I never in my life thought that I would be back here. We walked through the dimly lit pink hallway as Axel kept his gun pointed in front of us.

It smelled just like I remembered; cigarette ash, spilled beer, and sweat. Lots and lots of sweat.

The flower pattern wallpaper was stained and peeling, some areas had scratch marks where women clearly had put up a fight, guess they were braver than I ever was. To think I just let them drag me out of there with a bag over my head.

We could hear club beats being played upstairs, they used the music the cover up any unsettling noises that might turn the buyers off. The buyers wanted to purchase the girls without being reminded that they were taking part in a seedy, disgusting, and reprehensible business.

Through the music there was a quiet yet consistent thud, for a moment I thought it was the sound of a bed hitting the wall from sex but it was too loud and slow for it to be that.

We reached some steps and slowly began to walk up, I could see the first guard at the top sitting down in a wood chair fast asleep.

“I recognize him, he’s one of the men who dragged me into the van that they used to drive me to Edgar.”

“You think he might know anything that might be able to help us?”

“Doubt it” I replied. “Most of the guards here just kept their heads down and did their job. There has to be a coordinator or somebody around here though.”

Axel nodded, taking the butt of his pistol and hitting the guard hard in the side of the neck, knocking him out instantly. He pushed him and the chair down the stairs so that he’d be out of sight, for everything that man did he deserved it.

We looked down the hallway to see room after room after room after room. They kept us in here for a few days before the auction, nothing but a bed and a toilet. It was like jail except you were constantly waiting for the inevitable.

As we walked by the doors we could hear the women inside calling out, some sounded like they had gone crazy, others were pleading to be let out.

Axel took me by the hand to comfort me, if he wasn’t here I knew I wouldn’t be able to do this, having him by my side made me feel safe despite our surroundings.

“We’re getting them out of here, all of them” he muttered as he kept his gun pointed straight ahead.

“Axel there must be at least 50 women in this building we-”

“I don’t care, they all deserve the same chance at freedom as you. I couldn’t live with myself if I just left them here to be sold off and suffer. Everyone deserves a chance to live the life they want to live.”

I squeezed his hand tight as I wiped a tear away from my eye but before I had a chance to respond we heard footsteps coming down the hall.

Axel pulled me over to the side and opened a nearby door, we both scrambled to get inside.

“Don’t close it” I said. “If you close it the door auto locks from the inside!”

“We don’t have a choice, if they see this door open they’ll investigate it and we’ll be caught.”

He shut the door and we heard two men coming closer and closer, it was then that I realized that the loud thuds I heard earlier were coming from this room.

We turned around to see a young woman in nothing but a tank top and panties flinging her whole body against a nearby wall, trying to break out. I don’t know how long she was doing this but her efforts were in vain.

She turned and saw us, her eyes widened and she backed up into a corner.

“You! You won’t take me! I refuse to be sold I’m a human being!”

“If she keeps screaming she’ll give us away” Axel said as he cautiously approached her.

“Just… just be gentle” I pleaded as he got closer and closer.

He grabbed the girl and held onto her tight, holding his hand over her mouth so he could keep her quiet.

“Relax, we’re not going to hurt you” I said looking into her eyes.

She struggled for a few seconds, even going as far as to bite Axel’s hands, but after looking into my eyes she finally calmed down.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” Axel asked me.

“I just looked at her the same way you look at me” I said giving a slight smile. “It always calmed me down so I figured it could work on other people as well.”

He smiled back at me before we heard the men walking by us talking, it was hard to hear from inside of the room but we were able to make out what they were saying.

“How the hell are we short on 18 year old girls? How many fucking times do I have to tell you that 18 year old girls are the only ones that actually sell?” one of them said.

“We have some girls in their young 20s the buyers will never tell the difference” the other replied.

“You dumbass you think our buyers don’t talk to the girls they buy? They’ll find out they aren’t 18 and rat us out to the higher ups. You want this whole thing to fall apart? They won’t just throw us in jail they’ll kill us.”

“Alright fine, jesus fuck, I’ll go out myself and get some younger girls.”

