There is a file attached to the email containing multiple photos and a document. I click into the document, reading the first line to myself. ‘PHOTO ONE - fourteen year old caucasian, blonde hair, brown eyes.’ I scroll down to the bottom of the document, the last line reads ‘PHOTO THIRTY SIX - seventeen year old Caucasian, brunette, blue eyes.’ Each has a price next to them and a box where depending on whether or not they were a virgin it was ticked. Mother. Fuckers.

Hesitantly, I open the first photo and sure enough it’s of a young girl who matches the description of ‘photo one’. She’s standing there, staring blankly down the lens of the camera. Her eyes silently scream for someone, anyone, to help her.

“Fucking pieces of shit!” I yell, slamming my fists down onto my desk.

We need to do something. Now.

* * *

Jesse

My phone rings through the Bluetooth in the ute and I accept the call. Tanner’s voice booms through the speakers before I even have a chance to say hello.

“Where the fuck are you?”

Oh hot damn, he’s in a mood. “Hello to you too, lover boy. I’m on my way home from school. Why? What’s up?”

“You need to get your ass over here, I have something for you to see.”

Tanner’s voice is dark. Normally, if he’s moody there is a hint of ‘I don’t want your bullshit’ in his tone, today his voice is laced with something else. I wrack my brain thinking of what could have pissed him off this much. I must get lost in thought because he huffs, mumbling something under his breath on the other end of the call.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll go home and get changed, feed Lou her dinner and then come to your place.”

The dial tone that sounds tells me he ended the call. Well shit. Shifting into fifth gear, I speed down the highway to home.

It’s been a little over a week since we first drove out to what we now call The Chemist. I thought the name was fitting, they are making and selling drugs out of there after all. Since that day, Tanner has been monitoring their security cameras. We have a pretty good idea of their ‘work hours’, if that’s what you want to call it, and the schedule they are running on.

“I feel like an FBI agent,” I say out loud to myself.

No, Jesse, not cool. This is why I need Kinsley around, she’s my voice of reason.

“Repeat after me, we are not FBI agents.” Before I can even repeat it back to myself, I break out into laughter. Far out, it really has been a long week.

Turning the ignition off, I collect my bag from the backseat and make my way inside. Lou-loo greets me, like always, wagging her tail and zooming up and down the entryway.