Page 76 of Lorna's Savior
Lorna felt the tears run down her face and she only nodded. The next thing she saw was a man dressed in fatigues, and he had black and green paint all over his face. She didn’t recognize him. He came at her from the front, but Patch tightened his grip on her. “He’s going to cut the chains.” Lorna nodded and it took everything in her not to scream when her arms were freed.
“Easy, I got you,” Patch said, and caught her as she fell. He lowered her to the ground and began working on her. Lorna stared at him in shock. He looked at her, placed a hand over her cheek, and bent down to whisper. “There are other women here. The men are getting them down and to safety. You’ve been here the longest, and you’re pretty banged up. I want to stop the bleeding I see before we move you.”
Lorna nodded, then jerked beneath Patch’s hands when another man slid on his knees on her other side. She burst in tears when she realized it was Andy.
“Christ, I’m so sorry,” Andy said as he tried to grab Lorna away from the other man.
“Sh,” Patch glared at the man. “If you can’t keep it together, I’ll have Finn remove you.” Patch bit out, and Andy shut his mouth, but held his hand on Lorna’s shoulder. Everyone froze when they heard whistling. In a quick movement, Andy picked Lorna up and ran with her behind a stack of pallets, with Patch on his ass. There, they joined four men and three unconscious women. After Andy laid her down, he leaned in and whispered in her ear.
“Do not say a word.” Lorna nodded, and was able to scoot away from the men, to keep out of their way. Before Andy could get away from her, she grabbed him by his collar and brought him down to whisper in his ear.
“Thank you for being my savior.” She felt a kiss on her forehead, then he seemed to be there one second, gone the next. Like he melted into the shadows.
In the distance a door had opened and a man with a heavy accent called out in a singsong voice, “Daddy’s baaaccckkk! Come see what he brought you!” There was an evil laugh, and he continued. “Oh, that’s right, you cunts can’t move can you.” He laughed even more, and Lorna cringed further back. At one point, one of the other women began to wake up and an unfamiliar man placed a hand over her mouth and whispered in her ear. Lorna saw that all three women had men doing that to them. When they nodded, but had wide, scared eyes trained on them, the men removed their hands.
Using some sort of signals with their hands, the men were there one minute, and gone the next, leaving the women to stare at each other in shock. It took what seemed like hours, but Lorna would later be told it was only seven minutes before the military men had taken the man with the accent down. When the room she had been held in was flooded with light, Lorna and the other women cried out at the brightness. She jerked when only three men joined them.
“Finn?” Lorna asked in shock, as she saw her boss, Patch and Andy kneeling beside her, while the men she hadn’t recognized were with the other women.
“Yeah, you’re safe, try not to talk, save your energy for when the police arrive.” Lorna nodded, and turned to Andy.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sh, it’s okay, don’t talk, please,” he said, and took a package Patch handed him. After opening it, he slapped it on her cheek. “You’re bleeding.” Lorna leaned into him and remained silent until it seemed like all hell broke loose when the place was suddenly swarming with men with FBI across their chests, and EMTs with gurneys came rushing up to them. It was like an out-of-body experience as Lorna watched all this, and listened from outside her body when Patch told them of everyone’s injuries. Lorna found herself passing out again, once she was moved to the gurney and rolled away.
* * *
Ronnie jerked when she heard loud pounding on the front door of Kristen’s home. She jumped to her feet, pointed to the woman still knocked out in the chair, and looked at Major. “Guard.” She then left, but not before grabbing the golf club she’d found in the hall closet. Armed, she made her way over, and found Marvin standing on the front porch. After opening the door, Marvin hurried in.
“What are you doing here?”
“The men left and I didn’t have anything to do. I called a cab to bring me back here. Where is she?”
“Tied to a chair in the living room. Major’s guarding her.” They walked in that direction, and had to pause when there was more pounding on the door. This time, Marvin opened it.
“Amos, what brings you here?”
“Marvin,” the sheriff said as he nodded to him. “Ronnie called me.”
“Who are you?” Ronnie asked the man in the suit.
“FBI Special Agent Barry. Our office got a phone call from a military commander to send someone to this address. Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“Yes,” Ronnie grinned and waved them inside. “I’m Veronica Parker, I learned earlier today that my best friend was missing. We saw her smashed-up car being loaded onto a flatbed, so we stopped and asked questions. Afterward, we, I’m talking about my fiancé, Finn Larson, went to Lorna’s apartment. Her boyfriend lives next door, and we demanded to know where Lorna was. He had some family members there.” Ronnie frowned as she paused and rubbed her forehead. “I believe he said they were Special Ops military men from Texas, here on vacation. Anyway, one of them accessed the city cameras surrounding the accident of Lorna’s car, and recognized the man who ran into her and grabbed her. They did something fancy with their computer, facial recognition, or something, then called in their commanding officer.”
“Do you know who it was?” Agent Barry asked when he looked up from taking notes.
“Some guy by the name of Rio Santos.”
“Holy shit,” Barry said and grabbed his phone, but Ronnie stopped him.
“Also on that tape, we saw that the day before Lorna’s mother assaulted Lorna in front of her place of employment. Santos was with her at that time. Andy, Lorna’s boyfriend, and I came here to confront Kristen and ask where her daughter was.”
“Why were you here?” Amos asked Marvin.
“I knew nothing of what was happening, I had come here to tell Kristen that the bank was closed. I’d had her investigated, and realized she’d played me all these years. So...” Marvin shrugged. “I came to personally tell her that I was stopping alimony, and child support payment.”
“Can you do that?”
