Crystal called while Serena was helping Ezekiel unpack a box of plates.
He had bought six. There were four forks, two knives, and a serving spoon large enough to defend the house.
Serena held it up.
“Was this intentional?”
“Sale.”
“That explains the price. I meant the selection.”
His phone rang before he could answer.
He listened for a moment, then looked toward her.
“She said yes.”
Serena lowered the spoon.
“Now?”
“In an hour.”
Crystal said something else.
Ezekiel’s expression changed.
“Okay. We’ll be there.”
When he ended the call, Serena was already putting the plates away.
“She wants us to understand something,” he said.
“What?”
“She isn’t coming back with us.”
Serena stopped.
“To that place?”
“Yeah.”
“Of course she isn’t.”
He nodded.
“She needed to hear that.”
The woman waiting for them had chosen the chair nearest the door.
Serena noticed before she noticed anything else.
The room belonged to someone Crystal trusted, above a small business whose machines hummed through the floor. Afternoon light filtered through blinds. A fan moved warm air over a table scattered with unopened sugar packets.
The woman had pulled the sleeves of her gray cardigan over her hands. A fading bruise marked one side of her face.
“You can call me Mara,” she said.
Serena sat opposite her.
“Serena.”
“Ezekiel.”
Mara looked at him, at the stiff way he lowered himself into the chair.
“You one of D’s?”
“We grew up together.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No,” he said. “I’m not one of his crew.”
Crystal remained beside the window.
Mara studied Serena.
“And you?”
“I was taken by men who wanted something from me.”
“What?”
Serena glanced toward the sugar packets.
She had agreed to speak honestly. That did not mean she knew how much honesty a stranger could bear.
“Something they believed they could sell. Or keep.”
Mara’s expression did not soften, but she stopped examining Serena’s clothes.
“Did you get away?”
“He helped me.”
Her gaze moved to Ezekiel.
“Then why go looking for more?”
He rested his good hand on the table.
“Still working that out.”
Mara gave a short nod.
It seemed to be the first answer she trusted.
She did not begin with what had happened to her.
She told them about a woman who saved the heel of every loaf because another captive liked the crust. About a man who pretended not to understand orders so he could stand beside someone who was frightened. About a girl—nineteen, Mara said, before anyone could ask—who had been promised work and still blamed herself for believing the promise.
Serena listened.
The people inside gradually acquired habits, voices, arguments. They ceased to be the indistinct group she had imagined when Crystal first described them.
“Lena,” Mara said. “The one who likes the crust.”
Crystal nodded.
“She kept telling me somebody would come. I told her to stop.”
Mara pressed her covered hands together.
“I don’t know why I said that.”
Serena did not offer a reason.
After a while, Mara continued.
“They took our phones. Some of them know where our families live. They make sure you understand that part.”
Ezekiel’s jaw tightened.
“Rocko?”
“He came through twice while I was there. Mostly other men did the talking.”
“Did you hear anything about a house?” Serena asked. “A large one. Old stone. Gardens.”
Mara looked at her.
“A lot of things get said.”
“A place called Casa Val.”
She shook her head.
“Whingate?”
“No.”
Serena kept her hands still.
Crystal asked about the equipment.
Mara frowned.
“There was a locked room. They brought cases into it. One of the men told the others not to touch them.”
“What kind of cases?” Ezekiel asked.
“Black. Metal edges. Like somebody carrying expensive tools.”
He looked toward Serena.
She did not recognize enough to answer.
“What was inside?” Crystal asked.
“I didn’t see.”
“Then that’s all we know,” Ezekiel said.
Mara looked at him again, this time with a little less suspicion.
The conversation ended when Mara said she was tired.
Crystal rose immediately.
Serena remained seated long enough to keep the movement from feeling like an abrupt dismissal.
“Thank you.”
Mara looked down.
“I haven’t helped them.”
“You told us their names.”
“That doesn’t open a door.”
