Free The Final Trade by Joe Hart Page A

the first landing and leaps up the next set of stairs, which empties out in a hallway much like the one below. To the left an open doorway reveals a tiled shower room, complete with a large, freestanding tub. The windows in the bathroom are clouded and covered with reinforced mesh.
    She hurries forward, counting the doors.
    One.
    Two.
    Three. She slides to a stop, tries the knob.
    Locked. Brings the ring up and gazes at the multitude of shining keys.
    Flipping through them, she takes only a split second to study each one. The sixth one she examines is brighter than the others, its serrated teeth polished from use. She slides it into the door’s lock, feeling no surprise when it turns easily.
    The smell is the first thing that hits her. The pungency of unwashed skin is so strong it almost makes her eyes water. The mingling of sweat and blood in the air turns her stomach, but it doesn’t make her nearly as sick as the sight.
    A woman lies facing the wall on a ragged mattress stained brown and black in places. She is thin, her bones prodding beneath translucent skin veined blue. Blonde hair, scraggly and unwashed, forms a dirty halo around her head. Her shirt may have once been white but is now a dingy shade of yellow, its hem barely covering her waist. A steel cable fastened to the wall with a large bolt runs down and disappears near her shoulder.
    Zoey swallows bile and holsters her gun. She walks forward, feeling as if she is in another fever dream. Sounds come from the hallway, voices and footsteps echoing up the stairs. They’re muted, unimportant. She kneels, the smell rising from the mattress and its occupant almost too much to bear.
    Gently she reaches out and clasps the woman’s shoulder, which is cool, almost cold, rolling her partially onto her back.
    A heavy manacle is attached to one delicate wrist and it is this that the cable from the wall is bound to, allowing only limited movement. As the woman settles into her new position, some of her hair shifts, revealing her face.
    Time stops.
    Disbelief rockets through her.
    A hand touches her shoulder and she jerks, turning to look into Chelsea’s stricken features. Zoey shifts her gaze to the woman again, barely conscious of her words as more people fill the room.
    “I know her. This is Halie.”

8
    Zoey holds the cup, letting the heat sink into her hands, not drinking the tea within. She sits on a worn chair in a room on the second floor, two doors down from where—
    From where Halie was lying. Lying in her own filth, barely alive.
    Closing her eyes, she turns the cup around and around. Wind scatters a handful of grit against the window and she gazes out through the steel mesh. How long? How long was Halie in that room? What had she endured? The thoughts make her stomach seize with nausea, and for a brief second she thinks she’s going to be sick. She breathes deeply, trying to cleanse herself of the smell in the room, but it doesn’t want to go away. It clings to her like a parasite.
    A murmur of conversation fills the hallway and a moment later Merrill, Chelsea, and Ian appear in the doorway.
    “Can we come in?” Merrill asks.
    She nods.
    They take positions in a half circle around her.
    “How is she?” Zoey asks.
    “Alive,” Chelsea says. “Beyond that I can’t say. She’s still unconscious, malnourished, dehydrated among other things.”
    “Other things. She’s been raped.”
    Chelsea’s lips form a bloodless line. “Yes.”
    “Beaten?”
    “It looks that way. We bathed her, moved her to a clean bed, tried getting some fluids in her. Eli and Tia are looking for medical supplies in the lower levels. If we can find an IV it would really help.”
    “Have Rita and Sherell seen her yet?”
    “Yes,” Merrill says. “After we got her situated they went in and visited her.” He moves closer, kneeling down so that she is slightly above him. “What can you tell us?”
    She releases a shaky breath. “Halie’s a little over a year older than me.