Page 74 of Gabe

“So now what?” I asked as I turned back toward the building. Sebastian’s bullets had punched right through Tansie’s body and through the bottom of the boat. Water slowly leaked through the holes and surrounded her, covering her body inch by inch. Eventually, she’d be pulled under the surface and swallowed by the swamp that had once been her safe haven.

It was a satisfying ending for her, but that didn’t mean I wanted to stay around and watch. There was too much to do, and I wanted to get out of the swamp as quickly as possible.

Gabe’s arm around my waist squeezed tighter for a moment in an awkward side hug. “Hopefully, Newt and Ozias are having luck with the computers. We need to round up the children who are here and get them to safety. Then… we salt the earth and make sure no one can ever use this place again.”

Although Gabe made it sound so easy, the whole process took us several hours. Newt and Ozias were successful in copying everything off the office’s computers and disconnected the hard drive to bring with us just in case. Hopefully, that would be enough to make a case against the pedophile ring even without their leader in custody.

The children trapped in the building, however, were a different matter. We first had to find a way to unlock all the doors in that prison hallway I’d noticed earlier. Then, even once the doors were opened, it took some time to convince the children who were locked inside to come out.

I couldn’t blame them. Every time their door opened in the past it probably led to more pain. They had every reason to distrust us.

Surprisingly, the fact that several of them recognized Ozias and Milo actually helped. Out of all of us, the children seemed to trust him the most.

Ozias claimed that every time he’d been forced to pretend like he was an active member of the pedophile ring, the child in question had been too drugged to know what was happening. However, I wondered if, in some subconscious part of their minds, the children knew he’d never touched them.

The sun was rising by the time we were finally sailing away from Honey Island. It took several boats to bring all the children with us. Newt and Ozias were going around, checking on the children and trying to keep everyone as comfortable and calm as possible.

I should have been helping them, but I couldn’t bring myself to face so many blank stares and empty eyes. The pedophile ring had called them dolls, and now I understood why. They seemed empty and fragile, like one wrong move would shatter them to pieces.

None of my physical therapy training had prepared me for this, and I didn’t trust myself not to make it worse. These children needed a proper therapist that knew how to help them. My specialty lay in healing the body, not the mind. In this situation, I was as helpless as anyone else.

Instead, I stood next to Gabe and watched as the hidden building in the swamp disappeared.

Gabe’s idea to “salt the earth” ended up involving less salt and more fire. Once we were certain that every living person had been cleared out of the building, and we’d gotten as much from the computers as possible, we set fire to the structure.

It ignited surprisingly easily. The building had definitely not been constructed with safety in mind. The dock proved to be especially flammable. Entirely made from wood, despite the moisture all around, it still acted as eager kindling. In only half an hour, a few flames managed to consume the entire building.

As we sailed away, I stood at the back of the boat to watch it all burn. The light of the flames eclipsed the rising sun and brought warmth to such a dank place.

A strange humming filled the air and all the nearby birds and insects swarmed into the air to escape the flames.

Honey Island Swamp sang as it was cleansed by fire. Only ashes would be left behind, but in their wake a new, clean environment could finally grow.

CHAPTER 26

Frankie

“Have you been able to contact Damien?”

Gabe’s question took Sebastian by surprise, and the man froze in the doorway.

“I managed to get a call through to him on that secure phone Lily gave us,” Sebastian said, once he overcame his shock enough to maneuver his crutch through the doorway.

Gabe and I handled the luggage, which wasn’t much, so Newt was free to help Sebastian into our temporary apartment.

Sebastian and Damien’s apartment and office had blown up, and now Newt and I had lost our apartment after disappearing for so long without a word. Apparently even the FBI couldn’t contend with the greed of a stingy landlord.

At least Newt and I hadn’t lost all our stuff. It was being held in a storage locker for us, just waiting to be collected once we figured out where we were staying.

After everything that happened on Honey Island, there was a lot to figure out.

All of the children we rescued had been placed in emergency foster care while their families were located, and the information we’d stolen from the computers had been delivered to the correct people.

Meaning it had been given to Lily, and she determined who the correct people were. At that point, I agreed with Gabe. Lily was the only one in the FBI that I trusted. She may only be a secretary on paper, but in practice she basically ran things.

Hopefully, whoever they promoted to be the new FBI director would be willing to fall in line with this arrangement, or else they may not be the director for long.

Once inside the apartment, Sebastian collapsed onto one of the many soft looking couches. He was getting around much better than before, but using his crutch still left him tired.

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