“No,” Serena said. “It doesn’t.”
Ezekiel stood slowly.
At the doorway, Mara spoke again.
“If you go, don’t go just to hurt somebody.”
He turned.
“They’ll run. The men, I mean. Or fight you. You’ll follow them, and then what happens to the people who can’t get out?”
Serena felt the words settle more heavily than the account of the locked room.
In every version she had imagined, she had reached the men responsible.
She had not always imagined what happened around them.
“We heard you,” Ezekiel said.
Mara looked at Serena until she answered too.
“Yes.”
Outside, heat rose from the pavement.
Serena stopped beside the car.
The city continued around them with a confidence she found almost offensive. Someone laughed into a phone. A delivery driver balanced cartons against his chest. Music escaped through an open shop door.
She had once thought the world beyond Casa Val would announce its dangers more clearly.
Ezekiel unlocked the car.
“You don’t have to decide standing here.”
“I already have.”
He waited.
“I want to help them.”
“Okay.”
“You disapprove?”
“No.”
“You look as though you do.”
“I look like I haven’t slept.”
She glanced at the bandage visible beneath his sleeve.
“That too.”
They got in.
For several moments, neither reached for the seat belt.
Finally, Ezekiel said, “When D first brought this up, it was about Rocko moving in on him.”
“Yes.”
“He gets something out of this. Even if we do everything right, he gets something.”
“Does that change what is happening to those people?”
“No.”
“Then we can understand both.”
He looked toward her.
She met his gaze.
“I am not incapable of recognizing an advantage offered to someone else.”
“Didn’t say you were.”
“You worry loudly.”
A reluctant smile touched his mouth.
“You make that easy.”
Big D answered Serena’s question that evening.
They sat at his kitchen table this time. The yard had emptied, and someone had turned the music down.
“You asked what the money was for,” he said.
“I did.”
“Rocko’s operation gone. Him out of here. His people stop leaning on mine.”
“And the people he is holding?”
“They get out.”
“After which?”
Big D looked toward Crystal.
She did not rescue him from the question.
“After which,” he said, “we help them get somewhere.”
Serena waited.
He leaned back.
“You want specifics.”
“Yes.”
Crystal set a notebook on the table.
“I’ve spoken to the woman who helped Mara. She can take a few more for a short time. We’ll need more than that if the numbers are right.”
Ezekiel looked at D.
“And nobody owes you for it.”
D frowned.
“Come on.”
“Nobody.”
After a moment, D nodded.
“All right.”
Serena touched the edge of the notebook.
“I will not pursue a man through the city while someone remains locked in his rooms.”
“That’s fair.”
“And you will not send people behind us to claim them.”
Big D’s expression sharpened.
“That’s not what I do.”
“She doesn’t know you,” Ezekiel said.
The anger remained for another heartbeat, then subsided.
“No,” D said to Serena. “I won’t.”
She nodded.
For the first time, the arrangement had a shape she could accept.
They did not leave that night.
Ezekiel could barely raise his injured arm without pain, and Serena found him asleep upright before Crystal had finished her calls.
She put his phone on the table when it slipped from his hand.
Big D watched from the kitchen doorway.
“He always hated needing anything.”
“Most people prefer giving it.”
“Yeah. Well, he’ll bleed on your floor and tell you he’s fine.”
“He has already done that.”
D smiled faintly.
Then he looked toward the couch.
“You sure about this?”
Serena followed his gaze.
“About him?”
“About going.”
She considered the difference.
“I am sure there are people inside.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No,” she said. “It isn’t.”
The next two days passed in an uneasy imitation of ordinary life.
Ezekiel changed his dressings and complained about doing it. His cousin called often enough that he eventually began answering with, “Still alive.”
Serena disapproved.
His cousin apparently did too.
She learned where he kept the clean towels. He learned that she moved almost silently even when carrying something heavy. Twice he turned and found her beside him with no warning, and twice she looked offended by the language that followed.
