul, ready to fight.

  Unfortunately, it’s her confidence that brings her nothing but more trouble.

  She has no idea who she is up against.

  The fluorescent lights of The Hallway flicker as they illuminated the corridor. The other children, fear-struck boys and girls, are cautious peeking outside their rooms.

  The Bull comes from a set of stairs, his thick black boots thumping each step. The large muscles of his arms glisten and his thick black pants swish as each leg grazes against the other.

  Not one of the children has the courage to face him.

  Not one of them, except for mine.

  Haylee wants to see the man responsible, to remember every detail, hoping to use something, anything, against him. It’s this observation that catches Bull’s attention. In The Hallway lined with kneeling children, bowed heads, and guarded faces, Haylee’s is the only one staring straight ahead at the danger coming toward her.

  “You’re awake,” says Bull, stopping in front of her.

  Haylee leans back against the wall, her knees bent, glaring up at him and hoping the back of her thigh is hidden from view.

  Bull smirks and tells her the others should have filled her in on the rules on how to behave. Had they not, he will gladly give her a quick lesson. Her arms cross and she shakes her head, lowering her face. Bull checks under her black hair. He walks his fingers over her neck and behind her ears. Then his fingers snap and he orders her to remove her shirt.

  Haylee doesn’t hesitate. In her mind, stripping down to her bra is no different than wearing a swimsuit to the beach. To disguise her tiny injury even more, she wads her shirt in a ball and stuffs it underneath her leg.

  Bull grins and pulls a photograph from his pocket.

  He nods to Buddha.

  “That cop gave her up instead of his own son.”

  Haylee’s eyebrows curve and she reaches for the picture, but Bull yanks it away.

  “So he’s off the hook?” asks Buddha, picking up a clipboard and a pencil.

  Bull shakes his head, staring down at Haylee. She’s as flawless in the flesh as he had hoped.

  “No. We’ll go back for his kid later on.”

  As his arm drops to his side, Haylee catches a glimpse of the faces in the picture. It’s a printed memory of her and Austin at their prom. Her mouth falls open and tears gather from her eyelids. Her own boyfriend’s betrayal cannot match his father’s. It takes a moment to sink in, why Cole had come by so late at night. Why he had stashed his son’s school book to use as an excuse to come by so late at night. She tries to think of how he was able to break in to the house, but Bull interrupts her train of thought.

  “Kill it,” he says, crumpling the photograph in his fist.

  Haylee’s lips tremble.

  She pushes her back harder against the wall.

  “Whatever thought you have,” Bull adds, “whatever plan you’ve come up with to escape, kill it now before it earns you the consequences.”

  Cherish watches Haylee’s shoulder relax, and begs her without a voice to stay silent, to say nothing. But it isn’t telepathy or some sixth sense that gives Haylee the message; it’s the face of the Devil above her that leaves her speechless. The evil energy that radiates from his presence, like heat from a crackling fire. If she snaps back with some smart-ass remark, or shows any sign of carelessness, she will get burned.

  The Bull begins walking away, but his sight stays with her for a split-second too long.

  Had he simply not noticed, had he only looked away sooner, Haylee may stand a chance.

  “You’re bleeding,” he says, kneeling beside her, pointing to a patch of red on the back of her shorts.

  It isn’t noticeable to anyone else, but El Toro has an eye for detail.

  “It’s that time of the month,” she replies.

  Buddha steps closer to see the discovery.

  El Toro caresses the side of Haylee’s face.

  “I don’t hate liars because they don’t speak the truth,” he says. “What I can’t stand is when the lie they speak insults my intelligence.”

  Grabbing her by the back of her neck, he swings Haylee to the ground and pins the weight of his knee on the side of her neck.

  The other children, including Cherish, jolt with a brief moment of terror.

  Haylee grunts each breath through her teeth and presses her palms flat against the floor.

  Buddha pulls a knife from his pocket and slices the back of Haylee’s shorts to expose her recent injury, the cut to the inside of her thigh.

  Through the doorway of her room, The Bull can see the shard of metal sticking out from the bed frame and the smear of blood in the carpet beneath it.


  Haylee pants and whimpers as his weight becomes more painful.