“No, send your guys to do it, they actually know what they’re doing. Last time you did it yourself you brought in a 17 year old and a 16 year old, we can’t do under 18 you should know that by now. 18 and over means we can pass it off as them just ghosting their friends and families, under 18 and the feds start looking into kidnapping. Last time you brought in girls younger than 18 I had to pay them off 10 grand each to keep their mouth shut, not to mention get one of my guys to check in on them now and then to make sure they haven’t squealed.”

Before we could hear anymore they walked too far away from us, leaving us alone in this room trapped like the girl we found here.

“One of those guys sounded like he could be the coordinator of this thing, he’s gotta have info” Axel said as he finally released the girl he was holding. I knew it was to keep her quiet but I would be lying if I said that seeing him touching another woman didn’t make me a little bit jealous.

“Well we know he’s here but we can’t get out of here now” I said.

The girl walked over to her bed and sat down, looking at the both of us.

“You can’t get out of here, I’ve been trying non stop for the 3 days. There’s not even a doorknob inside to break off, we’re stuck here until they get us.”

“Fuck that” Axel said, pulling out his pistol.

He walked over to the girl and pulled her off of the bed, flipping the bed over and waving us over to come behind it.

“Both of you stay behind this, that door is solid steel, don’t want a bullet ricocheting off and hurting either of you.”

The girl and I quickly ducked behind the bed as Axel took aim at the door.

“I only have one magazine on me so I gotta make these shots count.”

We covered our ears as he shot 5 bullets right at the three hinges that held the door. We heard the sound of metal creaking before a loud thud filled the room. We looked up over the bed to see that he had hit the hinges clean, allowing the door to come loose and fall down inside of the room.

We heard the sound of someone running down the hall and Axel motioned us to stay behind the bed.

I peeked over the bedframe so I could see what was happening and saw an armed guard run to our doorway to inspect what happened.

His eyes widened when he saw Axel and he attempted to draw his gun, before I even had a chance to scream Axel fired two well placed shots, dropping the guard before he even had a chance to fight back.

The guard writhed in pain on the ground as Axel rushed over to him, looking down both ends of the hall to make sure we were safe before motioning the girl and I to follow him.

He took some keys off of the guard’s belt and picked up his gun, handing both the items to the girl.

“Go and release every single girl you can, hopefully those keys will unlock any door you need to get into. If any guard comes after you don’t be afraid to put a bullet in them, they won’t hesitate to shoot you so you have to be quick. When you rescued all that you can meet us outside the building.”

The girl looked at both of us, I could see the fear in her eyes but she nodded and ran over to the closest door to free the girls nearby.

“Shouldn’t we help her?” I asked.

“We have to find the coordinator before he realizes that this whole operation is about to fall apart, I’m not letting this lead run dry we have to get to him.”

He turned to me and looked me in the eye “she’ll be alright, once she gets a few girls out they’ll have the strength they need to fight back against anyone trying to throw them back in their cells. We’ve just set in motion the chance for these girls to free each other, now we need to do what we came here for, I need to do this for not just for my club but for us.”

I looked back as the girl rushed to open as many doors as she could, allowing the formerly locked up girls a chance to escape.

“Alright, alright let’s go.”

Axel looked down at the guard who was lying in pain on the ground. He leaned over and grabbed the guard by his collar, putting his gun to his forehead.

“Who’s in charge here?” Axel barked out, pressing the gun harder into the guard's forehead.

“Please… please no more don’t shoot. Mr. Frederick is in charge, he’s normally in his office. Go down that hall and to your right you can’t miss it. Now please just let me get out of here with my life, I never wanted to die for this bullshit.”

Axel dropped the guard back on the ground and grabbed onto my hand, leading me down the hall as the newly released girls began freeing as many other girls as they could.

As we ran down the hallway we heard an alarm sound, I never knew how many guards worked here but I immediately began to worry about all the girls that were here. Thing was, Axel was right, he was just one man with a gun there wasn’t much more he could do to help them in this situation. We needed to find Frederick and figure out how to save his club and in the process save our relationship.

I had one hand in his, with my other hand I kept my fingers crossed.

We were about to take one more step closer, one more chance to fulfill the promise he made to me just a day ago.