The Wolf Code

Senora reached out and squeezed Hannah’s hands to reassure her, then interrupted her thoughts with more questions to keep Hannah from getting trapped in the ‘what ifs.’  She was going to have a hard enough time recovering from this experience; there was no need for her to go down the rabbit hole just yet.  Too much thinking about what she’d endured would only make her more hysterical, and Senora could see that the poor girl was barely holding it together as it was.  Yes, she was brave.  But six hours of running and hiding in the wilderness and the exhaustion that followed would make the most stoic of people a sobbing mess.  Senora needed her calm and collected so she could get all the information out of her.

Hannah kept talking, describing the drive and what she saw when she woke up at the barn.  Her descriptions were thorough and vivid, showing an eye for detail most people twice her age didn’t have.  She was the perfect witness, and Senora had no doubt that she would be instrumental in bringing the Sheriff and his cohorts to justice.

 If there were more girls than just Addie and Hannah –which Senora was sure there were – this had the potential to be a huge case that dragged on for years.  Senora hoped that Hannah was strong enough to endure so much, and if she was, this bust might very well save the lives of dozens of young girls just like Hannah.

Something Hannah said tugged at the back of Senora’s mind.  She tried to ignore it, letting her subconscious stew on it for a few minutes in hopes that it would come to the forefront on its own.  Her tactic worked, and all at once, she stood, her excitement barely contained as she rushed to grab the file.

“Did you say you were tied in a horse stall?” Senora asked, flipping through the pages until she found the one that had caught her attention.  “Was it bedded with fresh stall, but there was no sign that horses had occupied it recently?”

“Yes,” Hannah said. 

Senora read further, deciphering the notes and relaying the information to Hannah. 

“Yes!” the girl said, almost excited that the information Senora had was exactly what she’d experienced.  “There were guards all around, and there were a lot of stalls.  It was a really big barn, and I didn’t hear any road sounds or any signs that there were neighbors while I was there.”

“Were there other girls in the stalls?” Senora asked.

“I didn’t see any,” she said.  “But I was drugged, and I was so foggy that I didn’t look.”  Hannah frowned, and her eyes started to well up.  “I hope I didn’t leave anyone trapped in that barn,” she said, then covered her mouth and fought the tears that spilled out.  “Oh no, what if I left someone there to die?  What if that’s who they shot?”

“They shot someone?”

“I think they did.  When I was in the woods, I heard gunfire in the distance.  Just one shot, but I was sure it came from the barn.  I heard four-wheelers later, but they never came my way, and I took the trail that looked the least traveled every time it split.”

“Why?” Senora asked.

“I didn’t want them to think I went that way and find me faster.  I didn’t have a watch or my phone, and I didn’t know how far I was ahead of them.  But even with a big head start, they had four-wheelers and were much faster.  I couldn’t outrun them, so the only way to survive was to outsmart them.”

“You definitely did that,” Ty offered.  “You said it was midnight right before you got away?”

She nodded.

“You didn’t run into Senora until right around six.  So, you were in the woods alone for six hours, and you not only managed to evade the Sheriff, but you also avoided getting eaten by a mountain lion.  That’s pretty impressive.”

Senora shot him a look, but Ty just shrugged.  She would talk to him later about things that were best left unsaid, though it should have been common sense not to tell someone as young as Hannah how close they likely came to being food for some wild animal in the night.

Senora decided to take a chance and sat down next to Hannah on the bed.

“Does anything else in here make sense to you?” she asked.

Hannah took the file and laid it on the bed in front of her.  She read the first page and set it aside, and did that two more times before something grabbed her attention.

“This,” she said, pointing.  “This has to be stall numbers and the occupants.  There were twelve stalls; I’m sure of it.  And that, that’s the height and weight of everyone in the stall.  BL means blonde and BR means brown.  These are other victims.”

She handed the paper back to Senora, and Senora looked where Hannah had been reading.  Sure enough, she saw what Hannah saw, and she knew that the girl was right.

But how did Robin get that information?  And why was it in Addie’s file?

“You didn’t see or hear anyone else?” she asked Hannah, trying to keep her tone light so that Hannah’s already guilty conscience didn’t think that Senora was blaming her for being the only one to escape.

“I heard nothing, but I don’t think the barn is for holding people long.  I heard the Sheriff talking, and they were going to take pictures of me and list me on the auction site by four in the morning.  I think the barn is just a holding place until the victims are sold.”

Hannah shuddered, and Senora waited for her to continue.

“The way they were talking, they have regular customers and a lot of them.  Senora, what are they doing with all the girls that the Sheriff and his men kidnap?”

Senora shook her head.

“We can’t really know,” she lied. 

Senora knew all too well what happened to people like Hannah that weren’t lucky enough to get away, but Hannah had been through enough.

Senora smiled then, patting Hannah’s hand again. 

“You need to get some rest.  We need you to help us find this barn, but you can’t go out there like this.”