He flung me across the street. My head crashed into the side of a car, causing a dent. I tried to regroup, but dizziness overwhelmed me. I needed a second to catch my breath, but I wasn’t getting one.
Derrick kicked me in the face.
I tried to roll away, but he was on me now. A punch in the jaw made my teeth rattle. There was a knee to the ribs and then another blow, I don’t even know from where, struck me in the back of the head, jarring my brain. My eyes started rolling back as the next punch landed. And then there was blackness.
When I woke up, I was being dragged through an alley by Derrick. He had one hand on the scruff of my collar. The other was holding a cell phone.
Pain flooded in, making my eyes well up with tears. My first thoughts were about Rachel and Ema. They had no backup now. Did they know that? I doubted it. If they had seen Derrick attack me, they would have screamed or done something. No, they had gone inside the club. Alone. Without anyone on the other end of the phone.
Derrick spoke into his cell phone. “Bringing him in, Buddy Ray,” he said.
“Nah, no reason for that.” I could hear Buddy Ray’s soft voice through the phone. “We have Ash back.”
“So what should I do with him?”
“Where are you?”
“Back alley.”
“Any witnesses?”
Derrick said, “Nope.”
“Then take care of him there,” Buddy Ray said.
Take care of him?
Fear can be like a splash of cold water in the face. I debated what my next move would be. I could pretend that I was still out for a few more seconds, surprise attack him. Derrick suddenly stopped moving. He dropped me like I was a bag of laundry. I kept my eyes closed, playing possum.
“Open your eyes, kid.”
When I didn’t, Derrick kicked me hard in the ribs with the toe of his boot. A bolt of agony surged across my chest. My eyes flew open now. I looked up, and I was staring into the barrel of a gun.
No choice.
I dived for the gun, but Derrick was ready. Using all his weight and leverage, he hit me with a powerful side kick flush in the center of the chest. My heart stopped. That was what it felt like, like all my internal organs-heart, lungs, whatever-had shut down. I collapsed back to the ground, unable to move. Another kick to the back of my head closed my eyes. Bright lights swirled in front of my eyes. I didn’t move. I don’t even think I breathed. I just lay there, helpless, swimming toward unconsciousness.
Until I heard the gunshot.
chapter 23
SO THIS WAS DEATH.
I longed for my parents. I remembered a night two years ago when we were stationed with the Al-Hajaya tribe of Bedouins in the harsh desert of Jordan. We slept in goathair tents that protected us from the harsh conditions in the vast wasteland. I stirred slowly one morning, hearing the braying of nearby animals, my eyes blinking open to see my parents staring down at me. Mom and Dad stood together, both sporting dorky parental smiles-you know the ones, all dewy-eyed and goofy and embarrassing as a smile can be-and now I would pretty much give anything to see those dorky smiles. I’m remembering that moment so clearly now and I’m wondering-if this is indeed death- will I see my father’s dorky parental smile when I open my eyes?
But wait. If I were dead, why did I still ache from the beating Derrick gave me? My head felt as though someone had surgically implanted a jackhammer into my skull and left it running on high. Do you feel that in death? I doubted it.
I slowly opened my eyes and yes, I did indeed see a face. But it was not my father’s.
It was Derrick’s.
His eyes were open, unblinking, staring at nothing. A neat, perfectly circular bullet hole sat in the middle of his forehead, still leaking a little blood. There was no doubt about it. Derrick was dead.
I tried not to panic. I didn’t move. I kept my head still while my eyes darted about my surroundings.
Dead Derrick and I were in the back of a van.
“Nice to see you awake, Mickey.”
I looked past Derrick toward the man who spoke. The first thing I noticed about him was the tattoo on his face.
“Recognize me?” he said.
“You’re Antoine LeMaire.”
Something flickered on his face-doubt maybe-but then he smiled at me. “In the flesh.”
I tried to fight through the pain, tried to figure my next move. Could I go for the van door behind me? Suppose it was locked. I was debating what to do when Antoine said, “If I wanted you dead, I’d have let Derrick shoot you.”
“You,” I said, trying to sit up a little. “You killed him?”
“Yes.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. “Thank you” didn’t really seem to fit. I remembered Candy’s words about Antoine and this van.
“Someone told me,” I said, “that once people get into this van, they’re gone forever.”
Antoine smiled. He had a nice smile, straight teeth and almost toothpaste-commercial white. He was either lightskinned black or darker Latino, I couldn’t tell which. “Well,” he said, “I guess that’s mostly true.” He gestured toward Derrick’s dead body. “Especially in his case.”
“And in mine?”
“No, Mickey. Or at least, I hope not.”
“Where’s Ashley?” I asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I was looking for her too, remember?”
“So you could sell her into white slavery?”
“Ah,” Antoine said, and the smile was back. “You’ve heard the rumors.”
“Are you telling me they’re not true?”
“You don’t recognize me, do you, Mickey?”
“I saw you on that videotape.”
“Not from that.”
I hesitated. There was something familiar about him, something distant, but the more I tried to see it, the more it stayed out of reach. “What then?”
He sighed, rolled up his shirtsleeve, and pointed to his forearm. I squinted at it, and my world, already reeling, took another major hit. I started shaking my head, lost yet again, but there it was:
The same butterfly tattoo.
“You… you’re one of them?”
“Wouldn’t ‘one of us’ be more accurate?”
“I don’t get it.”
“I think you do, Mickey.”
And just like that, I realized that he was right. Without warning or even much thought, the pieces started to fall into place. The Abeona Shelter. Abeona was the goddess who protected children. From the days of Elizabeth Sobek in the 1940s, through my father’s work, up until right now with Ashley, that was what they did-rescued, protected, and sheltered the young.
“Buddy Ray is the evil one,” I said.
He nodded.
“He starts the girls dancing at this club,” I said, “and then, well, it gets worse.”
“Much worse,” Antoine said. “You have no idea how depraved he can be. Ashley’s mom… her life was not a good one. She ended up down here, dancing and more for Buddy Ray. Ashley was the only thing in her life that mattered. She protected her daughter as best she could, tried to find her a better way of life.”
“But?” I said.
“But she died. Women like her… they don’t last long. And when she died, Ashley had no one. Buddy Ray said that she owed him money. He told Ashley that she’d have to pay off the debts.”
“What about Ashley’s dad?”
“She never knew him. It wouldn’t have mattered. Buddy Ray thinks the girls belong to him. He uses threats and violence. He holds the girls prisoner. If they don’t escape, they eventually end up like Ashley’s mom. But if Buddy catches them trying to run…”
He just left the thought in the air.
I felt my mouth go dry, but it was suddenly so clear. “So you rescue them,” I said. “You pretend to kidnap girls like Ashley and sell them into white slavery. But actually, you’re doing the opposite. You’re trying to save them.”
Antoine said nothing. He didn’t have to.
“You relocate them, like you did with Ashley. First to some place close and then you move them out to someplace more permanent. But something went wrong. Ashley’s picture showed up in the paper. Buddy Ray or one of his people saw it.”