Page 3 of Manacled Hearts

I think it was the man who towers over all the others. He looks ready to pounce and fight them all, angrily swiping a hand over his buzz-cut hair.

I agree, it is complete madness! My sister and all these kids need to be saved. They have to save us. They have to let us go. I want to shout at them, demand they free us. But the blonde one speaks again, and my thoughts pause all at once when his voice breaks through my own raging thoughts.

“Are you fucking saying that we’re supposed to close these doors and let them go wherever the fuck those assholes are taking them?!” He shouts those words with so much rage woven through each syllable, that I almost miss the emotion at the base of it—pain.

There’s something deep within his chiseled features, behind those golden curls, which hold a particular type of pain. I can’t take my eyes off of him, and he looks like he can’t bear to look at us. Maybe he’s disgusted. I wouldn’t blame him. However, his outrage is unmissable.

“We don’t have a choice,” the man with black hair, who is dressed from head to toe in the same color, says. “They can’t know we’re aware of this. This is the quickest way to find out where they’re taking them, because this operation might be bigger than this one container. The hydra has many heads, and we need to cut the root and find all of them. Saving just them will not save all the others. If there are any others.”

Oh my god, there could be more kids?

I’ve been so wrapped up in our circumstances—our fate. I didn’t even think about the possibility that there are more. That we may not be the first shipment. How many more could there be? Before us… after us? How many children are missing their parents, their grandparents, their siblings? Children stolen from their beautiful lives, maybe even unfortunate ones, now made so much worse.

“We need someone on the inside. But none of Katya’s employees would fit in. None of them look remotely young enough,” someone else says.

My mind reels with images of what those men are doing to these pure souls. Countless missing posters holding the faces of the kids surrounding me flash behind my eyes. Some of them aren’t even in school yet, young enough that it wasn’t long since they stopped wearing diapers. There are others like them taken by the same scumbags. They’re abusing them… raping them.

Oh, my god.

Tears well in my eyes.

They’re raping them!

A visceral shake erupts from deep within my bones, and I squeeze Maya closer. God, why does she have to hear this? Why do all the other children have to hear this conversation? But there could be many more like them who are actually experiencing all these horrific things.

I could do it. Right? I could be their person on the inside.

No, no, no! What if something happens to Maya? Or to me, and I’m unable to protect her? I can’t do this. I have nothing to offer them.

But they’re sending us anyway. Whether I volunteer myself or not, they said they need to make sure there aren’t others, and I’ll end up in the same place. At least this way, not only do we have a better shot at being rescued, potentially not being hunted down again, but more kids might be saved.

Bending down slightly, I whisper to my sister, “I think I’m going to help them.”

“But it sounds dangerous,” she whispers back.

“I’m going to be fine, sweet girl.”

It’s not technically a lie.

“Is it true? Are there others?” she asks, her voice shaky.

“Maybe…”

I feel the bobbing of her head against me, and I have to let go of her, because my trembling seems to increase as the decision sinks in. Two deep breaths don’t seem to help. The third one doesn’t even reach too deep. But this is the only way… the only control I have over this situation.

“I’ll—I’ll do it,” I say out loud before I can talk myself out of it.

I struggle up to my feet, urging Maya to stay where she is. The tall man with a buzz-cut rushes to me as I force my weak legs to move forward. He’s moving too fast, his eyes fierce as he reaches for me, and I scurry back.

The whole space falls silent—both the container and the men watching us. My gaze drifts over each of them, but no one says a word.

I’ve already made a horribly poor choice this week by parking in that alley. Am I about to make yet another one by offering myself up and trusting them? It could be a stupid move, but the anger and disgust at our situation bleeding out of their gazes, gives me confidence.

They will rescue us, even if it’s not happening right now.

It’s a choice I will likely regret, because they can’t guarantee our safety once we’re out of their hands. And something about these men screams of a world I loathe, illegitimate business affairs, and danger. Yet, between the two evils currently in my life, they might be the better one.

One deep breath later, I reach over to the man who, in this confined space, looks like an absolute beast, and he takes my hand, leading me out of the metal box. There’s no missing the wet spots my broken shoes leave on the floor. I would crawl into a hole if I could.

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