The Cunning

21

Jase found the others hovering near the alley Madison had turned down. The one that put her face to face with him. He'd thought he was hallucinating when she stopped. If it weren't for the look on her face, it would have taken him longer to recognise her, but the stunned, deer in headlights, mid-step freeze frame with slightly parted lips, he knew that look. The same look she had the first time they'd met in an alley. It was a face brandished in his mind's eye, one that crept in and out of his sleep since that night. Only last time he'd seen it, it hadn't disappeared so swiftly.

He didn't bother telling the others about Madison's brief outbreak. There would be no way of talking Benny or Adam down. Instead, he fluffed over excuses for why collecting his phone took longer than they expected and they changed the conversation to the two girls being held for them by a 'friend'.

They made their way to the white transit parked a few streets over, where their 'package' had been left. Usually, it would just be Sam or one or two of them collecting the girls but Benny, paranoid as ever, insisted they all go in case it wasn't girls, but an ambush. He'd been on edge recently, Jase chalked it up to all the dips in their cocaine supply.

The girls were young, not Madison young but no older than twenty-one. Sisters with a limited English vocabulary. It was a story that had been told and retold many times concerning girls' backgrounds in their trade. The stragglers with no legal papers or official documentation to prove they were in the country always ended up in the possession of Benny and others like him. They were cheap and easy, catches with no trails. The perfect crime.

The shallow wedge of orange light the backdoor of the van allowed in illuminated two ghostly bodies huddled in the corner, eyes glowing like cats from a mess of brown hair.

"Proszę, pomóż nam," one of them said. The men looked at each other. Benny shut the door.

"I can never decide if it's better or worse when they don't speak English," he said, locking it and tossing Adam the keys.

"What are they? Romanian?" Adam questioned.

"Polish," Jase replied, lighting a cigarette. "Proszę pomóż. Please help."

When they returned to the house, Jase tugged his bandana down and ordered the girls to be taken upstairs. Adam had gone to return the van. Sam clapped his hands together, rubbing them theatrically.

"Fucking hell, it's freezing in here," he said, blowing out a fog of breath for added effect. He took the girls by their elbows and led them upstairs, ignoring the private whispers they were sharing in their mother tongue. Benny hung his coat in the cupboard beside the front door and went into the kitchen, discovering the reason for the house's lack of warmth. His reaction was instant with a blood-curdling intensity that made even Jase flinch at the volume. His voice boomed, all fury and bass.

"Get all the fucking girls down here, now!"

Jase's blood ran cold. Whatever Benny was mad about had something to do with Madison, he could feel it. Benny emerged from the kitchen red-faced, veins popped out in livid ridges around his neck. "The fucking window's broken." Jase had been so preoccupied with his thoughts when he'd left after returning Madison, that it hadn't occurred to him how she'd gotten out.

She was dead if they found out it was her, and he was as good as when they discovered he'd brought her back and said nothing. He took the stairs two at a time.

"You stupid bitch," Jase barked when he burst into the room. Madison scrambled to the top of the bed, putting as much distance between them as she could. Her face red-raw from crying and her legs had all the stability of jelly from the running. "Benny wants all the girls downstairs because you put the fucking window through," he growled furiously, pointing at her. Madison angrily wiped her eyes, panic surging once again as her exhausted brain struggled to think of anything that could save her. She jumped when Jase grabbed her wrist, pulling her towards him to inspect the scab of dark blood that had dried in her palm. "You're fucked," he partially laughed, not out of humour, it seemed he was panicking as well. Madison made the same connection. There was nowhere to hide.