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The nervous energy in the room was thick, and he knew they were all worried about what they'd seen on the video. Trenton was in trouble. "Make sure Kasey calls me when he gets back from the bar. I'll check in as well as soon as I have more information." He turned, hoping that Trenton was alive. He'd seen too many cases like this where they'd found a body. He wasn't sure the team could handle it if one of them was killed.
Determined to do what he could, he headed out to his car, mentally making a list of people he needed to contact. They needed to find him and soon or they risked losing him forever.
CHAPTER SIX
Trenton hadn't meant to sleep, but he had. He had no idea for how long. There weren't any windows where he was being held and he had no clue what time of day it was. Hell, he didn't even know what day it was. He could have been here for a few days or a week. It was impossible to tell. He rubbed his hands up and down his arms, trying to ease the cold from his body. He hadn't been warm since being taken. He wasn't sure what they were shooting him up with, but he thought that might have as much to do with the chill as the cement floors and damp area he was forced to stay in.
He took a moment to look around the cell he was in. It really wasn't a cell. It was a cage. A large open space separated by chain-link fences. In the cage he was in there were only men. Maybe ten of them, but he couldn't be sure. Sometime in the night, they'd brought another in. He'd looked drugged as well, but he'd also looked used. In the faint light, Trenton swore he saw what he assumed was dried semen on the man's body. That only confirmed his fear of why he'd been kidnapped. This was some kind of sex ring. He couldn't see well into the other areas, but he heard women crying, and to his horror, sometimes children.
Was he still in Los Angeles? If so, how had an operation of this size not been noticed? Trenton was trained to find places like this. He knew what to look for. If people in the area were being kidnapped, then he should have known about it. That fact made him think he wasn't close to home. He had been drugged so he had no clue how far they'd driven before dumping him in the first room where he'd woken up.
He stretched his legs, moving slowly so he didn't draw attention his way. He needed time to clear his head, and he'd seen others who got up and moved around too much or screamed for help drugged again to keep them calm. The last thing he wanted was more of that shit to cloud his head. He sat up, his back against the chain-link fence. He pulled his knees to his chest, resting his arms on them.
"You're awake."
Trenton looked to his left to see Ian lying on his side a few feet from him. Keeping his voice to a whisper just like Ian had, he nodded. "What did I miss?"
"I just woke up too. I don't know. I wake up for a few minutes then fade back off." Ian wiped his hand over his eyes.
"Yeah, me too." Trenton slowly moved closer to where Ian was, trying not to draw attention as he slid his butt toward him. "This is a bigger operation than I thought. Any clue where we are?"
"I assumed we were still in San Francisco." Ian shrugged.
"Shit, they took you from San Francisco? I was in L.A.," Trenton told him.
"I was in Sacramento." A guy a few feet away from them rolled to look at them. "Pete was in Portland." He gestured to a guy sleeping beside him.
"Fuck, so we have no idea where we are?"
The other two shook their heads.
That explained how no one had noticed this. One or two missing persons from one area wouldn't draw any attention. "How long have you been here?" Trenton asked.
"I don't know. Maybe a month or more." The guy's eyes closed, then opened again as if he was fighting sleep.
"Why do they have us?" Ian asked.
Trenton bit his lip, sure that he already knew.
"Sex. They give us to men or women to use for a night, sometimes longer. If we fight, they tie us up so we can't resist. Sometimes it's easier to just do what they want so they don't beat us," one of the guys told them.
A squeak came from Ian. "They rape us?"
The guy closed his eyes again. "They do whatever they want to us."
Ian stared at Trenton with a look of horror. "We have to get out of here."
Trenton agreed, but he had to find a way first.
Before he could stop him, Ian stood, screaming as he stumbled to the gate of the cage and started to shake it. "Let me out of here. I don't belong here. You've got to let me go."
Trenton didn't dare move. He wanted to run to Ian and tell him it would be okay. That he needed to be quiet, but if he did, he was sure he'd be in trouble too.
Just as Trenton expected, the two men who had led them to the cells walked over to the gate.
"You're right where you need to be," the one with a beard said as he unlocked the gate.
"No, let me out. I need to go home." Ian was crying as he watched them with a hopeful look as they opened the gate.
