Page 52 of Deliver Me

He shrugged restlessly. “Better than living under a bridge, lady.”

“I’m sure it was,” Amy soothed. “What was it like to live with Seth?”

“Good at first.” He glanced at Gabriel and then quickly away. “We had the run of the house and did whatever we wanted.”

“And Gabriel had that freedom, too?”

“None of us answered to anyone except Seth.”

“And what happened when Gabriel moved in? How did he react to that?”

Vincent smiled, hard and bitter. “Same as any kid with that kind of freedom. He smoked, drank, fucked, did whatever drugs we could get our hands on.”

Mia listened tensely; her eyes glued to Gabriel’s broad shoulders as Vincent finished his testimony. His words were echoed nearly exactly by David, who took the stand as soon as he was finished.

David Hu was smaller than Vincent, less sure of himself on the stand, but his face was just as stoic.

“What happened once Gabriel got settled into the house?” Amy asked him, waiting patiently as he shifted in his seat. Vincent had been hesitant here, too, but Amy’s practice once again paid off, as both were able to answer.

“He got used to the drugs and the freedom and then Seth yanked the chain. Nothing comes without a price, you know? We ran the streets and did his dirty work. Sometimes it was real violent shit, but that part wasn’t so bad … at least, not for us, I mean.”

“Then what was bad for you?”

He laughed, humorless. “It started out with rich women. Seth was smart and he eased you in that way because how can you say no to getting money for having sex with a beautiful woman? Sure, he’d sold you, but it was easy to justify it.”

“He sold you? You mean that he sold your services sexually?”

“Yeah, and like I said, it wasn’t so bad at first but … then it got worse. Once you were sort of used to it, then he wasn’t so picky about the kind of people he sold you to or what they wanted. Nothing you could do by then, of course, so you just take more of the drugs he’s handing out and pretend it isn’t happening.”

“I see,” Amy said sympathetically. “And were these people ever violent toward any of you?”

He tapped his face, the sliver of a thin white scar bisecting his chin. “The first time Seth sold me to some guy that wanted more from me than I wanted to give. I learned real quick not to say no to something they paid for. If they didn’t hurt me, Seth sure as hell would.”

Chris Mendoza was steely eyed on the stand, body nearly unnaturally still as he watched Amy pace the floor in front of him.

“And how did Gabriel react when Seth started requiring him to do these things?”

“Gabriel was different from the rest of us, angrier and more likely to start a fight, even with Seth. He didn’t like it, didn’t want to do the other things that Seth was asking. He went along with it for a little while, because he was convinced that Seth must know what he was doing, but eventually he decided that he’d had enough.”

“And then what did he do?”

Chris’s mouth was a thin line. “He tried to leave.”

Mia’s eyes flew back to Gabriel, sitting hunched and shrunken in his chair. He hadn’t told her that he’d tried to get away.

“Seth wasn’t having that, of course,” Chris continued, “and when he tried to leave …” He shook his head and looked down at his feet.

“What happened?” Amy prompted when he had been silently staring at his shoes for several moments.

“They dragged him down into the basement,” Chris explained. “Seth and some of the guys who worked for him. There was no one else in the house except for me and even the drugs I took weren’t enough to drown out the screams. I still have nightmares about it sometimes.”

“Did Gabriel ever tell you exactly what happened in the basement?”

“No, but he never tried to leave again, and he did what Seth wanted after that.” Chris said simply. “He knew he’d gotten lucky in a way. There wasn’t much room for second chances and a lot of people went missing. You didn’t ask about it unless you wanted to be next, but we all knew what Seth was doing.”

Chris stepped down and returned to his seat. The courtroom’s anxious energy of the morning was now drained and flat. Behind the table across from Gabriel and Amy, the state’s lawyer fidgeted, shuffling and straightening papers that didn’t need to be straightened.

The state’s stance that Gabriel had been nothing more than a typical spoiled teen, too rich and pampered to accept it when his parents placed reasonable limits on him, had been called into serious question.

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