Page 35 of Broken Empire
I leaned over and clicked on the ‘Shows’ link. Several boxes appeared with white ‘play’ symbols on them. Beneath that symbol was some red text saying ‘ENTER’.
“These must be the current live streams,” I said. I clicked on the play button, but it didn’t do anything. I pressed on the ‘enter’ button next. A popup appeared on the screen.
“It’s telling me to pay,” I said, glancing at Leah.
“Yeah, there’s no way they’d let people view this shit for free,” she said. She leaned forward and peered at the popup. “There’s an option to use the current payment method, but that might alert the person who owns the account. Click ‘add new payment method’.”
I did as she said. “Now what?”
“You don’t happen to have a crypto wallet, do you?” she asked, raising a brow.
“Nope.”
“Well, I don’t think we should use a credit card, because that can be traced. Crypto is definitely the way to go,” she said. “I can use my account, but I’m guessing it won’t be cheap, so I might need you to transfer some funds into it so I can pick up some Monero.”
“What’s Monero?”
“Totally untraceable cryptocurrency.”
Once the new payment details had been sorted on the website, Leah clicked on the first live stream. It showed a small concrete room lit with fluorescent bulbs. A crying young woman was in the middle of the space, suspended from chains hanging on hooks. Her body was covered in fresh bruises and cuts. A man in a black balaclava stood next to her with a knife dangling from one hand.
Punch her in the gut again,someone typed in the chat box next to the video. They offered a bid of $300.
Carve my initials on her stomach. WDS,someone else wrote. Their bid was $1000.
Kick her right in the cunt and then stick a needle through her clit. That’ll show the little bitch,another person wrote before offering $1500.
The third offer was accepted by whoever was running the red room, and the order was issued to the man in the balaclava.
“Turn it off,” Leah said, covering her eyes. “I can’t watch this.”
I clicked out of the red room and went back to the main show page. “I think we have to watch all of them,” I said, guts roiling as I scrolled down the list of live streams that were currently available. “We have to find Shay.”
Leah swallowed hard, like she was trying to stop herself from throwing up. “Just check the archive page first,” she murmured. “It might have dates and names.”
I nodded and clicked into the archive section of the Meat Market. Leah was right—the page contained copies of previous streams with dates and times. No names were stamped on the videos, though. Instead, there were sets of letters. Most had two or three, and a few had four.
“These could be initials, right?” I asked.
Leah nodded. Her face had taken on a greenish tinge. “This is so fucked up,” she muttered. “I can’t believe this shit is actually real.”
“Yeah. It’s fucked.” I steeled my jaw and kept scrolling through the archives. “Here. SLS. That could be Shay. Her middle name is Louise.”
Leah pressed her lips into a white slash and gestured for me to open the archived video. I went through the payment method again—it cost $750 to view old streams—and then the video started.
The room in the stream was large and colorful with a pink heart-shaped bed and a design scheme that made it look like a children’s room. A dark-haired woman was sitting on the bed, facing away from the camera. She was wearing a puffy pink and white chiffon dress that looked like it belonged on a doll.
“Is that her?” Leah asked, eyes widening.
“I think so,” I said, stomach churning.
I was right. The woman turned around a few seconds later, revealing Shay’s face in heavy, garish makeup.
Two masked men stepped into the room, holding chains and knives. Another knot twisted in my stomach as they made a beeline for Shay and dragged her off the bed. One of them unzipped his pants and pulled out his cock while the other wrapped a chain around Shay’s throat, making her gag.
Leah raced over to the nearest trash can and vomited into it. “I can’t watch it,” she said weakly, looking up at me as she wiped her mouth. “Sorry. I just… I can’t.”
“It’s okay. I’ll watch it myself,” I muttered, curling my hands into tight fists under the table. “Go and clean yourself up. Have some water too.”
