ONE LAST WARNING: THIS CHAPTER, WHILE NOTHING IS EVER EXPLICITLY STATED, HEAVILY IMPLIES SOME PRETTY NASTY SHIT. IF YOU EVEN FOR A MOMENT THINK THAT THIS MAY BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU, PLEASE SKIP THIS. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES, GUYS.
Some type of factory—there was a lot of industrial noise. Impact manufacturing, maybe, involving something other than metal. Whoever was manning the camera started shouting in Vietnamese, and then Jack barely made out a soft voice. It was pleading. It was a child.
The next sound was all-too familiar. The sound of a boot stomping, and the wet crack of a limb being broken through brute force. The child started shrieking in pain. The cameraman screamed back. Jack clearly heard another strike, this one a body blow. The scream was physically cut off, unable to be continued, and then Jack heard repeated hits. Heard frantic scrabbling, fingernails on wood. Ribs breaking. Wet gurgling.
Mac had turned his face away from the tablet, unintentionally looking his way, and while Jack's vision wasn't great, he could see the barely-veiled stricken look on his partner's face.
There's nothin' you can do for him, bud, Jack tried to say with his eyes. In answer, Mac just closed his.
The man was still screaming. Jack didn't know much of the language, but he figured it was to tell all the other child laborers to keep working, or the same thing would happen to them.
They'd be stomped to death.
Foxy tapped the tablet, and it went silent. "When someone in this business refers to a 'disposable,' Mac, that's what we mean. We've crunched the numbers, and it's actually more economical to toss an underperforming worker than it is to nurse them back to health. You'll get a significant uptick in production from your remaining workforce that can last several days, depending on how...motivated you make them."
There was the sound of more tapping, and Mac resolutely kept his eyes closed, and his face turned away, despite the pain that the position was obviously causing him. He didn't say a word.
"We used to pass along these insights in a monthly newsletter, but Preston got an excellent idea from his daughter's obsession with Pinterest. Articles are one thing, but pictures and videos really make some of these techniques more approachable. It started out as a few simple suggestions, but now we have an entire library." Jack transferred his glare to Preston, who seemed pleased with his boss's praise. The idea that he had a daughter, one he apparently loved, and could still put his hands on Sofía like he was—
"Much of the content is curated by our favorite customers. We throw in a three-month subscription if you spend more than five hundred US with us."
Jack dredged up a humorless smirk, trying to get Foxy's attention off Mac. "I appreciate...what you're doin' here...but I already hate'cha...don't really need another reason..."
The man laughed, sounding genuinely amused. "I'm just pointing out that Mac, here, is right. The disposables—like Tomás—they're cheap, sometimes a one-time use. But we also have clients that take very, very good care of their purchases."
Sofía had gone mostly quiet, still crying but apparently terrified by what she'd heard on the tablet, and Preston shifted her against his leg again. "Perhaps they'd like to see Garrett?"
"We're telling you the truth," Mac tried again, his voice trembling just slightly, and Jack honestly couldn't tell how much of that was because of the pain he was so clearly in and how much was because of the desperation he so clearly felt. He turned very deliberately back towards Fox. "Don't hurt her...please."
"Garrett is a fine example," Fox approved, as if Mac hadn't spoken. "Not everyone is shopping for cheap labor. Many of our clients are looking for companionship." He focused back on Mac, gesturing with the tablet. "Every once in a while, we come across someone with that certain...je ne sais quoi...that Mac, here, has in spades."
He jammed the tablet under Mac's chin, forcing his head back and up as the blond agent tried to stifle a grunt of pain, and Jack growled low in his throat.
Their captors ignored him.
Fox smirked, shoving the tablet's edge hard enough into Mac's throat to elicit a cough. "Most of the people shopping for pretty boys only have one thing on their minds," he continued bluntly, studying the young man's face. Then he dragged the tablet along Mac's jawline, finally releasing him with a firm tap. "You bend them over a table and you get what you paid for." Jack's partner just glared, stifling another cough, and Fox found whatever it was he was looking for on the tablet.
He surprised Jack by sauntering over to him and holding the tablet right in front of him. Jack didn't even glance at it, preferring to glare at Foxy. The man simply raised an eyebrow at him and lifted the tablet into his line of sight as the video started to play. It was exactly what it sounded like—and there was definitely audio.
