Chapter 18

Eighteen

Resting was a misnomer for lying there on the floor. Yes, I dozed. More because my exhausted and, at this point, depleted body demanded it. The cold stone had no forgiveness for the bruises I wore like a full body tattoo.

Someone came along at one point and splashed water on me. At least I hoped it was water. My sense of smell was pretty skewed. The splash had done what probably little else could have at that moment. It got me to drag myself up, inch by inch, until I made it to the cot next to the wall.

The cot was hardly softer than the floor. I just didn’t have to fall as far to land on it. Eyes closing, I dragged an arm up to shield my face and eyes from the overhead lights that they never turned off.

My first hole had been permanent darkness.

This one was permanent light.

Keep the prisoner off-center by creating an inhospitable environment. I’d tried keeping track of days by the meals. The inconsistent schedules, the long sessions of torture followed by my own collapses, had made time so insubstantial it just slipped through my fingers.

I sagged against the bed. Deep breaths were hard, particularly with how sore my ribs were. The chances they weren’t cracked had long since disintegrated to zero. I probably wouldn’t notice, except laying flat made it feel even worse.

Hard or not, I needed to work on regular, deep breaths. Maybe if I rolled onto my injured side. That was what they told me back in high school when I cracked two ribs in a car accident.

Seatbelt saved my life, and hurt like a bitch.

Man what I wouldn’t give to trade that for now. That had nothing on this. With a groan I couldn’t quite suppress, I rolled toward my left side. Since everything was injured, there was no one side that was better than another. I just went with the side that put more of my injuries higher than my heart.

Could help with inflammation.

Maybe the stone had too.

It also angled me toward the bars, where I could observe from beneath the shelter of my arm.

My neighbor had yet to return.

Interesting.

A niggle of guilt crawled out of the debris left by the interrogations and the torture. What if she was a victim in all of this too?

Was it possible?

Yes.

A certainty?

Absolutely not.

Could I afford to risk my freedom on the idea of rescuing her?

No.

I wasn’t even sure I could rescue me. If I got out, I could possibly contact help to get her out. I had—connections. Maybe not friends, but I had connections and those I could ask for assistance from. But to get that assistance, I needed to be out of here.

I hadn’t spent the last few years all alone, isolating myself, only to die in a cell.

I might die on my way out. They could kill me. The escape itself could kill me. Risk I was ready to take. At least the dead told no tales and I wouldn’t be able to answer the questions they kept asking.

Laying there, I allowed myself to doze again. Real sleep was impossible. I could pass out. Pain had taken me out a few times. But going to real sleep while I was already vulnerable?

Not an option I was willing to explore. Dozing, however, let me rest and track who came and went. One guard appeared with what looked like it could be a meal. Maybe. In some rustic, far away, fantasy land where they served bread and water.

Wasn’t that against the rules of the Geneva Convention?

He didn’t say anything or offer me anything, just slid the tray in and left. As dry as my mouth was, I didn’t move. On the handful of occasions they’d fed me, that seemed to be a midday meal.

After another interval where I’d lost count of how many seconds because I dozed again. The guard returned. He had another tray with him. I couldn’t see the food, but I could smell it.

Meat. Maybe.

I didn’t care. He stared at the tray on the floor then over at me before he left without a word. Each time he came and left via different doors, but he used the same code. At least as far as I could see.

This time, I didn’t go back to sleep. I started to count the seconds again. Until seconds turned into minutes, and those minutes morphed slowly into an hour.

At the hour mark, I eased my way off the cot. I could have gotten to my feet, but I crawled over to the food and the water. The trembling in my limbs required no effort on my part. Gripping the water, I lifted it to smell. It smelled clean.

No taint.

Still, I stuck a finger in it, then took it out and waited. If there were drugs—I might get a skin reaction. The bread was just—never mind. Crusty and stale, nothing about it was appetizing. Bread and water used to be considered a humane form of punishment.

A step up from flogging.

How…nice for me.

As it was, I finally rinsed the water around my mouth. Just enough to help moisten and then as much as I wanted to drink it, I spat it out. Well, let it dribble out.

I hadn’t spotted any cameras, didn’t mean they weren’t there. But I could only hope watching me had been exceptionally boring enough that my audience went to sleep.

If not, then I needed to move.

Once I got to my feet, there was no stopping until I was free or I was dead.

I rinsed my mouth twice more, then let it dribble out. It soaked the bra I wore. I’d been in my office when they came for me. My clothes had barely survived them taking me. They hadn’t survived my incarceration. They’d torn out the gusset of my panties, but these were still on. So weird and I really didn’t care.

Nudity was the least of my problems.

When I hit twenty minutes in my head, I “knocked over” the water cup and spilled the rest. Then I crawled over to the cell bars and bit by bit, pulled myself up.

When I reached the combination lock, I entered the code with shaking fingers. The faint buzz as it released made me want to sob.

One down.

Moving slow as hell, I headed for the door on the far side. They always took me left for interrogation. I did not want to go that way. The lack of windows meant I had to rely on what I could remember for navigation.

The code entered into the keypad next to the door. It buzzed and the locks released. I’d probably be crying for real if I wasn’t so dehydrated. As it was, I couldn’t even feel the tears forming.

