Page 38 of The Knight

Iswallow, feeling like a fish out of water, frozen on the asphalt. Then I hear Hass's voice and startle out of my stupid, selfish thoughts, remembering all at once where I am. Rushing in a crouch towards the baggage cart, I slid into a space behind it and rest the camera lens on one of the shelves, pointing it right towards the girls and the thugs keeping watch over them.

Except it's less like keeping watch and more like keeping them trapped there, with nowhere to run and no one to witness what's going on—just me and my camera.

From here, unlike across the street, I can zoom in well enough to take photos of the girls and the thugs. I quickly focus on each of their faces and snap as many as I can, hoping maybe once we turn this all over to the police they'll be able to identify who the girls are and help them out—assuming, of course, enough of the cops aren't paid off by Hass's family to look the other way. The blog will help with that; just like with the governor's scandal, it's hard to get officials to stop investigating you when the public is calling for blood and truth.

I'll make sure the world knows who these girls are and cares enough about them to try to save them, even if they're the only ones willing to do anything.

This kind of active investigative work, more than anything I did with the Legacies blog last semester, is invigorating. It makes me feel like I'm really doing something as I zoom out to capture all the players on camera and hit the record button to get some video.

Maybe after graduation I can find a way to keep doing this sort of work. Someone has to keep the rich, privileged monsters of the world in check—whether they're my age or adults. If Silas could see me now, he'd be proud. I'm making sure his death wasn't for nothing.

Despite the wind, I manage to pick up some of the conversation going on between Hass and the men, and it chills me to the bone.

"This one has been trained." The taller man, with dark hair, motions towards the ice blonde girl in the middle, who has vacant eyes and long sheer sleeves that barely cover up her reason for needing them. "She is very docile, easy to manipulate."

"Too old," Hass says dismissively, though to my eyes the girl doesn't look much older than eighteen or nineteen. "I want a fresh one I can break in on my own." He paces down towards the girl on the right, a black-haired girl with dark brown skin who flinches even as she raises her chin at him defiantly. "This one has spirit. Does she speak English?"

"No," says the second, shorter man, in an Eastern European accent. "That is part of the appeal, though. You can talk freely about her without worry. And she can be trained."

"Huh." Hass considers the girl, and I clench my fist, wishing I could castrate him with my mind. She doesn't look much older than sixteen, and has the lithe body of a dancer—no doubt what she thought she'd get to do when she was trafficked. Imagining him breaking her like he's been trying to break Georgia makes my stomach churn.

But he dismisses the girl with a wave of his hand. "Too much work. This one I like, though." Stalking towards the third girl on the other end of the line, who cowers back from him, he surveys her sharp cheekbones, dark hair, and ice-pale skin. "Eastern European?"

"Yes. She was born in Latvia, procured in Poland. Her English is fluent—though she stutters. A nervous habit."

The way this turns up the corners of Hass's mouth is enough to make me grind my teeth nearly to nubs. He inhales deeply as the girls cringes away from him, acting almost as if he can smell her fear—and for all I know the psychopath can. I watch him nod sharply, then pull out his phone and ask, "How much?"

One of the men leans forward to rattle off a number, and I don't catch this part of the conversation. But it's clear things are about to wind down—which means that Hass will return to his car, while the girl, apparently, will be driven to his family's empty apartment to await his presence and find out what nightmare her life has just become. Before he walks past this baggage cart and sees me, I have to get back to the airplane hanger, footage intact, or her nightmare will never end.

Ending the recording, I snap the camera screen back on the body and tuck it into my jacket. Then I glance over my shoulder to judge the distance from here to my hiding space—it's so much further than it looked on the way over. Suddenly it feels like the sky itself has widened, and everyone is staring in this direction, just waiting for me to dart out and get caught.

Something unlikely happens: my eyes are drawn to Blake's figure standing in the distance, and I somehow gain confidence from knowing he's there. Even if the worst happens, he'll make sure that they don't hurt me, or worse, kill me—of that I somehow feel sure, despite everything. Blake Lee isn't the type to stand watch over a girl for no reason.

Taking a deep breath, I rise into a crouch and walk as fast as I can, nearly running despite my crouch, towards the airport hanger door. I can feel Georgia's eyes as I pass by the sports car, but shockingly she does nothing, says nothing, as I rush behind its hood and back into the darkness of the hanger. My spot with the crates and boxes is maybe twenty feet away at the most, and just in time, too, because I can hear Hass's footsteps in the distance as he walks in my direction.

Overeager to get back to safety and be done with this thing, I hang a sharp left and run a few steps—only to trip and fall on the concrete floor. My breath leaves my body as I fall down, rolling towards my right side, and the camera spills out of my jack. It slides across the smooth concrete, just far enough for a sliver of setting sun to land on it.

Hass is moments away from walking close enough to see the camera—and then me. I can't save it, and the evidence, without being discovered. Which means it's as good as lost, all because of one clumsy moment when I couldn't keep my feet under me.

Those girls deserve better than a screwup like me trying, and failing, to save them. All I had to do was not fuck this up and I couldn't even manage that. The only thing left is to run and hide, on the off chance that Hass won't spot me the instant he sees the camera.

Before I can make my way towards the hiding place, though, something extraordinary happens.

Georgia gets out of the car, swings the door open wide, and calls out to Hass. "Ready to go, babe?"

"That I am," he says, suddenly in a buoyant mood, the slime ball. "I hope you're ready for seven courses, because I'm treating you special tonight."

How quickly he changes from the shitheel who shoved her to a smirking, charismatic rich boy treating his girlfriend out to dinner. It's like there are two sides of him, completely separate, and this must be the side that makes Georgia primp and preen.

Her car door, at least, hides me and the camera from view. Before anyone can see, I reach out to snatch the evidence up and slide into the hiding place between the crates, feeling like I finally got a tiny bit of luck.

As I watch Hass and Georgia, though, I realize it wasn't luck at all.

He strolls over to the driver side of the door, opens it up, and slides in. As he's turning on the radio and adjusting it, she looks over her shoulder—right to the spot where I just was, along with my camera.

The expression on her face when she sees that I'm gone is unmistakably relief. Her eyes briefly flick to my hiding place, and she purses her lips, yet again saying nothing. Making me wonder if I ever really knew the mean girl who stood up in front of everyone and exposed me for a fraud. Maybe I've never really known anyone at all—including, especially, myself.

Shaking her hair out, she slides into the passenger side of Hass's expensive car, closes the door, and doesn't look back once as he peels out of the parking lot impossibly fast and sends his expensive car down the road. On the other side of the private jet, a black SUV takes another passenger for another ride—this time, without a fancy seven course meal on the end of it. Just a nightmare that I hope I'll be able to stop in time.

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