Page 8 of Black Hearts

She was quiet for a moment, seemingly gathering her thoughts. “They rescued me,” she finally said, staring over my shoulder into thin air. “They found me on the streets decades ago. I never had a chance in life, you know. I grew up in Wilkinsburg with two junkie parents. One left when I was thirteen, the other stayed but didn’t give a shit about me. There was no money. No hope. I finally dropped out of school when I was seventeen and started doing drugs as well. I sold myself on the streets to pay for it. I was headed toward doom. But then they took me away.”

I arched an eyebrow. “And?”

“They didn’t hurt me. They didn’t even touch me. Not like that. I was too old for their… tastes. But they said they would help me get my life together, get me off the drugs and get me an education. All I had to do in return was stay loyal to them and serve them by working at the mansion they’d just bought for their….” She cleared her throat. “Their purposes.”

“Serve them how?”

“As a maid, essentially. I had to help keep the place clean and the guards and kids fed. I also had to waitress at their bi-weekly parties. I wasn’t the only one. There were others, of course. But not all of them were as loyal as me. I was so dedicated because they helped me so much.” She shook her head slowly. “Without them I’d be dead today, no doubt about that. Probably would’ve overdosed twenty-five years ago. They got me clean, and when I wasn’t working for them, they made me finish my high school diploma via correspondence. With their help, I aced it. Turns out with the right guidance, I was a straight-A student.”

“And they let you out after that?” I frowned.

“I served them for seven years. They eventually realized how loyal I was, and after a while they no longer needed my services, as some of the kids had grown old enough to be servants instead of... well, what they previously were.”

Sex slaves, you screwed-up bitch,I thought to myself, wishing she’d just fucking say it. If she did, maybe she’d finally start to feel guilty.

“So the Circle made good on their promises,” she went on. “They let me go to college and paid for it in return for me still working for them on occasion, and when I graduated, I was allowed to move out of the mansion. They helped set up grad school and a career, organized a house for me, and sent lots of clients my way. Now I’m successful. I have everything I ever dreamed of. In return, all I had to do was stay silent. Keep their secrets. I also run the Youth Outreach program for at-risk kids at Morrison Wright, so occasionally I make… recommendations to them. Kids who wouldn’t be missed.”

I tightened my hands into fists and wrinkled my nose in disgust. “So you’re another one of those. One of their peons who stays silent and helps them kidnap innocent children and teenagers in return for fucking money.”

She shook her head. “No. It’s not just that. They helped me. They saved my life! And they help the kids there too.”

I scoffed. This woman was truly delusional. “Are you kidding me? You’ve seen what happens to those kids!”

“But they have a chance. They usually take runaways or at-risk kids from bad upbringings, like me. I know they hurt them. That’s how they get off. But if the kids are good, they have a chance to be like me one day. The Circle might do some messed up things, but they’re good people at heart. They care.”

I shook my head. “Good people? Jesus Christ. You’re a fucking psychologist, and you don’t even seem to realize how far deep you’re in. Stockholm—that’s the term for it, right?”

She narrowed her eyes indignantly. “I don’t have Stockholm syndrome. I’m just truly grateful to them. As I said, they saved my life.”

“Well, let me ask you this: if they care about you so fucking much, where are they now? Why didn’t they let you know that they’re aware of my identity? Why didn’t they warn you?”

Her expression wavered. “I… I’m sure they’ve just been busy trying to find you. They’ll contact me soon.”

I smiled. “Sure they will. Except they’ve known who I am for at least two days now. That’s plenty of time for one of them to make a quick call to anyone who might be at a high risk. Like you, for instance, seeing as they must know that I know you were seeing Celeste. And yet, they didn’t say shit to you.”

She gritted her teeth and didn’t respond, but from the haunted look in her eyes, I knew I’d struck a nerve.

“Like I said: you aren’t getting out of this alive. You helped deliver Celeste to them, and as you just admitted, you’ve also helped them kidnap multiple children and teenagers in the past. Those kids were raped, branded, and tortured. Many of them were killed for insubordination, or simply because they got too old and refused to be mansion servants. You knew that would happen when you led them to those kids, and somewhere in that fucked up mind of yours, you had to know it was wrong. But you delivered them anyway. You’re a Circle member to the fucking bone, whether you want to admit it or not. And yet, they didn’t think of you the same way. They didn’t even think to warn you that I might be coming.” I tapped the gun on the coffee table. “So make your choice. Information and a quick death, or a slow, agonizing death. Entirely up to you.”

Her cheeks reddened with anguish, and tears gathered in her eyes again. They mixed with her mascara and spilled down her flushed cheeks in dark rivulets. “I don’t know what to tell you,” she whispered. “Even if I wanted to, there’s nothing to tell. I’m not in the inner circle. I don’t know anything.”

“Give me their contact details. I want names and phone numbers, or I cut off a finger. One for every minute you don’t answer.”

The pink flush drained out of her face as she realized she was running out of time. She was white now, bone-white. Either her fear or her guilt had finally caught up with her. Perhaps both.

“Okay, okay! Just wait, please!” She nodded toward a black purse on the other side of the coffee table. “My phone is in there. There’s a number under the name William. That’s what I use to contact the head of the Circle if necessary. But he uses a burner, and the number changes every month. You can have it, but they haven’t contacted me with this month’s number yet. So it probably won’t work.”

“Give me full names, then,” I said as I busied myself with her cell, taking the number she had just in case.

She shook her head. “I… I don’t know their full names. They never told me when I was there; they only gave me first names which might not have been real. And I probably wouldn’t even recognize them if I saw them now. It’s been almost two decades. The only contact we have is via telephone.”

I wanted to fucking strangle her, but something in her eyes told me she was telling the truth. She really didn’t know their names.

“Tell me where the mansion is. That’s all I really need to know.”

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

“You don’t fucking know?” I shouted. “You lived there for somewhere around a decade, and you don’t know?”

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