The moon shone brightly on the neon sign of the Godly Succubi. It had been a long time since Maileena saw the place, and a wave of chill crawled through her bones as she did. Lit with a fair blue color, the club's name appeared right above its doors, on the neon sign. Above the letters, the outline of a woman in a cowboy hat was seen, shining red. The woman was lying on top of the letters with one leg stretched upwards and her head bending backward. I hate that demeaning sign. I hate that demeaning place. I hate those demeaning men, Maileena bit her lips.
Demilan looked concerned, as he watched the club from afar near her. She knew what was bothering him. The thought of Telia being held in such a place… it must wreck him. Demilan's duffel bag lay open on the ground beneath him, packed with the ammunition Winselt so kindly provided them with. Winselt was eager to get into the club, but Demilan insisted on watching it for a few more minutes, just to see if something was going on in there. Over the 20 minutes that they had been watching the place, everything seemed quiet from outside. Only one or two men had gone into the club, from what Maileena had counted.
A lone bouncer stood at the club's entrance. A pistol was holstered on his waist. Other than him, the three had no way of knowing how many more were waiting inside, armed.
"Alright," Demilan finally said. "It's time." The words felt ever so warm in Maileena's ear.
"Finally!" Winselt called in excitement. Demilan took several magazines for his Skyla rifle and stashed them in his deep pockets. He loaded the final one in his rifle and checked his sights. Maileena hid her revolver in the back of her pants, making sure it was loaded first. She took two dozens of bullets fit for it and placed them in her pockets. The rest of the equipment, including Winselt's double-barreled pistols, Umbra and Lux, remained in the duffel bag, along with a few more extra magazines and the Dynadiscs Winselt supplied them with. All three placed the earpieces in their ears.
"You know the drill, Maileena," Demilan turned to her. "Take the duffel bag with you into the Showcase Room and wait for Winselt to find his way to you there. Once he's in, the two of you start raining fire on the club. I will then infiltrate the club from the main entrance and take out as many as I can while they're still focusing on you."
"Right," she strapped the duffel bag on her back.
Right before she left, she stood there, facing Demilan. She gave him a warm hug. He trusts me. It meant a lot to Maileena. She wasn’t about to let him down. She wanted to show them what a good apple on a bad tree is capable of.
Maileena then went on her way, going around the club, making her way to the emergency staircase behind it. The bag felt heavy on her back and was constantly making sounds of metal clanging against each other, as it swayed from side to side. Climbing the staircase with such weight on her proved to be a challenge for the young 15 years old, but she made her way to the top of them, finding the grate that would lead her to the infamous room she once swore to herself she would never return to. She removed the grate using a screwdriver that was in the duffel bag. The airway shaft was small and narrow. Knowing that she wasn’t going to be able to fit in there with the duffel bag on her back, she tied its strap to her leg in order to drag it behind her while in the shaft. "Demilan," she said to him through her earpiece. "I'm going into the ventilation shaft now."
"Alright," he said. "Good luck."
As she made her way through the narrow shaft, she could hear voices coming from further within. She crawled through it slowly to remain quiet. The duffel bag was hard to drag, and with the heat that ruled inside the shaft, sweat quickly covered every inch of Maileena's body. Finally, she made it to the Showcase Room. Through the bars of the grate that separated her from the room, Maileena saw the young girls who sat on its floor, some were barefoot and many with dirty, ragged, unwashed clothes, waiting for a client to enter and pick one of them to do his bidding. The clients never cared how the girls were dressed. For them, once those tattered clothes were off, their naked bodies were all the same for all they cared. On that fateful day, I swore to myself… I swore that I would never see that filthy room ever again…
The walls of the room were gray and dirty. A filthy toilet stood in the corner of the room, urine and feces were all but abundant in it. Since the girls would spend hours in that room, they had to share a toilet, and most of the times, that toilet wasn’t working well, filling the room with a horrid stench. Beyond the room's door, Maileena could hear the muffled sound of loud music coming from the club's main hall, the kind that always roamed there. A seemingly random mixture of electronic sounds, wrapped by a booming bass that was so loud that it made the walls of the room shiver.
Maileena recognized most of the girls in the room. Some of the faces appeared to be new. There had been girls of various ages in there, from 11-year-olds to 17-year-olds, though the majority of them clearly belonged to the lower half of that age range. No one smiled in that room. All faces were painted with a dreary and depressed appearance. Kleon always told us to smile whenever a client would enter the room, but none of us could ever bring ourselves to do that.