The victim was no more than fifteen. A blond kid—naturally, Fox would choose whatever footage most favored Mac—and the aggressor was a fairly-unassuming, wiry guy, pushing forty. His face was blurred, but the kid's wasn't, and that was where whatever sick fuck who'd shot the footage was the most focused. The terror and agony in his expression was both heart-wrenching and sickening, and it thankfully took nearly all of Jack's focus to keep himself from gagging again.
"But eventually that gets old," Fox continued blandly. "Then you've got a miserable, cringing teen in the house. They stop crying. They get numb. It stops being fun." The young boy in question let out a particularly guttural cry of pain, and Jack decided that vertigo was preferable, and closed his eyes. Fox tapped the tablet, and it went quiet.
"So a few of our clients started offering suggestions. Little projects for the others to try. Here's the exact same boy, three months later."
Jack would have closed his ears, too, if he could have. But this time, there was no screaming, no sound of flesh being pounded—with fists or anything else. Instead, there was a pleasant clinking of metal on ceramics.
"No, remember, I like the egg, then the bacon on top, and then the relish on that."
Some more clinking, which Jack finally recognized as a fork and knife, on a plate. Someone let out a little huff of irritation, and then an older man laughed.
"Yes, there you go. You try that bite."
There was the wet sound of someone's mouth working, and then a surprised, pleased noise. This voice was younger. The kid, Jack realized with a lurch. The old fucker was trying to bond with the kid. They were eating together.
"Do you like it?"
Someone swallowed. "...yeah..."
"Good. Now me."
Jack turned his face away, and not in his partner's direction. Grooming the kid to be his slave. Wait on him hand and foot. Literally feed him. There was a tap on the tablet, and the breakfast scene ended. Jack listened to Foxy keep scrolling.
"And here is the same boy again, two months after that."
They were definitely back in the bedroom. Fabric was being shifted in a very rhythmic pattern, and someone sucked in a long, deep breath, then moaned in pleasure.
"That...right there..." Same voice. Almost the same tone he'd used when he'd been directing the boy on how he liked his bites of egg, just a little huskier. "I like that...more tongue...faster. Say 'allah nonna'..."
Jack wasn't sure he'd heard that right, until the boy's voice came back, obediently trying to say the sounds around a very full mouth. A little heavy breathing later, the kid kept gamely at it, until the man gasped, and the boy choked as if something had just been crammed down his throat. Drugs aside, Jack was certain he was going to be sick.
Again the tablet went silent as more footage was located. "Now, it's hardly unheard of that someone could groom a teenager into a willing participant in five months. Fast forward just one more month..."
Jack cleared his throat as it tried very hard to deposit more bile into his mouth. "Dude...watch your porn somewhere else..."
"What about this one?"
It was the boy's voice. Carefree, fearless. There was a lot of murmuring in the background; they were in public. Maybe a store in a mall. There was a crowd around, chatting and laughing, and someone speaking indistinctly on a PA system.
"You like him?"
There was a small hesitance. "You like him," the boy said slyly. "I know what you like."
The man gave a hearty laugh. "You're right. I do like him."
Against his will, Jack's eyes flew open.
He was right; they were no longer in the man's house. Well-dressed men and women were clustered around tall cocktail tables, with small slips of paper and pens sprouting in artful displays from elegant champagne flutes in the center of the linen-covered tables. Lined up on the stage, each one standing over a number, were naked kids. They ranged in ages from probably five or six all the way up to late teens, all different heights, builds, colors, ethnicities. Girls and boys alike.
It was an auction.
The camera was over the man's shoulder, focused on the blond boy. He was dressed in an expensive black suit, complete with a black silk oxford shirt and a jaunty, hunter-green handkerchief in his lapel pocket. He looked a bit slimmer than he had before, taller. There were faint circles under his eyes, which had an unnatural, sharp focus to them. His smile was almost hungry, his need to please and impress the man who had abused him readily evident in his expression, in his tightly-wound movements.
The image wobbled as Jack's dizziness protested his eyes being open—honestly, he wished the damn vertigo would make up its mind—but it was clear enough to see that the man reached out and stroked the boy's hair, and the boy closed his eyes with pleasure and relief, leaning into the touch.
