The man left the room through a door opposite of where she was, as soon as he was out of sight Alice and the officers walked over to the cage. Some of the girls almost screamed but the others covered their mouth recognizing the officers; Alice talked to them quietly trying to sooth them as she worked at picking the lock. The girls screamed in terror and told her to look out as they all moved at the same time. Alice turned and just got out of the way of a flying hatchet that stuck in the wall on the other side of the cage. The police were about to go for the guy but Alice told them to get the girls out to safety.
The men weren’t happy about it, but they did as she told them and Alice faced the kidnapper. She stared at him trying to figure out his next move, and then all of a sudden the man lunged at her with a knife drawn. Alice jumped far enough that the knife just skimmed her side rather than stabbing through her stomach.
“Whatever it is that happened to you; is it really bad enough that you have to hurt these girls?” she asked as the police got the girls into the tunnels. He’s even grosser than I thought, that scar on his face is terrible. It looks like he was burned…
“Yes,” The man mumbled angrily through his partly sealed lips, “it was girls that did this to me!” He shouted and pointed at his face.
“But did those girls do anything to you?!” Alice screamed. “They don’t even know you!”
The man almost replied but the officers ran in with handcuffs and put them on his arms. Alice began to relax and allowed her stomach to unclench once the man was taken out of the room. She went back through the tunnels and climbed out, she walked out of the church into the warm sunny town. All the girls’ families were there hugging their daughters/sisters and crying happy tears. They cheered and ran to Alice and hugged her when they saw her.
Alice approached the old man again; the police still had him restrained. She looked at him with icy glaring eyes. “You are a terrible person. What happened to you is no excuse for what you did to these girls.”
He looked up at her with sad eyes, “I know. I’m sorry.” He confessed.
“Sorry doesn’t cut it!” Alice screamed, she felt tears burn at her eyes but blinked them away. “You’re a disgusting pig and you’re harming girl that didn’t do anything to you. If you’d sold them before I’d gotten here they would have probably lost their families forever. The people you sold them to could have taken things away from them that they didn’t want to give!”
The man stared at her along with the families and police. They were all surprised at how she appeared to be so close to this case. His eyes relaxed a little as he realized her feelings of hate weren’t actually directed at him. “I’m sorry,” the man said anyways.
Alice looked at him for a long time not saying anything. She pulled her eyes away as just one tear escaped from her eyes. “You should be,” she whispered quietly enough that only he heard. “You’re just like the man that did it to me.” Then Alice went back to her dark-purple dust-covered SUV and started it up to leave. She drove off alone again with nothing but the white noise keeping her company.