Page 89 of Dark OZ

Danny barked a laugh. “There is absolutely nothing meek about you, and it’s not just you. You’re not alone in any of this. Not anymore.”

“You’ll put a target on your back if you head West with me.”

“Princess, there’s been a target on my back since the day I arrived in Oz.”

I clicked on the only file in the folder. “What do you think this is?”

A document opened. It looked like a sale file from The Farm. In my investigations, I’d seen several of these before. They held a full detail on the subject. The name was omitted in favor of a number. I suppose the people buying these women had little use for names.

On the top corner was a familiar-looking green-eyed girl with curling brown hair and heavy freckles. My mouth hung open with realization. This was Danny’s sister, one of them. She had the same sharp nose, same hard jaw as she stared down the camera with loathing. The girl looked to be in her early teens. The date on the top of the file was from eleven years ago.

Danny grabbed the screen with both hands, gripping the edges like if he shook it hard enough, she might leap from the page. “Didi.”

“Didi?”

“Dahlia. We always called her Didi.”

Beneath the photo, it listed characteristics: height, weight, ethnicity, and a general description of temperament. It was no surprise that she was labeled as “willful” and “aggressive.” There was a caution line saying, “Will bite, runs fast.” The final part of the dossier was a lengthy checklist of sexual experience. For Didi, it was blank, labeling her as “virgin.”

“What do they put if the girl isn’t a virgin?”

I swallowed. “You don’t really want to know the answer to that.”

Danny leveled a hard glare on me.

“Fine. Older girls and women are given a purity examination. If they’re shown not to be a virgin, then one of the evaluators determines skill level and experience.”

His face turned green as his eyes scanned the long list of sexual acts.

“It will say the buyer at the bottom,” I said, already scrolling down the screen. It was best if he didn’t linger on that road for too long.

The bottom line had the sale price listed. My stomach turned. It was abysmally small.

“So that’s it. That’s what my sister was worth. Fucking hell. I make more than that on a single delivery.”

My attention flashed to the right, where a name was listed next to the sale price. I instantly recognized it. Sylvan Deveaux. He was a Farm regular. Sometimes, he bought entire truckloads of people. He returned far too frequently for anything good to ever happen to the ones he purchased.

“So that’s the name of the man I’m about to murder, right after I free my sister.”

“Danny.” I hesitantly put my hand on his shoulder, not entirely certain that he wouldn’t snap my wrist on instinct. “Deveaux is a hunter. Certain temperaments attract certain types of buyers. Deveaux always took the fighters. He’s a predator. If he had Didi, then…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. But, it was unlikely his sister was still alive.

Danny slapped my hand away. “No. Until I see proof, I refuse to believe she’s dead. Where do we find this Deveaux?”

“Up North. But Danny—”

“No, Dorothy! She’s not dead.”

I flinched.

There was another ping from the computer like it was listening to our conversation. A new file opened on the screen. It was a death certificate for a Jane Doe, dated for two years after Didi’s sale date. The picture with the certificate was unmistakably Danny’s sister, only in this picture, she had several scars scoring her face. In the top corner, it read, “Cause of death: blunt force trauma to the cranium.”

I had to physically fight down the bile rising in my throat.

“Fuck you, Wizard,” Danny said to the screen, then threw the computer at the wall. It clattered to the floor in a shower of electronic chips, the screen flickering the image of Didi’s mutilated face.

“Danny,”

“Fuck you, too.” Danny buckled over the table, gripping his hair tight enough small hairs fell to the surface. “Fuck this whole Ozdamn world.”

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