  “It was an accident,” says Cherish. “It’s just a small cut. It will heal.”

  “I believe the rules were made clear,” says Bull, rising to his feet. “There is no healing. We don’t have the time for it. This is my world and in here, being marked is not permitted. Just because a product can listen, doesn’t mean they understand. Some need to learn from experience.”

  Haylee rises to her knees and grits her teeth, remembering what she told Cherish before, that she’s not planning to go without a fight.

  “You’re not God,” she cries, glaring up at El Toro.

  Faster than the breath she inhales, El Toro whips a thick looped cabled tie from his pocket, swings it over her head and around her neck, and zips it tight.

  “I beg to differ.”

  In a panic, Haylee claws at her throat and whips her body around trying to break free.

  It’s her quick reaction that leaves enough room for slide her finger underneath the tie to keep from cutting off her circulation.

  The Bull notices, and instead of finishing the job on the spot, he uses the lose cable as a handle, lifting her to her feet and throwing her around his shoulder like a heavy bag.

  Haylee chokes as the cable clicks tighter.

  She can still breathe.

  She can still beg for mercy.

  But facing away with her back against his, and her feet dangling and kicking above the ground, she can’t fight back.

  Her weight pulls the cable tighter.

  Her face turns to a mix of blue and purple.

  Her eyes go bloodshot.

  “Intentional or accidental, it doesn’t matter,” says Bull, grabbing a fist of Cherish’s hair, dragging her along.

  “Either way,” he adds, “it’s bad for business.”

  Both girls struggle to break free.

  Cherish cries to be let go. The pain of being dragged along by her hair makes her eyes water.

  For Haylee, begging for her life is no longer a priority.

  All she can do is try not to blackout.

  Once everything goes dark, it will stay that way for eternity.

  In her struggle to break the thick plastic tie, she throws her elbows into El Toro’s back, but he walks and waits for the blows to stop. He never breaks a sweat, dragging and carrying the two girls up the stairs.

  Wherever he’s taking them, whatever awaits on the floor above, the other kids fear it was worse than being locked away in The Hallway.

  At least in here, they’re still alive and have a chance to stay that way.

  Still they know they will never see Cherish or my daughter alive again, and it’s a fear that haunts their every nerve.

  22. SECRETS ESCAPE

  Only the front lobby of the station is lit.

  No one is here except Spencer, who’s stressing himself out behind the desk of his office. After taking a sip from his fourth cup of coffee, with his phone pressed to the side of his head, he runs his fingers through his hair and across his face.

  I’ve managed to find a comfortable position lying on the soft outside his office, but my mind won’t stop racing. The feeling of being awake this long is like an everlasting hangover. The more my thoughts and body compete with each other, the more frustrating it becomes. Before you know it, I have to move to find a different position to lay in.

  It’s not fair to Haylee that I sleep. It takes time away from her search. The faint ticking of a clock on the wall, reminds me every second is crucial. There’s nothing I can do but stare and watch as the red second hand beats from one number to the next.

  Where is my daughter, and what is she doing at this exact moment?

  For the first time, I don’t want to know.

  All I want is for her to come home safe.

  By whole body jerks, startled from the sound of Spencer’s office door swinging open and the handle banging the wall. He storms past me, taking the biggest steps he can take.

  The closer he gets to the station’s front entrance, the faster he jogs.

  Sitting up, I watch him slam open the entrance to the station.

  Two men enter and follow him, hustling back to his office.

  One of them is tall and thin, wearing a black suit. His hair is thin and shaved short. His sunglasses hang from the chest pocket of his jacket. He loses his black neck tie and walks fast.

  At his side is a man with blue eyes behind thin-framed glasses. His hair is shaved short on the sides, with thin long strands styled on top and with a little bit of scruff on his face.

  He’s dressed nothing like the other one. A gray t-shirt, dark blue jeans, and gray Chuck Taylor sneakers. Hanging from one shoulder is a forest-green backpack.

  Both of them may be close to my age, but neither pay me any mind as they rush past, following Spencer.

  The leave me nothing but a breeze which blows loose strands of hair from my face.

  Whatever they are here for, all three of the men are in a hurry to discuss it.

