As we stared at the dismal ‘district’, Owen summed things up nicely: “It’s even worse than I thought.”

And it was. Most buildings here had been demolished entirely, while only a few sad husks of structures remained. As far as people, there seemed to be none in sight, although Owen and I knew better than to let our guard down. We’d gone home and changed into black clothes and grabbed anything we thought we could use to our advantage in a fight.

After leaving the Army, we really didn’t want to deal with guns again and so we didn’t own them. We had our fists, the two knives I’d found in the car, and a crow bar. Our sore excuse for an arsenal would have to do. Fortunately, we were both angry enough to do some real damage with our bare hands if necessary.

I nudged him, our gazes going to the one place that showed any signs of life – Roxanne’s. There were a couple cars in the parking lot, although that could’ve just been all the employees.

“The strip club it is,” Owen said.

Roxanne’s exterior looked like a nod to an earlier era, and its interior wasn’t much different. Everything had an old dusty quality; even the girls looked like they could’ve been old enough to be our aunts beneath their layers of makeup. One thing I noticed, as my eyes adjusted to the gloom, was a man at the bar glaring at us.

“He look familiar to you?” I asked Owen quietly.

“Him?” A glittered dancer said, striding right up to us. “That’s Kade’s dad. Both of them come in sometimes.” Her thickly kohled eyes paused on me. “You’re Jake Powers, the one who beat him, right?”

At my questioning look, she gestured to a sputtering TV in the corner. “We tried watching the match, for what it was worth.”

“Kade’s manager here too?” Owen said, the excitement audible in his voice.

He was thinking what I was, clearly. This had to be the place. Whether it was a back room, a storage closet or the basement, this had to be where they were keeping Cin.

“Nah,” the woman said. “He comes in here often enough, but not this time.”

I frowned. It didn’t look like she was lying, but then again people here were often hardened skillful criminals, so it was hard to say for certain.

“You come here to talk or get a dance?” she was asking now, glittery hands on her hips.

The ‘or else’ part of that equation was clear – either we pay for a dance and make our presence here worthwhile, or else we had to screw right off.

“If we pay for a dance, can we talk some more?” Owen asked.

She shrugged, fluttering long fake lashes. “Suit yourself.”

So we paid up and she led us over to a semi-private velvet seating area. As she shook her gemstone-thonged butt in front of us, I quizzed her some more.

“You seen Rodney around here lately?”

“Naw.”

“What about anything else unusual?”

She paused her twerking to twist around and fix us with an unimpressed glare. “You know what kinda town this is? ‘Course I see unusual shit. I see it every day.”

“Just, more recently. Like today, for instance,” Owen said.

She shrugged, frown going to one side of her face. “Now that you’re mentioning it…” She squinted, sniffed. “Out back, I was having a smoke, and I saw there’s some people going in that old wreck across the parking lot.”

“The warehouse, you mean?” I asked, and she nodded.

“What kind of people?” I asked.

“What is this?” she demanded. “Twenty questions?”

Owen handed her another twenty, which seemed to appease her a bit. “Two beefy guys and a fat woman, although it was hard to tell from so far away.”

That was all I needed to know. It wasn’t a for-sure lead, but it was something.

“Thanks,” I told her, before leaving.

She grinned at us with teeth that were clearly false. “Thank you. Ain’t usual that boys just come here to talk.”

As we rounded the back of Roxanne’s, we realized the problem immediately. What looked to be the main entrance from here, a dismal closed door, was not the ideal way to get in if it happened that whoever the stripper had seen were guarding Cin. We’d have to find a different way; a way that didn’t announce our presence right away.

We made our way there by walking a big arc, so that we were on the far side of the building. There, as we drew near, it became quickly apparent that getting in was the least of our worries. Just about every window was smashed. So, all we had to do was crouch down, be careful to avoid the glass shards in the window panes, and climb on in.

Inside, we looked up and up and up.

“Shit,” Owen said.

‘Shit’ was right. This place was massive. With shelving that reached sky-high, lined with smashed computers and other electronics, as well as an interior that loomed far ahead, we clearly had our work cut out for us.

As we set ahead, we walked quickly but quietly, gazes roving. After only a few minutes, it became clear we were nearing whoever was in here. They were talking and joking.

Another minute or so and I saw the two beefy men in question. I went behind the final shelving unit with Owen, until I heard a sharp inhale of breath.

