Page 109 of The Vagabond

Scar’s already pulling out his phone. “She’s handled worse than this.” He glances at the women. “And they’ll trust her faster than they’ll trust us.”

He’s right. They don’t look at us with relief. They look at us like we might be the next monsters. And maybe we are. We’re just different breeds.

Lucky gets through to Tayana, his brother Rafi’s wife. For years, she’s been carving light out of the shadows—rescuing victims, coordinating safe house transfers, navigating the ugly bureaucracy that comes with pulling people out of the trafficking trade and actually helping them stay out. She’s not just trained. She’s relentless. She knows how to speak to women who’ve forgotten the sound of their own voices. She knows howto lead with mercy, how to act with precision. And she understands. There’s no one better for this.

I move deeper into the container, stepping around limp bodies, some conscious, some not. My boots stick to the floor—something thick, unidentifiable. Blood. Vomit. Urine. My fingers twitch at my sides, desperate to do something. But there’s no sign of Maxine. And that makes me afraid of where she is.

Kanyan stands back up, turning to Mason. “This isn’t just about Maxine anymore.”

“No,” Mason says, low and hollow. “This is The Aviary. We’ve found their fucking pipeline.”

Scar looks like he’s going to tear the whole yard down with his bare hands. “This isn’t one shipment. This is a system.They’re staging here. Holding them until transport. Just like the others we found.”There’s a pause. Then Mason says the one thing none of us want to admit.

“We need Brando.”

Scar curses under his breath. “He’s going to fucking lose it.”

“Exactly,” Mason snaps. “And he should. Because that beast is exactly what we need right now.”

Scar looks torn for half a second, then nods. Kanyan steps back outside, already pulling out his phone to coordinate.

Mason turns to us. “You good to keep going?”

I nod. “She’s still out there.”

“Going rogue could cost you your badge,” he reminds me.

“There’s nothing I’m not willing to lose to find her.”

His gaze lingers—long enough to feel like a question, or maybe a quiet acknowledgment—and for the briefest second, I think I see it. A flicker of respect, buried beneath all that cold detachment. But then it’s gone, snuffed out like it was never there at all.

Lucky loads another mag into his Glock. “Let’s go.”

Scar and Kanyan stay behind, tending to the women. Scarpulls his hoodie off and hands it to a girl no older than fifteen. Kanyan moves to a girl chained to a pipe and starts cutting her free. Their silence is louder than anything, because this just became a war.

Mason, Lucky, and I move deeper into the yard. Past another row. Then another. My blood is ice, my vision tunneling. The thought of Maxine in a place like that?—

No. No. I won’t let it end that way. I press forward, gun drawn, senses flaring. Maxine, I’m coming. And God help anyone who stands in my way.

44

MAXINE

Sweat crawls down my spine. Pain blooms hot and heavy in my arms. And piece by piece, my grip on sanity frays, threads pulling loose one by one.

I can’t think about what’s coming. Where they’ll take me. The man they’ll give me to. Mr Cufflinks. I don’t delude myself into believing there’s anything civil about the man who bid highest on me. I got out once - I’m not sure that I’ll be so lucky the next time. And if I know one thing, it’s that I can’t go back to being a prisoner under anyone’s thumb. Ever. I won’t be that girl again.

So I move. Slow at first, testing the drag of my skin against the tape, the give of the glue under the sweat, the way my bones grind beneath the restraint.

I start rubbing my wrists together again.

It’s awkward, hard to get the right leverage when my hands are tied behind me, but I twist, grind, pull—again and again and again. The skin chafes almost immediately. A raw burn that should make me stop. That would make anyone else stop. But not me. Because every second I’m still, I get closer to thatshipping crate. Closer to chains and blindfolds and the kind of darkness you don’t crawl back from.

So I keep going.

The tape bites deeper. My breath comes in short, sharp gasps as the skin starts to split. I can feel it—warm blood slicking the inside of my palms as I grind my wrists together like I’m trying to erase my own fingerprints.

It hurts. God, it hurts. But pain is better than waiting. It’s better than death. Pain is mine. It means I’m still here. And I’m the one controlling it. It’s all mine.

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