The Collection

Uprising

CHAPTER ONE

Jameson

He has the knife to his neck, the sharp blade nearly piercing his skin. I'm on the ground, my gun practically a foot away from me. I look into his afraid eyes, then up to the bastard with the knife. Why does this always happen to me?

"You can't do this. You can't keep fucking doing this," I growl out, pleading. If I can just reach my gun, then maybe–

"It's already done," he whispers, smiling as he slices the blade across his neck, a coat of blood pouring down his chest.

– THREE WEEKS PRIOR –

"Where are the last two girls?" I grit at the greasy bastard on his knees in front of me, hands tied behind his back.

"I told you, we've only got eleven," he spits out a bloody tooth. This guy must be dumb as shit.

I look to Sammy who rolls his eyes. "Really?! Do you think we're stupid enough to come here without knowing what we're walking into?"

I grab a fistful of his collar and yank him toward me, "Tell me where they are!" I shove my face in his, his nasty breath fanning my nose.

Before he can spew another lie, I draw my fist back and pound it into his grimy face. Sammy doesn't pull me back, already knowing that he wouldn't be able to stop me if he tried. Once his face is unidentifiable, I know he's had enough for now.

After breaking all his fingers and two of his toes he finally tells us that they sold the two girls yesterday as a gift to one of their buyers. Sick fuck. Our team has been following them for months, anxiously waiting to take them out before they sold any of the girls. Looks like we're a little late.

We hate these jobs the most; the ones with innocents involved. Especially when they're children. Human trafficking is always shitty, but bringing in a kid? That's just fifty different kinds of messed up.

Finishing up with the place, we cuff the sleazeball guys and take down names and information from the eleven girls that are here. It pisses me the hell off that we missed two of them by a day. The General will be even more pissed, but he'll have one of the researchers figure out who they were sold to.

***

We arrive at HQ and the place is crawling with recruits. My left eye twitches at the thought of these eighteen-year-olds carrying guns near me.

"Looks like the rank tens are in," Sammy nudges my arm as we haul out of the truck.

Rank tens are hired through the Reach Out program the ARO runs through local high schools. The ARO – or the Aligned Reinforcement Organization – is a branch of the FBI that was created in 2013 to assist local police without asking for help from the Bureau. We don't have as much jurisdiction as the FBI, but we have enough.

The Reach Out program was created roughly three years following the ARO's opening. The program accepts 100 kids who are tested to their limits – and I mean to their breaking points. Teens are pushed in strenuous physical activity half the time and the other half is spent enduring the kind of mind-fucks that'll get you into years of debt with therapy.

Throughout the process, everyone participating is ranked from one to however many people are in that class; usually around a hundred. By the end, ranks one to ten are recruited to work for the ARO and the rest go on with their lives. See, once someone doesn't make it to recruitment, they're prohibited from joining the Reach Out program again. Once you're out, you're out for good.