Music to writhe to would be his title for this song. The slapping sound of flesh meeting flesh, he’d call it something else.
“Look at how it’s set back into the wall. This has been soundproofed, except for the door itself.” August settled a hand on Owen’s shoulder as he adjusted their position, moving them both to the knob side of the door. He reached past Owen and gripped the simple knob, installed so the deadbolt control was on this side of the door.
“It is a cage, Alace. A containment facility.” Owen shook himself, rattling the memories of another basement, a warehouse, a cabin—everywhere he’d seen people dehumanized and kept for pleasure—back to the recesses of his mind.
The doorknob turned effortlessly under August’s manipulation, and the door slipped open—Owen grasped August’s hand, holding the door in place. He pulled out his phone and turned on the camera. “Be our eyes.” Holding the phone carefully between fingers and thumb, he eased it into the gap and angled it with a movement that should provide a clear view, sweeping from left to right.
“Kuellen is present. A young male, too. Owen, he’s got the boy on a bed in the far-left corner of the room.” Owen moved the phone, stopping when Alace broke in with, “Wait. There’s something else. Go back to your right a little.” He did and held the phone still. “There’s a video recording setup in the corner of the separating wall. It’s active, it looks like he’s recording right now. I’ll find out if he’s streaming it live.” Owen pulled the phone back, and August soundlessly closed the door.
Owen turned to meet August’s gaze, finding a dark scowl had settled on the man’s features. “I have a bandana. You?”
“Same. All I got, though. Wasn’t expecting to have to mask up on the op I was on.”
Both men repositioned packs to retrieve the articles they could use as face coverings. Whether Kuellen was live-streaming or not, neither of them wanted to be on video that would then have to be managed. There’d always be a tiny fear something would surface, sometime or somewhere. Owen had to thread the ends of the folded bandana under and around his headset, watching August do the same. Both were already wearing thin gloves, so with only their eyes visible, and those partially blocked by their visors, they would be unrecognizable on tape.
“Owen.” He dropped his head, focusing on Alace’s voice. “He’s streaming. It looks like—I think he’s part of the ring. The ones we identified with like-minded perversions. That’s why he had not only the one video of our girl but others from the same sick bastard. Do you remember what you did there? What you said?”
“I do. Oh, how I remember.” He’d looked straight into the camera after killing Warrant and promised everyone watching he’d come for them, too. “Looks like I am making good on my promises.” He pushed out a slow breath. “Age on the boy?” Knowing up front would stop any mental stuttering upon seeing; at least he hoped it would.
“Teens. Mid-teens. Fifteen maybe.”
“Okay.” Not the worst. Not the best, of course, no age was right to have your personal dignity taken from you. No age the right one for sexual violence to be perpetrated upon a child. “Okay. We are going to do this thing. Leave the recording going, do not kill it yet, Alace. I have a message to deliver once August has Kuellen secured.”
“Terminal force or containment only?” Owen appreciated August’s question; one he’d have asked himself if he’d been brought into a mission late.
“Containment if possible. He has a lot of videos not from this circle jerk of perverts, and I would like to be able to sabotage many of those.”
“Roger.” August shifted behind him, rising on the balls of his feet before settling back. “Green here.”
“Green. Roger.” This time it was his hand that reached for the doorknob. As he opened the door, the sounds he’d been suppressing flooded back full force, the music pounding throughout the room. Kuellen wouldn’t be able to hear them, or see them, he realized. Both the man and boy’s faces turned towards the back wall of the room, away from the door.
“Open yourself.” Kuellen held a bag aloft, something Owen didn’t recognize. Too large to be a bag of IV fluids, the tubing attached was larger, thicker. The boy’s hands drifted along his sides as he lay on his stomach, naked ass in the air, cheeks reddened from what must have been a spanking. Prelude to the main event. The boy’s hands gripped his own cheeks, pulling, and Owen realized he was presenting himself, the order Kuellen’d given a known and expected piece of instruction.
It took only seconds for Owen and August to dart across the room. Kuellen’s reactions were slow, delayed so much he wasn’t even looking at them yet when August gripped his arm, a twist causing the bag to fall. It splatted on the floor, tubing breaking free and sudsy liquid spewing across the concrete. An enema.
Owen had the boy in his arms, putting his body between where the cameras were and the child, trusting August to contain Kuellen. He grabbed the thin blanket rucked up at the foot of the bed and draped it around the boy, who was staring up at him with wide eyes. Blood rimmed the boy’s mouth, the bright color mixing with an old scum. “I’ve got you,” Owen said aloud. “You’re safe now.”
The boy’s lips opened, and a toneless screech came from him. Owen could see the boy’s tongue had been split, severed about halfway back, so he had two fleshy stubs inside his mouth. Oh my God.
“You’re safe. Safe.” Changing to the throat mic, he instructed Alace. “He needs medical. Call Doc and tell him there will be an incoming patient that is not me.” Speaking aloud to the boy, he attempted to reassure him. “I’m going to take care of you.”
The boy screeched again. His eyes rolled up and back into his head, and he went limp in Owen’s arms. Fainted. He didn’t die. He’s still breathing. He fainted is all.
“I’m locking the vault door.” Alace’s voice was steady, calm, and so in control, Owen knew there’d be no way she’d let anything go sideways. “He won’t get out without you, Owen.” The pressure around them changed, pressing in on his skin, and he realized how lucky it had been that Kuellen was preoccupied when the door had opened earlier.
Owen muscled the boy through the door and into the basement proper, seeing the bars stretching the width of the server section, noting for the first time the temperature difference between the jail room and the server space. He bundled the boy into the blanket and settled him at the foot of the stairs, out of the way, and without a direct line of sight into the jail.
“Set your phone up to watch him. I’ll keep an eye out.” Owen nodded, knowing she’d see the movement. “I’ve got you, Owen. Go back in and deal with Kuellen.”
“Yeah, boss.” Camera activated, he leaned the phone against a nearby post. “Good visual?”
“The best. Go do your job.”
He walked inside to find August had Kuellen on his stomach on the floor, arms already angled behind him, zip-tied in place. August’s boot was against Kuellen’s upper back, pushing the man’s face against the floor. Kuellen’s bare feet were scrabbling against the concrete, finding no purchase to execute an escape.