Crystal called with practical problems rather than dramatic news. There were more people willing to provide a room than willing to answer questions about why one was needed. One possible driver withdrew. Another asked whether there would be children.
Nobody could give him a certain answer.
Serena drew Casa Val from memory on the back of an unused envelope.
She began with the garden.
The wall followed, then the western passage and the roof above Sabine’s rooms. Ezekiel brought her a proper sheet of paper when the envelope grew crowded.
“What’s outside this part?”
She stared at the edge of the drawing.
“I seldom used that gate.”
“What about the road?”
“I can describe the entrance.”
“Okay. Start there.”
They worked until the drawing contained everything she could remember.
It was less than she had expected.
Crystal took a photograph of it, but warned them against expecting a quick answer.
An old house behind a wall could describe too many places. A concealed one presented a different problem, which none of them knew how to solve.
Serena listened without protest.
That night, Ezekiel found her folding the stained gown again.
“You don’t have to put it away.”
“I know.”
She smoothed the same crease.
He remained beside the door.
Eventually, she said, “I knew every room.”
He waited.
“And almost nothing beyond them.”
Ezekiel looked toward the drawing on the dresser.
“We’ve got somewhere to start.”
She nodded without looking up.
On the third evening, Crystal came with news.
Mara had recognized a photograph of a man entering Rocko’s building. Crystal’s people had also seen a woman brought there against her will. Whatever else happened inside, it had not stopped.
Serena stood.
Ezekiel’s expression changed when he saw how quickly she made the decision.
“Sit down a second.”
“She is there now.”
“I heard.”
“You cannot ask me to be patient indefinitely.”
“I’m asking for a second.”
She remained standing, but she listened.
He looked at Crystal.
“The places you arranged?”
“Ready for tonight.”
“And the people helping?”
“They know what they agreed to.”
Serena watched him ask the questions Mara had made necessary.
The anger did not leave her. It became harder to mistake for the whole task.
At last, Ezekiel looked up.
“All right.”
The clothes were black and plain.
Serena had chosen trousers, boots, and a jacket that allowed her to move freely. Her hair was secured away from her face. The purple dress remained hanging in Ezekiel’s bedroom.
He was slower getting ready.
She watched him adjust the garment protecting his torso, careful around the bruising. When he reached for his coat, she held it open.
He hesitated, then allowed the help.
“I am stronger than you,” she said.
“Yeah. D’s still upset about it.”
“I mean that I should take the danger you cannot.”
He turned toward her.
“You were stronger than the men who caught you too.”
She went still.
His expression softened.
“I’m not saying it to be an asshole.”
“I know.”
“They had something that worked. We don’t know if anybody here has it.”
Serena looked down at her hands.
The marks had vanished completely. She remembered the restraints anyway.
“If I tell you I am becoming weak,” she said, “believe me immediately.”
“Of course.”
“And if I fail to tell you—”
“I’ll be watching.”
She nodded.
He picked up his phone.
“Your turn.”
Her own borrowed phone lay on the table.
He had shown her how to use it several times. She pressed the contact, waited, and frowned when the device in his hand began making noise.
“It seems unnecessarily pleased with itself.”
“That means it’s working.”
“I understood the first three times.”
“You called the bakery on the fourth.”
“Their number was beside yours.”
“Exactly why we’re doing this again.”
She ended the call with considerable dignity.
The ride was quiet.
Serena watched houses give way to shuttered businesses and wider buildings with fewer windows. Light collected beneath loading canopies. A chain-link fence leaned around a lot full of broken pallets.
The building ahead had none of Casa Val’s grandeur.
Its walls were painted an exhausted gray. A sign above the entrance had been removed, leaving a paler rectangle and four rusting bolts.
People lived their worst hours behind such ordinary walls.
She understood that now.
Beside her, Ezekiel flexed his good hand.