The footage changed. The teenager was now stripped to just his trousers, his chest white and scrawny but relatively unmarked. He grinned at the camera, bouncing on the balls of his bare feet a little in clear anticipation. The way he was wired, constantly in motion...it reminded Jack of a junkie.
The former Delta dragged his eyes—slowly—towards Fox, who was watching him. "Lemme guess. Your little...welcome kit...has some kinda designer...drugs in it?"
Foxy broke out into a bright smile. "There is a brain in there. Yes, Jack. Absorbed through the skin. The boy never knew he was being dosed. All he knew was that he was anxious, in pain, sick when his master was upset with him, and filled with well-being when he was being touched and fawned over."
"You know what I like," the man in the video crooned, apparently giving some sort of permission, and Jack glanced back at the tablet in time to see a knowing smile split the teen's face. The camera panned out to show a well-appointed bedroom in rich ivories and burgundies, with a little sitting area in front of a cheerfully-burning stone fireplace. A little tow-headed boy, no more than nine or ten years old, was cowering near it, wearing—
Wearing the same sweatpants and shirt that Tomás and Sofía were wearing.
Jack tracked what was about to happen long before the teenager laid a hand on the kid, and quickly turned away, ignoring the immediate, violent protest of his head and gut. Fox tsked, even as the youngest child in the video started babbling frantically in a foreign language.
"But this is the best part," Fox told him, his amusement evident. The babbling turned to choked cries and a struggle. "Six months to turn a victim into an eager partner. Creativity and faculties intact. Withdrawal can be fatal, of course, but he's still tweaking the formula. Very partial to blonds. He's one of our best customers—here tonight, actually."
A young voice cried out in shock and pain, and the man's voice came back, hoarse with lust. "Turn him towards me."
"Turn that shit off," Jack snarled, trying to use his own voice to drown out the audio.
"These were shot, oh, maybe eight months ago?" Fox turned lazily to glance at Preston, who confirmed with a nod. "They buy a new toy every other month, which is why they're here tonight."
He made no move to stop the footage, and Jack tried to focus on literally anything else. The teenager in the video didn't make that easy. His cries of pleasure were unrestrained and raw, and a groan closer to the microphone told them all that the only adult in the room was enjoying the view.
"I wonder if they'd go for someone Mac's age," Fox murmured thoughtfully, making a chill shoot down Jack's spine.
Preston seemed to mull it over, and as much as Jack hated to give them his attention, it was better than the alternative.
"Garrett calls the shots these days," Preston said finally, once again tightening his grip on Sofía as she whimpered quietly. "I shudder to think what a hormone-fueled teenager would come up with, particularly for a fed who thinks he needs to be rescued." He shot a smirk over his shoulder, towards Mac. "I'd love to watch you try to convince him that he's a victim."
'Garrett' finished up with a shaky cry, and Jack transferred his glare back to Fox. "You two should really...get a room."
Fox's eyes cut back to him—then settled very deliberately on Sofía. "This one will do fine."
Jack's blood ran cold, and he would have straightened if he wasn't already tied as upright as he could possibly be. "Don't you fuckin' touch her—"
"There's another term you should know, Mac," Foxy spoke right over him. "It's called a party favor." He tapped the tablet, where it sounded like the older man had moved in for sloppy seconds, and mercifully stopped the playback. "It's fairly self-explanatory."
Mac hadn't dropped the distressed act, and Jack honestly wasn't sure how much of it was still an act. "It's the truth! I swear, it's the truth. We're working a contract for the federal government—Please! You don't have to do this," he pleaded through clenched teeth, his words accented by short, ragged breaths, even as Fox picked up the welcome kit and unzipped a pouch, selecting a small, light blue pill.
"You're willing to die to protect your boss, and that's commendable. But you're not willing to harm one little hair on her cute widdle head. I knew it the second I met you, Mac." He smiled indulgently at them. "With that in mind, I'm going to go ahead and spend Sofía, here, to confirm your story. When she's been through twenty-four hours of hell, and you're singing the same song? Then I might believe you."
"She's not a commodity! She's a little girl!" The intensity of his own shout made Jack gag.
Fox glanced down at her, then gave a mock gasp of surprise. "Watch your tone, there, Jack. I think you're scaring her."
