Page 50 of Ballistic

Climbing out of the car, I scanned the empty streets, before landing on the front entrance. A ratted hotel awning, propped up by two rusted poles, carried the name Grand Hotel. Couldn’t imagine anything grand about the shithole, but maybe in its heyday, it’d been one of the nicer joints on the block.

Chipped concrete led to a door covered in particle board that’d been spray painted black. More black particle board covered the windows at either side of the entrance, too. Thought it might’ve stood completely empty, until the door flew open, and an older man, perhaps in his sixties, stumbled out. Tall, skinny, wearing a disheveled suit and wire-rimmed glasses that made him look like the quiet accountant who worked in the basement of a big corporation. Definitely not the homeless junkies, or scrappers I’d encountered while exploring abandoned buildings. The smirk on his face held a sort of permanence that reminded me of something straight out of Silence of the Lambs.

I stood watching him, as he kept on down the sidewalk, occasionally glancing back with that questionable smugness plastered on his lips.

Something told me I was in for a serious hankering to kill someone before the end of the night.

Pushing through the front door set me standing in an empty foyer, no less abandoned in appearance, with its decaying wood and peeling curls of paint. Broken furniture, and what must’ve once been the concierge desk, lay toppled and ruined. Papers and grime plastered the floor, just like in every other abandoned shithole in the city. Only it wasn’t like any other. I’d already seen the evidence of that skipping his happy ass down the front stairs a moment ago.

The abandonment gave it anonymity, concealing what I suspected was going to be some really bad shit.

A dark and ominous hallway stood before me, and I strode forward, boots crunching against the broken glass scattered across the floor. Hairs on my neck stood high. I didn’t want to see what lay on the other end of the corridor, but that was the shit thing of it, why so many places like that one existed—no one wanted to see. Only those brave enough to open their eyes could put a stop to it, but I’d be lying if my guts weren’t telling me to get the fuck out of there.

It’d been a couple years since I’d lost Livvie, but finding out how she’d died, seeing it play out on some fucked-up video, would stay with me forever. It’d messed with my head so much, I’d gone in search of a total stranger, putting myself in the crosshairs of one of the city’s most notorious criminals.

I arrived at a door, and the moment I knocked, a small square peephole door slid to the side, the light from within slicing the surrounding darkness. No word spoken. No instruction, at all.

I warily slid my tattooed wrist through the hole, and something rough and abrasive scratched against my skin. I clenched my jaw as the burn fanned out from where the tattoo sat on my forearm. The second I slid my arm back out of the hole, the door opened, showing a large, obese man sitting on a small stool—a sight that would’ve been humorous, if not for the anxiety muddling my head. A tiny anteroom, like a coat check at one time, muffled the sounds faintly bleeding through the door ahead of me.

Staring off, I held my arms up while the guy performed a quick pat-down.

Something jabbed my arm, and I looked down to see a white mask dangling from the bouncer’s fingers. He didn’t bother waiting for me to slip it on, before he opened the second door and stepped aside for me to pass through.

That was when I noticed everyone wore the masks, except for the strikingly young girls walking around in bondage wear. One must’ve only been seventeen, standing alongside a husky figure in a suit and tie. She wore a leather under-bust corset, with a strap that climbed up between her bared breasts to a cuff attached around her throat. Two cuffs at her wrists had been attached to small chains fixed to either side of the corset, limiting her movement. Another strap hardly covered her front bits, leaving a small patch of hair peeking out from either side.

A second girl, maybe slightly older than the first, set her hand on the arm of another man, her getup similar to the other girl’s, aside from an O-ring gag and nipple clamps.

Must’ve been a dozen girls walking around, while the men sat fondling them, or interacting with each other. Some wore suits, while others wore more casual clothes, like mine.

Muscles keening with tension, I slid the mask on for anonymity, in the event I ended up killing one of the other disguised motherfuckers by accident.

The room beyond opened up to what I guessed had been a banquet hall, in its time. Slightly more restored than the lobby of the place, the walls had been painted black with silver accents all throughout. Silver trim, silver sconces, and small silver tables and chairs, closing me into a small cage, as I stepped inside.

Making my way toward the bar, I breathed hard through the mask, a piss poor effort to calm the storm brewing inside of me. Felt claustrophobic all of a sudden. I needed a drink before I risked doing something stupid.

The bartender strolled up with a rag in his palm, which he used to wipe down the bar’s surface. “What can I get ya?”

“Whiskey. Double-shot.” The words beat against the plastic covering my face, and I wondered if he could hear the wobble in my voice as I started to lose my shit.

“You got it, my man.”

While he poured the double, I looked around the room again. How the fuck would I find the asshole, particularly as I didn’t know his face, even if I could see it? I lifted the mask just enough to tip back the shot, letting the burn kill the string of curses trapped in my throat.

At the brush of something soft against my arm, I turned to find what had to be the youngest girl in the place. Bile rose up in my throat, while a twinge of panic shot it back down. I’d have been surprised if she was twelve, walking around in tight, black, boy shorts and a top that cut down to her stomach. I wanted to remove my jacket and cover her up, take her out of the shithole, but I fought the urge prodding at my muscles.

Patience.

“Wanna hook up?” Her slight voice matched the shame in her eyes, and the way she looked away told me she wasn’t prepared for the rejection she was about to get hit with.

I couldn’t even look at her without wanting to stab the shit out of every cocksucker in the place.

How the hell did a young girl like that end up there? A runaway? Did they swipe her up from her family? She go willingly?

I scanned down to the skinny metal band, so tight around her wrist, it almost seemed fused within her skin. A circular silver object, attached like a charm, had a plastic face that looked like a digital watch. “What’s that?” I asked, ignoring her question from before and trying to keep my eyes on her face instead of the outfit that put her too-small breasts on display. Not as bad as the BDSM suits, but not what I’d call better, either.

My skin crawled with the encounter, and even if my intentions were to track down and kill one of the assholes in the place, I felt dirty just being there.

She glanced down and back to me. “GPS tracker. You’re new here, aren’t you?”