Chapter 7:
The scent of the cellar: dried herbs and fruits, some strong chemical, and damp earth, met Blade’s nose. He tossed Jack onto the floor and then began a cursory examination of the place while Tara stood on the steps shaking like a leaf. He didn’t blame her. She’d been kidnapped by a man she thought she loved and sold by that same man. She had thought his parents were alive, but it was very clear from the empty house above them that they either were not alive or not residents and he intended to find out which one it was.
He got his answer when his feet struck a heavy metal box laid below the staircase. He dragged it out. Jack let out a sharp little scream and Blade gave him a solid kick in the face to shut him up. He had to break the box open and when he did the smell that came out was dry dust and flesh long since decomposed. Tara stared with huge and rounded eyes down at the skeletons wrapped around each other. She sat down heavily again. Her hands went to her face and her shoulders hunched as she leaned forward to place her head upon her knees.
Blade looked at Jack. His eyes went to Tara, then back to Jack, and then to the metal box. If there was anything that he believed in, it was justice, and there was some justice that needed to be served here, but she could not be there to see it. He spoke softly, “Go upstairs but do not close the door.”
Her hands flew away from her face and she stared at him, her tears glistening in the dimness. “You cannot kill him. I cannot tolerate that. I cannot allow you permission to murder him.”
Blade said, “When I leave this basement, he will be alive. I swear that to you. You can check for yourself. I’m sure you’ll actually probably hear him screaming. I intend to leave him here so that we can get away. Is there anything you want from the place where he kept you?”
No way was he going to call that place her home. It hadn’t been a home. Jack had kept her back there in the back building so that none of his neighbors would see her. So that any Federation underling who had to come around to inspect the premises would not see her face and remember it later, or connect the two of them together.
Rage rolled through him as he realized how clever and diabolical this man on the floor, who was now paralyzed but still dangerous, actually was. Blade shunted that rage aside because it would do him no good.
Tara whispered, “Then why do you need me to leave?”
Blade said, “I need to question him. I need to know if he has another woman here. And if he does, where she is.”
He was lying. He already knew damn well that was no other woman there. Jack’s style was to love them and sell them. Woo them and lose them. Whatever was wrong with that man’s brain to make him do those things was something that Blade did not want to try to figure out. There was no way he was going to let him live either.
Tara went up the stairs. Blade went to where Jack was and picked him up. Jack was not a large man, but at that moment he was dead weight. He couldn’t fight, but his head thrashed back and forth as much as Jack could thrash it.
His voice, slurred and broken, came from one side of his mouth, which had twisted downward when the knife had struck those vital nerves and severed that cord. Blade opened the metal box where Jack’s parents lay. He tossed Jack’s body inside. Immediately, Jack began to scream.
Blade stared down at him. “Your screams will be able to be heard through the floor and into the house, but not beyond it. The thing about Federation gifted houses is that they are all made of the finest materials. They can withstand a bomb blast; did you know that? They are also soundproof. Nobody will hear you scream. People will miss you, but by the time they come to look for you, you will already be dead. Your oxygen will run out in less than an hour, but I hope during that hour you suffer as much as the women that you sold suffered.”
He closed the box and locked it. Jack did scream. As he went up the stairs, he saw Tara standing beside the doorway with her hand back to her mouth again. Her face was a solid sheet of white, and she stared at him. “He’s screaming.”
Blade said, “This is the Federation’s house. The Federation does checks on all of their homes whether they are gifted as property or not. They will find him.”
It was true. They would, but it might not be for years.
He asked, “Is there anything you need to take from here?”
She shook her head. “I had only a few clothes and the things that I used for work but… But…”
He took her cold hands in his. He cursed himself for his foolishness even as he said, “Come with me.”