Georgia wondered what to do. If the man intended to harm her, he was too big to stop. There was nowhere to run, and if she tried he would easily catch her. Hiding might be an option, if she could get back into the woods, but the trees were a good twenty feet away.
She filled her lungs with cool air and stood as straight as possible.
“What do you want?” she said, making her voice strong.
The figure didn’t answer. One arm hung limply at his side. The other seemed to be holding something.
“You deaf?” Georgia forced herself to take a step toward the man. “I’m asking you a question.”
A light flashed, followed by a familiar clicking sound.
He just took my picture.
Georgia stopped cold. She could feel her heart thumping, and her palms getting wet while her mouth went dry. It took her back to her childhood, to that nanny who used to—
“Who are you!” Georgia screamed at him.
Instead of answering, the man began to walk to her. Slow, languid, with long, easy strides. Georgia stood her ground, having to crane her neck upward as he got within an arm’s reach. He had to be close to seven feet tall. Thin, but with thick wrists and a broad chest.
The moon was bright enough for Georgia to make out his features. He was white, and his face had a lot of sharp angles. High cheekbones, a long pointed nose, a chin that jutted out in a V. He wore denim overalls, like a farmer, and a dark sweater. A smiley face button was pinned to a bib strap.
“Lester,” he said, his voice soft and pitched too high for such a big man. He took her picture again, causing her to startle at the flash.
Georgia never wanted to run away so badly before. She had to clench to keep from pissing herself.
“That’s rude, Lester,” she managed to say without stuttering. “You should ask permission before you take someone’s picture.”
Lester cocked his head to the side, like a confused dog.
“Lester takes what Lester wants.”
“Not from me, he doesn’t. If you snap my picture again I’m going to shove that camera up your ass.”
Lester leaned down, close enough for Georgia to smell his breath. It smelled like a dog’s.
“Isn’t the girl afraid of Lester?” he purred.
Georgia’s knees knocked together. “N…no,” she stammered. “I’m not afraid of you.”
Lester smiled. Instead of flat teeth, his had all been filed to sharp points.
“The girl will be.”
Meadow counted four men dragging him off, two holding his arms, and two gripping his legs. They worked silently, in unison, binding his limbs to two long poles, then carrying him on their shoulders. They navigated the trees and underbrush at a quick clip. Meadow struggled like crazy, wore himself out, and eventually went limp, the nail gag in his mouth forcing him to twist his head sideways so the blood didn’t run down his throat. He began to shiver, from the cold, and from fear.
It was dark, real dark, but every few hundred yards a space opened up in the tree canopy, letting in the moonlight, and Meadow caught glimpses of his abductors.
They looked like cavemen, with long hair, beards, rags and furs for clothes, dirt smeared on their faces. And they stank of piss and sweat and blood. They were also hella strong, Meadow knew, from experience, how hard it was to carry a body, even with three other guys helping. But these dudes didn’t stop to rest or change positions. They didn’t talk, neither. That scared Meadows most of all. Brothers talked when they threw down. If they were gonna pop a cap, they let you know why, let you know how they felt about it. Meadow had no idea what these men wanted, and he wasn’t able to ask. Not knowing was worse than the pain.
After five minutes of running, they stopped and dropped Meadow onto the ground, causing instant agony in both his coccyx and his mouth. He tried to tug at his bonds, but his arms and shoulders didn’t want to follow orders—they’d been stretched out for too long.
Meadow managed to roll onto his side. Strangely, the dirt seemed warm. In fact, this entire area seemed a lot warmer than the run through the woods. It seemed brighter, too, but he couldn’t tell where the light was coming from. He craned his neck, trying to see beyond a thick patch of bushes, when a old lady came out of nowhere and knelt down in front of him.
She was rail thin, and her white hair was scraggly and all knotted up. She wore a tattered sweater with more holes in it than threads. The lady grinned insanely at Meadow. He tried to say, “help me,” but it came out as more of a moan.
Then the crazy bitch stabbed him in the arm with something.
Meadow howled, trying to twist away. She pulled her weapon back, then held it in front of her face.
It’s a fork.
Meadow watched a line of spit snake down her chin, then she stuck out a drooly tongue and licked the blood off the tines. Just as she was raising the fork for seconds one of the men batted her across the side of the head, knocking her over.
“Dinner…not ready…yet.”
The man reached for Meadow, who flinched away. The man, and a partner, grabbed the poles and dragged Meadow uphill, around the bushes.
Meadow now understood the source of the fire and the light. In a small clearing, they’d covered the ground with a bed of white-hot coals. On top of them was some kind of metal cage, big enough for a person.
“Grid…iron,” the man said.
Meadow, a devout atheist, prayed for the first time in his life. He prayed for forgiveness for all of his sins, prayed that there was an afterlife, and most of all prayed with all his might that these crazy fuckers would kill him before they put him on the fire.
His prayers were not answered.
Sara didn’t think, she reacted, springing from her husband’s side and lunging after Laneesha as the girl disappeared into the woods. Earlier in their marriage, Sara and Martin wanted to have children. After a year of trying, they went to a fertility clinic and Sara was diagnosed with something called hostile cervical mucus. No matter what they tried, Sara couldn’t get pregnant. Her body rejected all attempts.
When they founded the Center, the kids they cared for became Sara’s surrogate children. Losing them was the hardest part of the job.
In some cases, the losses were happy ones, with the teens being released back into society, the majority of them going on to live fulfilling, productive lives. But several—the runaways—proved particularly painful for Sara. She felt like she failed those children, and grieved for the loss, both hers and theirs.
So having Laneesha snatched away right under her nose was something Sara just couldn’t allow, even if she had to fight to the death to prevent it.
Sara was no stranger to fights.
Following the sounds of Laneesha cries, Sara navigated through the trees and underbrush, moving faster than safety allowed. Laneesha wasn’t a tiny girl, and whoever grabbed her was obviously struggling to carry her off, because in only a few dozen steps Sara saw the bouncing yellow beam of the Maglite. Sara poured on the speed, bursting through an elderberry bush into a small, rocky clearing, and found herself facing Laneesha’s abductors.
At first Sara thought they were homeless people like she was used to seeing on the streets of Detroit, dirty and hairy with tattered clothes. But their snarls, and the crude tree clubs they brandished, made them look more like savages; some crazed prehistoric tribe of headhunters from an epoch long passed. Both of them were thin, bare arms rippled with muscles, wearing the same insane, malevolent expression, and it took Sara a moment to realize one of them was a woman—the only way to distinguish her from her partner was the lack of facial hair.
The man snarled, spit flecking his filthy lips, and then charged.