Chapter 104: Chapter 104 - Containment
The leader nodded once.
That was enough.
The men moved in immediately. Hands grabbed shoulders and arms, hauling them up one by one. Plastic ties cinched tight around wrists, then ankles, efficient and practiced. No shouting. No hesitation.
Iyisha was pulled to her feet and turned toward Malcolm for a split second before they separated them. Their eyes met.
That look steadied her.
He was calm. Not distant. Present. It settled something in her chest, enough that her breathing slowed despite the cold and the fear tightening everything else.
Waldo kept pleading, voice breaking as they bound him. "Please," he said again and again. "She’s pregnant. Please."
Lauren was sobbing now, quiet and helpless, hands shaking as they tied her wrists. She didn’t fight. She couldn’t.
They dragged out crates from the truck. Dog crates. Heavy wire, reinforced, doors clanging as they were set down on the gravel. One by one, Waldo and Lauren were forced inside separate cages, the metal scraping loud in the night as the doors slammed shut and were secured.
Iyisha’s turn came next.
The crate was cold and cramped, the wire biting into her knees as they pushed her in and shut the door. The lock snapped into place.
Malcolm didn’t fit.
They tried once, measured him with a glance, then shook their heads. Instead, they chained him to a metal rail bolted into the truck bed, wrists high enough to limit movement, links clanking as they tightened them. He didn’t resist. He didn’t speak.
They left them like that.
Thirty minutes passed.
Iyisha counted by her breathing, by the way the cold crept deeper into her bones, by the sound of Lauren crying herself hoarse and Waldo fading into short, exhausted bursts of sound. The men talked among themselves, smoked, laughed softly, unbothered.
Her mind drifted despite her efforts, pulling her back to the camp, to carcasses laid out under lantern light, to animals left waiting while hands were washed and knives were chosen. Not rushed. Not frantic. Just held in place because the work would come soon enough.
That was the feeling now.
Waiting to be processed.
Then engines approached.
Headlights swept the road as a larger truck rolled in. The men moved again, lifting crates, sliding them into the cargo bay, securing them with straps. The metal groaned under the weight.
Malcolm was loaded last, chains rattling as they hauled him up and fixed him in place beside the others.
The doors slammed shut.
Darkness followed.
And the engine pulled them away from the bridge.
The truck jolted as it pulled onto the road, metal groaning under the weight. Iyisha was thrown slightly against the wire and caught herself, breath hitching.
"Okay," Waldo said hoarsely from the dark. "Okay, so what’s the plan?"
The question came out raw, scraped thin by fear.
Iyisha didn’t answer right away. She turned her head instinctively toward where Malcolm had been chained. She couldn’t see him in the dark, only the shape of the truck wall and the sway of shadows, but she knew where he was. She always did.
She opened her mouth, then closed it.
There was no plan.
The truck hit another bump.
"Calm down," Malcolm’s voice came from the darkness, even and steady.
And somehow, she did.
Waldo let out a short, bitter laugh. "Calm down?" he muttered. Then louder, anger breaking through. "This was your idea. The convoy. You said it was safer. Look where that got us."
Iyisha flinched, guilt tightening her chest.
Malcolm cut in immediately. "You agreed to it."
Silence.
"Shut up," he added, voice flat, not raised, not negotiable.
"You—" Waldo started.
"Babe," Lauren cut him off. "Please."
Waldo stopped.
The truck rocked again, suspension creaking. Iyisha shifted and looked toward the open edge of the cargo bed. As her eyes adjusted, she saw them.
Two men sat on the lip of the truck, legs dangling, rifles resting easy across their laps. They weren’t tense. They weren’t watching closely.
They didn’t need to.
"This has to be the Route Group," Waldo said after a moment, voice low, trying to make sense of it. "Has to be. I never thought they’d be operating this far out."
No one answered him.
"I was told this stretch was safe," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else.
Iyisha swallowed, the thought forming before she could stop it. "Told," she repeated quietly. "Are you sure they didn’t give that information away themselves?"
The words hung there.
Waldo didn’t reply.
But she felt it anyway, the sharp turn of his attention in the dark, the weight of his gaze pressing into her like an accusation.
"Stop," Lauren said suddenly.
The word cut through the dark, sharp enough that Iyisha flinched.
"I’m sorry." Iyisha mutteres. What she said sounded like an accusation, like she was trying not to blame Waldo.
Silence followed, heavy and tight.
Then Lauren asked the question none of them had wanted to say out loud. "What are they going to do with us?"
Iyisha knew.
She had known the moment they were priced. The moment the word commodity had settled into the air without being spoken. She kept her mouth shut, jaw tight, because saying it would make it real in a way she wasn’t ready to face.
Waldo’s voice came next, thin and cracking. "The Route is... it’s known for being a red district."
Lauren sucked in a shaky breath. "We’re going to be sold," she said, trembling now. "As slaves, aren’t we?"
The fear in her voice wasn’t dramatic. It was small. Stripped bare. Iyisha felt a sharp ache in her chest at the sound of it, at how young and terrified Lauren suddenly sounded.
She stayed quiet.
On the outside, Iyisha kept herself still, breathing slow, posture held together by force of will. Inside, she was just as unraveled, fear clawing and spiraling, her thoughts breaking apart and reforming too fast to hold onto.
She bit the inside of her lip hard, grounding herself in the sting.
I have Malcolm, she told herself.
The thought wasn’t a plan. It wasn’t even logic. It was a handhold. Something solid to keep her from sliding all the way under.
Malcolm didn’t speak again.
He didn’t offer reassurance. Didn’t repeat himself. Didn’t try to quiet the fear that had settled thick in the crate and the truck bed around them.
And somehow, that steadiness did more than words ever could.
Iyisha leaned back against the cold metal, breath shallow, hands trembling despite her effort to keep them still. Her body didn’t believe it. Her pulse raced. Her muscles stayed locked, ready to flinch at every bump and shift of weight. Fear sat heavy in her chest, sharp and alive.
But underneath it, quieter and harder to name, was something else.
Certainty.
She couldn’t see him. She couldn’t reach him. She didn’t even know what he was thinking now that silence had claimed him again. But she knew he was there, unbroken, watching, enduring. And that knowledge settled into her like a counterweight.
Her body screamed danger.
Her mind whispered safety.
Not because the situation was safe. Not because she believed they would be spared.
But because Malcolm was still breathing somewhere in the dark beside her, still calm, still himself. And as long as that was true, she believed he would not let this end the way the stories did.
She closed her eyes, letting the truck carry them forward into whatever waited next, holding onto that belief with everything she had.
