Page 101 of Jig's Last Dance

She turns her head my way, the faint glow of her eyes staring back. “I know it doesn’t feel that way, but we’re on the same side.”

Sucking in a breath, I slowly nod my head. In this, we can agree. John is the enemy. But what about Roman? Castinetti? My dad?

“Rain?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you here?”

“Because I owe a debt.”

“And John’s the debt?”

She nods, and I glance at her face. “Why?”

“Because John betrayed the wrong man.”

“Oh,” I say with a shiver. “I don’t know why I’m here, but I don’t think it’s for a good reason.”

“No shit,” she mutters.

“Okay,” Cyn says, turning from his bro huddle. “We’re checking out the cabin. You both stay between us and do not go anywhere.”

I nod enthusiastically because I have no fucking intention of being caught out here alone. Cyn tips his head at Rain, and we trudge into the open, the air decidedly cooler without the buffer of the limbs overhead.

My spine is so stiff, it feels like I have a poker up my ass, but I keep going. Because I have no fucking choice.

I can see the bare outline of a small cabin, but that’s it as Jig stops at the door and Bastion leans into the wood. Dropping my shoulders, previously around my head, I suck in a breath, only to blink when the woods around us light up like a fucking stadium.

Momentarily blinded, I glance around, frozen, as Cyn mutters, “Fuck.”

He grabs Rain and pushes her to the ground while I watch on in shock until Jig grabs me up by the waist and shoves me behind him. The door has yellow police tape across it, but it does nothing to keep me out when I fall right through it and land with a painful oof on the floor. What is it with doors and me these days?

Jig glances down at me before scooping me up and stepping inside. Cyn follows, shoving Rain before him as Bastion crouches down near the now-closed door and Cyn raises a gun I didn’t know he had.

Rain stops beside me, and we both stare at the door until Jig growls, “Shit.”

He shines the light around. I tilt my head, following the beam pointed at the wall. Behind me, Bastion says, “I don’t see anything.”

Glancing back at him, I note he’s peering beyond the shade before I step up to the wall.

It’s covered from floor to ceiling with drawings, maps, pictures, and typed notes.

A sheet of paper catches my eyes, and I run my fingers over the words. LB, 5-8, 115, Prospect?

Moving from the note, I grab a picture and stare at a young woman sitting in a chair with her hands tied behind her back. The next is another, tied to the same fucking bed as the women that were in the pictures I found at Iris’ house.

Her eyes are swollen closed, her chest bare. Blindly I move to the next, whimpering when I find more and more of the same—women exposed and beaten.

My skin tingles, my lungs seize, and I fall to my knees, grabbing at the pictures and pulling them away, but for every one I remove, there are hundreds more—too many to count.

What did this fucker do?

I can’t breathe. Rubbing my sternum, I lean against the wall and close my eyes. How do I get out of this nightmare?

“What the fuck?” Cyn says, and I turn my head to find Rain standing before the wall, her fingers running over the pictures.

Jig backs away with his head bowed. When Bastion places his hand on his shoulder, I pause, staring at his stiff form, only to jump when a wounded cry breaks from Jig’s mouth, the sound causing goosebumps to erupt on my skin.

---