“Still time to tell me something important.”
Serena looked at him.
“About what you can do,” he said. “Anything I should know before I see it.”
She considered giving him a reassuring answer.
It would have been easy.
Instead, she said, “You have seen me hold a man’s weight.”
“Yeah.”
“You have not seen me fight.”
His hand became still.
“How different?”
“Enough that you may be frightened.”
He looked through the windshield.
“I’m already frightened.”
The admission eased the obligation to pretend.
“So am I,” she said.
He turned toward her.
She did not look away.
After a moment, he nodded.
Then they got out.
The first man at the door looked at Serena and smiled.
She disliked him before he spoke.
“You lost?”
“No.”
His gaze passed over her clothes.
“Then what do you want?”
“To come inside.”
He laughed and reached for her arm.
Serena caught his wrist.
His smile vanished.
“Do not,” she said.
He tried to pull away.
She moved him aside with a force that seemed small to her and sent him staggering against the wall. He reached beneath his jacket.
She struck him once.
He dropped, and she lowered him the last few inches rather than let his head hit the concrete.
Behind her, Ezekiel drew a sharp breath.
She looked back.
He was watching the fallen man.
“Alive,” she said.
He nodded.
Serena turned toward the locked door.
Wood and metal gave beneath her kick.
Three men stood around a woman beside an overturned chair.
For an instant, Serena saw the whole room with unbearable clarity: the strip light, the cheap flooring, a cup crushed beneath somebody’s shoe. The woman held one arm against her body. Blood marked her lower lip.
Then one of the men shouted.
Serena stepped inside.
“Come here,” she said to the woman.
The woman looked at the broken door, then at Serena.
“You need to leave.”
“So do you.”
A man caught the woman by the shoulder.
Serena reached him before he could drag her backward.
His hand came free.
He screamed.
The sound seemed to surprise everyone except Serena.
She kept hold of his wrist, turning him away from the woman until his knees struck the floor.
“Ezekiel.”
He was beside the broken doorway, pale but moving.
“I’ve got her.”
The woman hesitated when he approached.
He stopped just short of touching her.
“We can get you outside.”
Behind Serena, another man lunged.
She released the first and met the second hard enough to drive him into the table. Its legs folded beneath them. He lay among the wreckage, trying to find the breath she had knocked from him.
The third man had a gun.
She saw it rise.
So did Ezekiel.
“Serena!”
She moved.
The shot struck the wall.
For a moment, there was only the ringing afterward.
Then the gun lay on the floor, and the man who had held it was beneath her hand.
She had him against the wall by his throat.
His feet scraped for purchase.
Serena could hear his pulse.
She could smell the blood from the woman’s split lip, the sharp sweat of his fear, and beneath both the warm, living thing within his neck.
For the first time since Casa Val, the weakness was gone.
Her teeth lengthened.
The man stared at her mouth.
His expression changed in a way she recognized.
Not the disbelief Ezekiel had shown.
Recognition.
“Wait,” he choked.
Serena tightened her grip.
Behind her, Ezekiel was telling the woman to keep moving.
The man’s gaze flicked toward the doorway.
“They said—”
“What?”
His mouth worked.
From somewhere deeper inside the building came a pounding sound.
A fist against a locked door.
Then another.
Serena could have finished what she had begun before taking a breath. The desire to do it was so clean and immediate that, for a moment, everything else seemed distant.
The pounding came again.
She heard Mara’s voice.
*What happens to the people who can’t get out?*
Serena pulled the man away from the wall and threw him down beside the broken table.
“Stay there.”
She did not wait to see whether he understood.
Ezekiel stood in the doorway with the woman beside him. His eyes moved from Serena’s mouth to the man on the floor.
Serena closed her lips.
“There are more,” she said.
He looked toward the sound.
The woman caught his sleeve.
“Lena,” she whispered.
Serena was already crossing the room.
For once, she knew exactly which door mattered.