Page 109 of Ashes of Sin and Stardust

“I want to help,” I said. “Even if this doesn’t pan out, I want to help. I think it’s amazing that you rescue those girls.”

There was a little bit of relief in his eyes. He’d hoped that I would appreciate his work, that I wouldn’t judge him for it.

“How do you legally go about setting trafficked women with strangers, though?” I asked. “Isn’t that just technically trafficking them?”

“I have a lawyer on the books. We get them set up with new legal documents, and their new guardians adopt them. Keep in mind, some of these girls are as young as twelve. Some are in their forties. We transition them when they’re ready to start moving towards independence and reintegration into society. Their caregivers help facilitate that.”

“Seems like a lot of grey areas... is it a legal entity? Or something you keep a secret?”

“It’s a legally sound non-profit organization. It’s not a secret, but we don’t do a lot of advertising because I don’t want to attract predators or the wrong attention. Many of these girls are in hiding from their past abusers. On paper, all I do is rescue the girls and dismiss them when I believe they are independent enough to be on their own. I set them up with new identities and they disappear. But in reality...”

“In reality they’re placed with caregivers.”

“Right. No money is exchanged, but the caregivers essentially adopt them.”

“How long do they stay with their caregivers? Is it forever?”

“Until they decide to leave. They can leave at any time.”

I thought about that for a while. Reuben essentially did for those girls what Augustus Quinn did for me all those years back. Although I hadn’t been trafficked, and I’d been more independent, I knew what a huge difference a kind caregiver made.

“When the girls go to their new Doms... do they have sex with them?”

“God, no,” Reuben said. “We have a very strict policy on that. They’re all rape victims. Some of the girls do CNC scenes at AnchorX after years of therapy with Becca and the other psychologists. But it’s on them to request that. We don’t even mention that we provide that unless they specifically ask. And rarely does it include sex.”

“How many girls have you rescued over the years?”

“Three hundred and seven... no. Three hundred and four.” His voice changed, and his face went blank, like he was trying not to feel something.

Something itched at the back of my mind. When I’d read those texts between him and the mystery “little brat” yesterday, he’d said he’d had an emergency. “Reuben... what happened last week that you had to run to DC and stay there all week?”

He stared out into space for a few moments, not wanting to answer. He finally forced himself. “Last Tuesday we got a new batch of girls. Most of them are non-English speakers. Russian, Ukrainian, and I think some are from Pakistan. It’s hard to tell. Lindsay warned me they were a difficult group...”

He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “Someone left a pencil out. It must have fallen on the floor, and it was never collected.”

I felt my stomach turn over. He finally met my eyes. “We lost two. A few more attempted, but we got to them soon enough. It’s been... a very long time since we’ve lost anyone. The program works, Alice... except when something as small as a sharp pencil falls through the cracks.”

“Reuben, I’m so sorry.”

He sighed deeply, still staring at the invisible entity over my shoulder. Then he met my eyes. “Suffice to say it was a long week. And then I... dropped my phone in some water, and lost my contact list.”

“You know you can set up your phone to automatically back everything up to your account, right?”

He stared at me like he didn’t believe me.

“No, really.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

I shook my head. What an old man. I bet he doesn’t even back up his hard drive. “Where do you get the girls? And who is Lindsay?”

He looked like he didn’t want to answer that. “Well,” he started. “We stumbled across a group of people who track and rescue sex slaves full time. They’re a private military group running under the table and out of the eyes of the government. Honestly, we don’t ask questions and hope for the best.”

“Sounds sketch.”

“It is, but the alternative is those girls being turned into law enforcement and being arrested two months later for prostitution, or scraped off the side of the road when they die. So we take them and do what we can.”

“Am I going to get into legal trouble working with you?”

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