Page 2 of Dark OZ

“Less than fuck all. Em started looking for a leak. So I had to change tactics entirely.” The girl huffed a sympathetic sigh. “What’s your name? I can’t keep thinking of you as some long string of numbers, and now that it’s dark, calling you Freckles feels oddly wrong.”

“It’s changed over the years. But, mostly, I go by Toto.”

“Toto is…unusual?”

“It is, but the nickname is all I have left of my family—” She sighed, the breath cooling the sweat that clung to my cheeks. “—but that was another life. Tell me more about your quest to undermine The Farm. I always loved a good tragedy.”

“Not me. Give me a romance any day, the filthy kind where the smart-mouthed heroine gets railed by three guys at once.”

“Ooo, and make one of them covered in tattoos with a tragic backstory.”

I snorted a laugh. There was something wrong about laughing when there were others around us openly weeping, but I couldn’t help it. I really liked her. I hated that I’d failed in freeing someone who still had so much life despite being in this system longer than anyone else I’d ever met.

I lowered my voice. Not that I cared who overheard us, but more because I didn’t need Em knowing just how deep I’d gotten into The Farms archives. “There’s one day a week when my aunt’s focus was guaranteed to be away from the compound.”

“Inspection day?”

“Inspection day.” Em made the rounds to different processing facilities to assess the newly acquired assets, giving me the opportunity to have access to her office without the risk of being interrupted. None of The Farm staff would ever dare enter her office without her. Nobody was ballsy enough to incur her wrath, nobody but me.

“Luckily, the guard who watched her corridor was fond of me, or rather, he was fond of the things I could do for him.”

“I know the type. Acts like he’s your friend, so long as he’s getting his dick sucked at the end of the night.”

If only it was that simple. “After a bit of cajoling, he showed me how to look up records and where to find police reports.” And the cost of hisfriendshipwasn’t anything Em hadn’t already stripped from me. Every bruise, cut, and missing bit of my dignity was worth it to see Em’s face turn scarlet when one of her sales fell through. One time, not only had the girl’s father killed all of Em’s men, but he’d freed a half dozen others, too.

“I managed it three times. On my fourth attempt, I didn’t.”

“You mean me.”

“Yeah.” I bit down on the inside of my cheek, the pain bringing my focus back. I couldn’t tell Toto just how close I’d come to freeing her. It felt cruel now that everything had spun out of control.

I found a pattern in the missing persons cases. The same three anonymous files were reported weekly, every year, for eleven years. The descriptions of the missing girls were similar, and it didn’t take much to realize that they must have been sisters. There wasn’t much information on the person making the report, only a name, Daniel Kalidah, and an anonymous email. There was something romantic about the idea that he hadn’t given up on finding his family after all these years. Knowing what I did about The Farm and how their stock was treated, there was a very slim chance any of these women were still alive.

Or so I thought, until Toto was brought in. She was beautiful, with long, flowing red hair and piercing green eyes above a sea of freckles, but it was the daffodil-shaped birthmark on her arm that caught my attention.

The first chance that presented itself, I checked her file. This girl had come through processing three separate times overelevenyears. Three times in itself was unusual, but the dates matched perfectly.

Exhilarated by solving the case of the missing girl, I immediately opened the untraceable mailer program. According to her file, she was slated to be transferred in less than a week. I’d already been in the office longer than I should have, but I wouldn’t get a second chance before Freckles was gone. I typed up a full description, as well as the date and time that a particular internet mogul would be making the exchange.

It felt like the hand of fate placing Toto in my path. After all of this time, I was going to be able to bring the mystery man a little bit of peace. I was just about to hit send when the sound of gunfire made me jump.

“There were two quick pops outside the door and nowhere in the small office to hide. It didn’t matter because a heartbeat later, Em’s second in command stepped over my guard’s body and into the office.”

Toto’s pinky wound around mine. It was as much as our bindings would allow. But in the darkness, when I looked at Toto, all I saw was the light fading from my only ally’s eyes. I knew then, as sure as I did now, there would be no mercy coming.

“So there you go. That was how I ended up bound next to the very girl I was trying to help.” Em always found cruel twists of fate hilarious. She laughed for a solid minute after she realized who I was sitting next to.

I shouldn’t have told Toto I could find her a way out. My past success had made me bold. Henry, Em’s blood-stained right hand, had been waiting for an excuse to haul me to my aunt. I still don’t know how he knew I was in there that morning, but I’d basically gift-wrapped my demise for him.

Toto placed more faith in me than I deserved. I’d been her last hope, but that was where she went wrong. Nothing about me was hopeful. Hope looked at me and rolled her eyes. If anything good ever came to me, it was because I made it happen, not because I hoped for it.

I wasn’t exactly sure where I was headed. Before the doors of the container were sealed closed, Em folded a photograph of whatever John I’d been sold to. She slipped it into my breast pocket, knowing full well that I’d never be able to retrieve it with my hands bound above me. Then she had Henry beat me hard enough to turn my side purple, most likely cracking a rib. Once she was satisfied I’d gotten the message, she’d thrown me into the truck and walked away. Em never even bothered to say anything to me. Not so much as a goodbye for her little sister’s only child.

“You’re headed East, to an Oz distribution center.” Chances were good I was headed there, too. “When the doors open again, they will untie us and move us into processing.” Em had forced me to visit enough of these places to know there would be a window of opportunity. I knew what was expected of me and exactly what to expect from them. “We just have to be patient.”

What I wasn’t expecting was the photograph in my pocket to be of Eastin Witcher and for everything I thought I knew to be wrong.

Chapter 2

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