It stung more than he wanted to admit that Fox was right. Sofía was cowering now against Preston's leg, not away from him—probably because he was the only person who wasn't yelling. The hand that he'd tangled into her hair earlier was now caressing it, running soothingly over the back of her head and neck. The man's eyes, however, were not on the little girl. Instead, he was watching Mac, and his smile was cold.
"Don't! Don't do this. Please," Mac begged, the very picture of a cowed agent. Playing to Fox's ego. "I'll give you everything we have on your operation, just don't do this!"
"This is the other problem with younger kids. They freeze up when they get scared." Fox crouched down beside her, rolling the pill in his fingers. "Sofía?"
"Don't!"
Sofía was weeping loudly, now, still shaking like a leaf, and her tear-stained face remained pointed downwards as her eyes studied the concrete floor with rapt attention. Preston reached around to grab her chin—gently—and pushed it towards his boss.
"Quítate la ropa," Fox instructed, almost kindly.
Take off your clothes.
Jack's stomach lurched, and it had nothing to do with the drugs. "He told you...the truth, you bastard! We work for the Phoenix—"
"So we give them a benzo," Fox continued conversationally, completely ignoring them, as Sofía struggled to turn away from him. "Loosens them up a little. The fun part, when they're this age, is just how damn curious they are once they relax."
Preston reached down and rubbed the girl's back soothingly. Gone was the malice. In its place was something far worse. "Está bien, Sofía."
Even as terrified as she was, the little girl pulled away when Fox held out the pill.
"Stop it! Sofía," Mac almost choked on her name, the desperation thick in his words as she looked at him. "Sofía, escúchame—"
Whatever Mac wanted her to hear, Fox didn't let him say it.
"Sofía, mírame," the man interrupted, his accent flawless, and Sofía glanced fearfully back towards him, obviously unsure what to do, what was happening.
What was going to happen.
Fox was fast. He grabbed the little girl by the front of her t-shirt and dragged her closer, forcefully pinching her face, right on the hinge of her jaw. She gasped, a prerequisite for the scream, and Fox shoved the pill into her open mouth.
"STOP!"
Her cry turned into frantic gagging, and Jack heaved in sympathy, even while Preston reached around from behind her to cover her mouth. Fox then turned his hand, gently stroking her throat with the backs of his fingers.
To make her swallow the pill. Like a vet giving medication to a dog.
Like he'd done it a thousand times before.
Beside him, Jack heard Mac take an unsteady breath, and Fox glanced over at him casually.
"Don't look so devastated," he scoffed, rolling his eyes. "This is nothing compared to what could have happened to her. She would have ended up dead in a ditch in Columbia. I'm sure you do-gooding private contractors have a presence there, helping all the little children, right?"
It didn't matter that they were telling the truth. Fox had already made up his mind, and the Phoenix Foundation—or even DXS—didn't play into it.
They couldn't stop this. Not even if they gave up everyone involved.
Jack thought he could actually hear Mac's teeth creaking. "Don't do this. I told you, I'll give you everything, just stop. Please—"
Fox turned back to Sofía, who had swallowed the pill and was sobbing uncontrollably into Preston's hand. "Te di una instrucción," he told her, not unkindly. "Ahora, quítate la ropa."
I gave you an instruction. Now take off your clothes.
Preston removed his hand to wipe it distastefully on his slacks, and the terrified little girl gasped desperately around her sobs and clumsily grabbed her shirt. Her incessant trembling made pulling it over her head difficult, but eventually, she managed it. Jack wouldn't look at her, his stomach churning relentlessly.
The first time he'd met Riley, she was nine years old, sitting on the couch wearing only a pair of panties, mowing her way through a bowl of popcorn while the flustered babysitter was attempting to explain that Riley's pyjamas were in the wash because Riley had decided that her unicorns needed sunglasses and rocketboards, and had drawn them directly onto her pjs. Jack remembered being in full agreement on the sunglasses and rocketboards, but also feeling faintly embarrassed, not quite sure if it was okay to look at her.
It was nothing compared to the way he felt now.
If you made it through that, you probably feel like you need a shower, just like I did. Immense thanks to Haven126, again; I could not have done this without her. Anyway, take a break if you need to, but please, do continue. There's a fairly happy ending.