  Wiping my tired eyes, I rush to catch up with them.

  Closing the door behind me, I take a seat in corner of the room.

  The suited man stands beside the detective.

  “We’ve got something.”

  The other man pulls a laptop from his backpack and sets it on the desk, scooting his seat underneath him.

  Spencer leans over him, his hand resting against the back of the chair.

  “For the love of God, tell me it’s something useful.”

  For the first time, I can see a glimpse of hope in his eyes. Our eyes meet and for a second, I share the anticipation.

  “Who is this?” I ask.

  Spencer points to the man in the black suit.

  “This is Special Agent Bridges from the F.B.I.”

  Then he introduces the man in the chair as a tech manager from The A Corporation.

  The guy typing on his laptop looks familiar to me and from the side of his eye, he catches me squinting at him.

  “I look familiar to you,” he says. “I get that a lot.”

  With a few clicks and buttons pressing on his keyboard, he pulls up a digitized map of the city and its surrounding areas.

  “It could be nothing,” says Agent Bridges, “but anything out of the ordinary demands attention.”

  Pointing the tip of an ink pen to three tiny black squares on the screen, his friend explains what it is we’re all looking at.

  The black squares on the screen are cell towers.

  Over the past week, a repair crew for The A Corporation has been trying to fix a malfunctioning tower just outside the city.

  “This one has been on the fritz,” he says, pointing at one dot and looking back at me. “You may have noticed the laptop in your police cruiser has been losing its connection.”

  Confused, I shake my head and then nod.

  “The cellular connection for those terminals run off this same tower,” he adds. “The police are the ones who reported the issue.”

  “Go on,” says Spencer.

  “Throughout these repairs, diagnostics have been performed by our crews and they’ve been encountering some strange readings.”

  Moving the tip of his pen to the center of the spots, he explains how the towers work together, pinging signal from an unknown device.

  Spencer leans in and squints, curious to know more.

  Waving his hand over different parts of his screen, the technician says these individual towers are used by devices inside the city, but each one works with other towers, never each other.

  In the area between the three towers is nothing.

  No houses.

  No businesses.

  The closest thing is a small suburban town.

  Nothing more than a school, church, some houses, a hotel, and a grocery store with a pharmacy inside.

  Still, this town is outside and far away from the area in question.

  Leaned forward with my elbows on my knees, I ask the
men to explain what’s going on.

  Before the technician can open his mouth, Agent Bridges makes sense of it all.

  “There’s been a signal popping up late at night in the center of these three towers. At first, it wasn’t a big deal, but El Toro does his work in the city for two weeks before he vanishes.”

  Spencer shares the same confused expression as I do.

  “This strange signal is consistent with that timeline,” adds Agent Bridges.

  I’m not sure if I understand.

  Could it be this mysterious cellphone signal is from El Toro?

  What puzzles me is what the technician said a moment ago; there’s nothing out there.

  “It gets stranger,” he adds. “When the signal pops up, we are able to triangulate its position using the surrounding towers, but the second we hone in on the source, it goes away.”

  Spencer stands upright, folding his arms and resting his chin on one hand.

  “So they talk fast before ending their call?”

  I don’t see what that has to do with anything out of the ordinary.

  In the middle of nowhere, late at night, it could be anything. A hunter making a call to his wife or friends. A homeless man searching for a place to stay. Someone making a quick phone call while they’re walking around. So what?

  My small glimmer of hope from before threatens to wither away.

  The technician shakes his head.

  “It doesn’t shut off,” he says. “It moves.”

  Agent Bridges stands, waiting and watching. He seems to know exactly what the technician is talking about, despite the clear answers anticipated by Spencer and myself.

  “What’s quirky,” adds the technician, “is how fast and steady it moves. It’s stationary at first and then takes off at sixty-five miles per hour in the same direction every time.”

  He clears his throat.

  “At first, we though someone was talking on their phone while driving through, but no car can reach that speed from a dead stop that fast. And again, there are no roads in this area.”

  “Except for railroads,” says Agent Bridges, stepping over to point again at the map. “This area used to be a coal mine. Tracks follow through from Missouri to Colorado.”

  Spencer nods but he’s still uncertain of the information.