Free Reunion by Meli Raine

the while fooling so many imbeciles with degrees and pedigrees and overinflated egos so eager to be stroked.”
    “I want Girlie Girl here to do some stroking,” Frenchie jokes. Except it’s not funny.
    “You think,” El Brujo says, his sophisticated accent gone. He’s stripped down to pure evil. For the rest of my life, however short, the sound of the devil whispering his truth will etch itself in my soul.
    H e clears his throat. “You think you can sit here and pretend you do not know where your friend is? I took her. I shaped her. I made her. She is a diamond in the rough and my perfect Nora will be made.” He sniffs, giving me a glare. “You think you can stall? Save her? You’re a pawn in a game of chess. I am the god who built the game. Give in now, Carrie. Look at what your fighting has brought you.”
    He nods toward me. My ears ring with the receding shock of Frenchie’s blow.
    “If only you’d stayed away. This is all your fault,” he murmurs. “Just like your father. If only he’d been smart enough to keep himself out of business that was not his. You’re both too stupid to live.”
    I have no response. The sounds of a thousand years all rush through my head at once.
    El Brujo looks at Galt. “Take a look around,” he orders. He’s wearing the same suit he wore earlier. His cologne is strong. He must have freshened up. The scent of urine and mildew and blood and cloves combines in the air. I try not to gag.
    Galt’s boots thump against the concrete. He walks right through a dark red splotch of blood on the ground. He gets closer to Allie.
    My heart races. I need to pee suddenly. I think I might throw up.
    Galt turns and finds the hatch for the other pipe. The one I hid in when the rat bit me. He opens the hatch and stares in.
    “She ain’t in there,” he announces. He leaves the door open and looks in again. “What the fuck is that?”
    “Old coal supply pipe,” Frenchie says. “Now it’s used for ventilation for the cooler system or something. Now we use it to smuggle the smaller batches through.”
    “Batches?”
    “The merchandise.” I assume merchandise means the women they abduct and sell into the sex slave trade.
    “The merchandise fits in there?” Galt asks, skeptical.
    Frenchie laughs through his nose. “I crawled in there. Once. It feeds into the Facilities plant over at the university. Great way to smuggle the drugs out on through from the chemistry labs. Then we discovered a little woman could fit pretty easily in there. It’s a pain in the ass because it goes to a main line that then connects over to the college. G ets hot in there.” Frenchie looks over at the mousetrap where the rat is now dead. “Fucking rats, too.”
    “ That how you get the women in an out?”  
    “Naw. Not now. The town is doing some big water line renovation and the conduit’s cut off. Nobody’s getting in or outta there for a while. That’s why we’re moving van loads the old fashioned way.” Frenchie looks around the room. “But this is still a good place to hide merchandise so we can move at night.”
    “Gotta be small to fit in there,” Galt remarks, patting his substantial belly.
    “That a crack on how short I am?” Frenchie retorts.
    “You ain’t short. Only your dick is.”
    “Fuck you, Galt.”
    He just salutes in answer. With his middle finger.
    The new man whispers in Frenchie’s ear. Frenchie grunts, then taps his hand. They both are giving me the once over.
    I start to vomit, the gagging obvious. They both step back from me quickly.
    “New boots,” the other man mutters. “Fuck all if I’m getting puke all over them.”
    Frenchie’s cackle is so devoid of humor it feels like the devil’s hiss.
    My throat stops spasming. Galt is in the shadow of the boxes. My attention splits between him and the other three men.
    El Brujo bends down and picks up the saw he discarded earlier. He hands it to the new man.  
    Oh, no.
    Is this new man the butcher?
    My heart thuds