“Yep, and everyone else is dead,” Jay reports.
“Have Michael set up the camera on the stage,” I command, while sliding out a cigarette and lighting it.
I’m still in the fifteenth cubicle, which is, of course, on the other side of Lee. The man bound in the leather chair is squirming, begging for me to release him. Makes me wonder how many children or women have asked the same of him.
Michael saunters on the stage with a tripod and camera in his hand. While he sets it up, I ask Jay, “Did you figure out how to turn the glass transparent?”
“Obviously,” he sasses.
“Let’s see it then, genius.”
Seconds later, the glass walls gradually lighten until all fifteen cubicles are transparent, and I’m surrounded by men strapped in leather chairs, fighting like hell to get free and failing.
Jay whistles. “Damn, dude.”
It seems all at once, the fifteen men freeze, confused, and petrified as they take in the sight of fourteen others in the same situation as them. Even Michael pauses on the stage, taking in the scene around him with a grin on his face. Eventually, I watch all their heads turn toward me.
“You see this?” I ask the man next to me. “How exciting. You get to show them their fate.”
“Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee.”
I cock a brow and patiently wait as he prays for a salvation he’ll never receive.
“Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
“Do you think you’ve been saved?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says with conviction.
I smile. “Nine more Hail Marys to go. I want to hear you say them even as you burn.”
He starts shaking his head vigorously, restarting his prayers as tears fall down his cheeks.
“Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee…”
I inhale one last time, then flick my lit cigarette onto the chanting man. Just like the others, he’s covered in lighter fluid, and instantly bursts into flames.
His prayer bleeds into screams, and I’m disappointed that he couldn’t even make it through his second Hail Mary before he succumbed to the agony.
He’s a god-fearing man, but I’m confident the devil will take good care of him.
Leaving the sick fuck to burn, I make my way next door to Lee.
“Miss me?” I ask, pulling out my matchbook and lighting one up.
“Pleasepleaseplease, I’ll do anything! Please don’t do this!”
“Anything?”
“Yes! Whatever you want!”
I bend at the waist, and pin him with a devilish look. “You know what I want, Lee? I want you to feel the same pain I feel every day. I want you to fucking suffer. Can you do that for me?”
He loudly protests but it’s no match for the wails of agony that tear from his throat when I throw the match onto him, his body engulfed in flames within seconds.
Once more, I make my way into each of the rooms and set every single one of them aflame. Just as the last body catches fire, I signal Michael to start recording through the glass.
He presses play, and the camera slowly begins to rotate on the tripod, while Michael and I make our way out of the building.
The camera will spin in circles, broadcasting fifteen men burning alive on the dark web. There for all the traffickers’ and pedophilic assholes’ viewing pleasure. And there for Claire’s viewing pleasure as well.
The bitch is going to burn, too. Mark my fucking words.
“I have to admit, ladies, I’ve been in a limousine full of women before, and this… is not how it went down,” Michael announces loudly.
Ruby berates him while I smack him upside the head, which wrings out a snort from the girl sitting next to me.
Michael and I hitched a ride with the eight girls who were auctioned off tonight. Luckily, I had the foresight to bring a shit ton of extra clothing.
While I was busy catching a bunch of pedos on fire, Ruby was in the limo with the girls, reassuring them that they were safe and going home. Still, as men, mine and Michael’s presence cause them a bit of discomfort; the poor girls wary of our intentions.
Certainly doesn’t help with Michael acting like an ass.
“I actually appreciate the humor,” the girl next to me says in a heavy Russian accent. “Makes me feel less broken when people don’t treat me like glass.”
“See?” Michael mutters indignantly, still rubbing the back of his head.
“Fair enough,” I concede. “He still deserved it.”