"Demilan," Maileena whispered ever so quietly into the earpiece. "I made it to the Showcase Room, send Winselt in."
"Copy that," Demilan said. "I'm moving in closer to the club. Winselt, get in there. I'll be waiting for you to give me the green light to go in."
Using her screwdriver, Maileena removed the screws off the grate once again and entered the room. All the girls in the room instantly jumped and some even shrieked. Maileena hurried to quiet them down. "Relax, relax, it's me," she said to them.
"M-Maileena?" one of the girls said.
"What are you doing here?" another asked.
"I'm going to get you out, don’t worry," Maileena looked around the faces, trying to find Vera's, but to no avail. "I'm also looking for my sister, Vera. She's 12 years old. Did you see her here?"
"I did," one said. A great sense of relief washed over Maileena. "But I don’t know where she is now."
"What do you mean?"
"I just… don’t know." The girl shrugged. Is it possible she's with a client right now? Oh, god, please make it not true.
"Hi," she heard Winselt through the earpiece. He must be talking to the bartender. "I'm looking for Kleon Hanford. I'm a friend of Iren Eustis, I'm sure Kleon is expecting me."
"Mr. Hanford is right there," she heard the bartender speak. "Let me see if he's available right now, wait here for a moment."
"I can't believe it," Winselt whispered into his earpiece. "That fucker, Kleon, is sitting there with two girls, one of each shoulder." Maileena recognized that image. Kleon loved feasting on his girls, usually in the back office. Though he generally preferred to have a taste of those who had a ripe body, on some occasions, he allowed himself to violate one of the girls from the VIP section. Fortunately for Maileena, she never got picked by him.
"Mr. Hanford will see you now," the bartender said to Winselt.
"Maileena," one of the girls said. She was one of the younger ones, about 12 years old, just like Vera. "You need to leave. If they find you here, they'll kill you."
"She's right," an older girl said. "Besides, who knows what they'll do to us for not warning them. You're putting us at risk." Soon enough arguments calling for Maileena to leave started to arise in the room in plenty. I remember that fear of theirs. I also used to fear Kleon and his men just like that, but no longer. I'm not the same girl anymore. I'm stronger, and I will NOT let Kleon threaten me anymore. Even if I have to die, I will find Vera and kill every single person in this club.
"Enough!" Maileena brought the commotion to a halt. She pulled out her revolver and stuck it close to her body. "If one more mouth of yours opens, I will put a bullet through it." the girls now seemed frightened, some even backed away against the wall. "Everything is going to be fine, so calm the fuck down."
"Oh, you must be Winselt Langton," Maileena's heart suddenly plummeted as she recognized Kleon's voice through the earpiece. "Iren told me you'd be coming."
"And here I am," Winselt said. "Did Iren tell you—?"
"About the kind of service you expect to get here?" Kleon said. "Yes, he did." Good. Once Kleon lets Winselt into the VIP section, we'll be able to start this showdown. "Well, before we go any further, I suggest we talk about the payment." Oh, no. I forgot how greedy Kleon can get.
"First I'd like to see the kind of… product you're offering. Then we can talk about money."
Kleon started to laugh. "Look, buddy, I don’t know you, and I'm not about to show anything before I see any cash." Fuck. I've heard of how paranoid Reus Mallistrom is, but I've never figured it would rub off on Kleon.
"Mr. Hanford, with all due respect, you have no reason to worry about your payment. Iren vouched for me—"
"I don’t give a fuck about Iren!" Kleon snapped. Maileena heard the tumble of Kleon's hand banging on the table.
"Fine," Winselt said. "I'll make sure he gets your message. I'll also make sure that he'll never set foot in your club again." She heard Winselt get up from his seat.
"Wait!" Kleon stopped him, chuckling right afterward. "I apologize. Iren has been a loyal customer of ours for a long time now. Any friend of Iren's is a friend of mine. Please, let me show you what you desire." Yes! In the end, that bastard is more greedy then paranoid, it appears. Thank god for that. "Oh, hold on for a moment, Mr. Langton," Kleon said. Maileena could hear a weak, faint voice. What's going on now? Is someone whispering something into Kleon's ear?
"What is it?" Winselt asked.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Langton, but… something came up. Please, have a seat. I'll be right with you." What does he mean? What happened?
"Winselt," Maileena whispered into the earpiece. "What's going on over there?"
For a few seconds, she got no response from Winselt, until eventually she heard his voice, muttering words so weakly she could barely hear them. "Oh, shit," he said.