He nudged me and I saw her. Cin.

“Ok,” Owen was whispering. “Let’s not be stupid about this. Maybe, we can wait until they’re not looking and sneak…”

I didn’t hear the rest of it because I was too busy running out at them, fists raised.

“JAKE!” Owen yelled, but it was too late. I was upon them.

The men were beefy, sure, but I had taken them by surprise and I was pissed. My first hit waylaid the taller guy, sending him staggering back. The other swung a punch that caught me in the gut that I barely felt. I couldn’t afford to lose.

The first guy had his hand on a gun, but I stamped down onto his wrist. He yelped, and I grimaced.

A loud shriek surprised me. Next thing I knew something hard was crashing down onto my head. I staggered to all fours, then twisted around, my leg coming out and catching a fat woman in the shin. Owen smashed his fist into her gut and she flopped to the ground satisfyingly.

Although we weren’t finished with the two men. The one whose hand I’d stomped on was attempting to reach for the gun with his other hand. I kicked the gun out of reach, just as his foot connected with my shin.

I wobbled, but stayed upright, using the last of my energy to give him an ending punch to the face. He was out, and I turned around to find that Owen had dealt with the other guy too. He was half-conscious, although awake enough for him to understand when I took my knife and held it to his neck.

“You can tell Rodney if he ever messes with either of us or lays a hand on Cin again, we won’t bother calling the cops, we’ll finish him ourselves.”

The man slumped down, although he nodded his understanding. Good. I’d meant every word of it.

“Hurry,” Owen said, running to Cin and picking her bound form up. “There could be more coming. We’ve gotta get out of here.”

We ran out the way we’d come, although we luckily saw no one. None of us tried talking, were too high on adrenaline.

Only once we’d gotten Cin into the car and untied, did any of us speak.

“Thank you,” she said hoarsely.

I couldn’t stop touching her, I found. It was as if as soon as I let go of her hand, somehow, she’d disappear out of reach.

I looked her over. She didn’t look hurt – but then again, harm didn’t always leave physical bruises.

“They didn’t hurt you, did they?” I asked.

She shook her head, trying and failing to smile.

“I’m sorry,” Owen said from the front. “Rodney wanted more money than what I paid him back for. This is all my fault. If I’d known he’d take you, then I would’ve never…”

“It’s fine,” Cin said, allowing her head to loll into my chest. “Hey, what happened to your face?”

“It’s nothing,” Owen said quickly.

I gazed at his reflection in the rear-view mirror. “That gash on your cheek doesn’t look like nothing.”

“The other guy got me ok,” Owen admitted, smiling grimly. “But he looks way worse.”

It was a mostly-silent drive on the way back, and we insisted on walking Cin up to her room. There, she wouldn’t agree to sit down until she’d patched Owen up.

“I mean it,” she said. “You don’t treat that wound, it’s going to get five times worse.”

“Fine,” Owen finally agreed.

So, all of us parked on her couch, I watched on as she applied antiseptic and a bandage to the bloodied spot.

“How things have come full circle,” she commented after she was done, smiling a little.

“I’m so sorry,” I told her, taking her in my arms. “This is my fault too. I was supposed to throw the fight so Rodney could make money. But when I saw you all upset like that, I couldn’t go through with it.”

“I couldn’t bear to see you lose,” Cin said quietly.

“I should’ve just gone through with it,” I said. “Then, you wouldn’t have been taken and the whole business of Rodney would have been over.”

“Still probably wouldn’t have been over,” Owen cut in. “I know that guy. He would just keep trying to take and take, until he’d sucked us both dry.”

“Maybe he would’ve tried to,” I said. “But it would’ve been better than him taking Cin.”

Owen didn’t argue about that. Although he did get up to head to the kitchen.

“Anything I can get you?” he asked Cin. “Hot chocolate, marshmallows, cookies?”

“Uh, yes?” Cin said with a little smile.

Not to be outdone, I got Cin all cozied up with blankets and a pillow.

Once she was wreathed in blankets and pillows and outfitted with hot chocolate, a mountain of marshmallows, and no less than seven chocolate chunk cookies, she gave us both a sly smile. “There’s just one thing missing?”

“What?” I asked.

She patted on the two free spaces on either side of her. “You.”

Never had Owen and I pounced on a couch so fast.