Page 32 of Freeing Souls

“Because it’s almost noon.” She laughs. “Gabe and I are going on our ride in a few minutes.”

“I’ll miss you,” Ryker says, kissing Harley until Rage clears his throat.

Ignoring Rage’s fake stink eye, I head over to her as soon as Ryker lets her go and pull her into my arms. “Be safe, baby girl.”

“Always.” She smiles as she wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me softly. I bite back a groan, knowing her father wouldn’t appreciate that, and pull back when Grayson walks towards us.

They say goodbye, and then Rage smirks. “Good luck with Blade today, boys.”

Sugar laughs. “I think we’ve all been looking forward to them being prospects.”

Rage just continues to smirk as he and Harley head out of the house. Shaking my head, I take a seat at the table as Sugar says, “Actually, today isn’t really prospect stuff. Oakley is ready to talk more about the ball, so you guys need to head over to the tech room after you finish your coffee.”

Nodding, Sugar takes his leave, and we all take a moment to finish our coffees before heading over to the club. When we get to the tech room, Nerds is standing at the door with a smile on his face. “Prospects.” He nods at us.

Grayson chuckles. “I feel like you guys are more excited than we are.”

Nerds shrugs. “Since you are basically going to be my bitch for the next year and then hopefully work with me, I have a gift for you,” he tells Grayson, opening the tech door and letting him step in first.

The space has been partially rearranged. There are still the desks in the center of the room facing each other like normal, but now, Nerds’ desk is an L shape in the far right corner of the room, and then there is a new L shaped desk in the opposite corner, with the same computer monitor set up as Nerds’ space. In between the desks, there are whiteboards, shelves, and two chairs. It looks like a shared office space now, not just Nerds’ domain.

“This is all yours,” Nerds says, gesturing to the new desk in the opposite corner from his. The long sides of their desks stick out from the wall facing each other so they can talk and work together easily from their own spaces.

Grayson’s mouth drops open, and his eyes spark with excitement as he runs his fingers over the monitors that are mounted to the wall above the desk and then the three other monitors sitting on the desk. “Wow. Thank you, Nerds.”

He nods and heads to his own desk. “Don’t thank me. Just put it to use.”

Ryker and I take seats at the center desks, and a few minutes pass before Oakley hesitantly comes in. “Hey, Oaks, is it okay if these guys are here while we talk?”

She nods after glancing around. “Where’s Harley?”

“She had plans to go on a ride with Rage,” Nerds tells her, which explains why Sugar waited until they left to tell us Oakley wanted to talk. He didn’t want Harley to feel the need to stay behind and miss whatever it was Rage wants to show her.

“Let’s sit around these desks,” Grayson says as he goes to the desks, laying out a large white poster board with some sharpies.

Everyone pulls up chairs and takes seats, Nerds making sure to sit right next to Oakley, which makes Ryker smirk. “Okay, Oakley, will you just tell us what you remember and we will ask questions as we go? If something feels fuzzy or like you don’t know the answer for sure, let us know so we can mark that it's a possibility,” Grayson explains.

“I vividly remember the first time I was taken to the ball. It was a month after I was kidnapped. I was in a warehouse like the one you found me in. They prepped us there, and then we were all blindfolded. I was painfully sober because they wouldn’t give me anything, and prior to being taken, I was mostly drinking, sometimes getting high. When we got there, they didn’t take the blindfold off until we were inside. The first room by the main doors was a large open space with two desks at the end. There were guards lining both sides of the walls and blocking off all the doors. They led us past the desks and down a dark hallway to a holding room. It was just an empty room with chains connected to the wall so they could chain each of us up.”

Grayson and Nerds draw and write what Oakley tells them while Ryker and I just listen closely. She keeps her eyes shut, and every few minutes, she takes a deep breath, but otherwise, she has no reaction like she has been preparing herself to relive all of this just to save others.

“I don’t know how long we waited there before a bunch of men came in and checked us over to make sure we lookedappropriate,”she says through clenched teeth. Nerds stops writing and gently takes her hand. “Then, they led all of us out. We each had a guard with us as we went straight into a large ballroom. From there, they would lead us around, and any guest was allowed to stop us and speak to us.”

“If you had to guess, how many guests do you think there were? Less than fifty? More than?” Grayson asks, fully in work mode.

“I think there were less than fifty that first time. After they finished showing us off, we went back to the same room. Then, way later, we were led out one at a time to go up on stage and be auctioned off,” she explains in a cold, detached voice.

“How many victims do you think were there with you?” Grayson asks next.

She still has her eyes shut, but her body is rigid with tension as she answers him. “At least twenty.”

“So if they had enough guards for each girl during the actual ball, that means we are looking at twenty plus guards,” Ryker muses.

“It felt like there were guards everywhere we went. And you can always tell who they are because they wear black ski masks.”

“Can you walk us through what was different about being traded?” Grayson questions gently.

Nerds inhales sharply, and I know he is ready to stop this, to say she doesn’t need to do it anymore. I glare at him, and he ducks his head, not saying a word. No one likes that she has to do this, but we all have to detach from it and do it anyway.

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