The door pushed outward and I stared into the hall. Cooler air rushed in and it gave me the first taste of something fresher in days. There was a cold bite to the rush of air. Fresh enough that my own stench threatened to bludgeon me.

Tiles like ice beneath my feet helped numb the pain in them, even as it kept me awake and on the move. The hallway was so damn ordinary and unremarkable. No symbols. No addresses Nothing to betray what was here or where.

The first door had a window to glance through in order to stare into the room. The other side was dark, no movement, no light. Nothing.

The next one had a light. It was a cell.

Okay, so I’d probably been in one of these before they took me into the other room. The room was all odd misshapen stones, like it had been carved out of the rock. The door probably looked different on the inside.

Right.

Couldn’t care about them.

I was almost to the end of the hall when I heard the sound of an elevator. Adrenaline flooded my system. There was the pick me up I needed.

With nowhere else to hide, I tried the nearest door after a swift glance inside. It was empty. The lights on low.

Inside, I gripped the handle to keep it from re-securing then pressed myself against the wall. The doors cut off most sound. But a shadow of their passing flickered over the window.

I didn’t remember a window in the door to my cell. It might have been there, but I had no idea.

Heart thudding, I counted to sixty then stole a peek through the window. I couldn’t see anyone.

Didn’t mean they couldn’t be in the cell right next door.

The thunder of my heart gonged like a bass marching drum. The beat increased, the sound so loud in my ears, it was making me lightheaded.

Another sixty seconds was all I could give myself. The surge of adrenaline helped, but the crash was going to be so much more brutal. Testing the door, I pulled it open slowly. A peek out revealed—no one.

I could have wept. Closing the door as quietly as I could, I hurried up the hallway in the direction of the elevator I’d heard. The hall continued past the elevators toward—whatever.

Did I need to go up or down?

I had no idea where the hell I was. I could be a mile underground or in the top of a skyscraper. Not for the first time, I’d kill for an actual window.

Up?

Down?

Fifty-fifty chance of being right.

I flipped a mental coin.

Tails.

I hit the down button.

Now, I just had to pray no one was in the elevator. The faintest sound of whirring had me twisting to look back. There was a camera. The red light on top of it was on.

Yeah. Couldn’t care about that.

The doors opened and the empty elevator was frighteningly anti-climactic.

Inside, my breath coming in shallow pants, I looked at the control pad.

We were on level three.

There was a one and a four.

There was also a G.

Ground.

I pressed the G.

A keypad lit up.

Entering the code, I closed my eyes as I pressed enter. It wasn’t like closing my eyes and looking away would make it work any better than if I just hit enter. Didn’t matter. I needed it to work.

“One more time,” I murmured, clinging to the wall. “Just one more time.” I entered the number and hit enter.

The elevator moved.

Holy shit. My heart was in my mouth, but we were descending toward G.

G had to mean ground. What else could it mean?

Get fucked?

Some dark, macabre part of my brain enjoyed delivering that a little too much. A shiver raced over my skin as the elevator slowed to a stop. The hesitation before the doors opened seemed to last an eternity.

The soft “chime” was so innocuous and yet I still jerked when it sounded. The doors opened to another floor that looked like a lobby, but they still didn’t have windows.

Fuck, I hated these people.

Charging out, I headed for what I hoped were the exit doors. The quivering in my soul reverberated through my frame. I half-stumbled as I left the elevator. There was nothing to catch myself on.

An alarm bleated to life overhead and all the lights went red.

No.

No. No. No. No.

The sound of the klaxon threatened to split open my skull. I made it another staggering step and there was a man there. A guard.

No.

He seized my arm and went to wrench it behind me. I twisted with the movement. I didn’t have the strength to shake him off. So I just let gravity work, as I tangled my legs with his and tried to pull him down.

Not that it proved successful, he caught me with a backhand before he wrenched me to my feet. I swore I was dangling with just my tiptoes touching the floor. When he shook me, I wanted to scream.

Another blow, then he slammed me against the wall. The impact knocked all the air out of me. My ribs screamed. My body screamed. My voice died.

Nothing came out as I raked my jagged, broken fingernails across his face. He swore, one hand locking around my throat as he banged my head on the wall. He drew back his other fist…

Then a bullet ripped through his skull, tearing it apart and spattering me with blood. The fist on my throat went slack along with his expression and then he collapsed.

I still couldn’t make a sound as the klaxon kept shrieking and I turned my head to where the bullet came from.

Impossible.

“Get her,” McQuade snapped as he strode forward, gun raised. Then it was firing. The sound a staccato counterpoint to the wild beat of my heart. Men coming out of the elevator went down, blood speckling the walls behind them.

Or at least I thought it was blood. The red lights made it hard.

A hand brushed my bare arm and I turned to find Locke standing right there.

Locke.

McQuade.

What the hell were they doing here?

How were they here?

“Hey, Patch,” he said, flicking a glance past me before sliding my arm up and over his shoulder. “My turn to watch your ass.”

They were really here.

This wasn’t a trick?

Then a faint smile curved Locke’s lips. “Talk to me?”

“Later Romeo, get Sugar Bear and let’s get the fuck out of here.” McQuade was in front of me again. His dark eyes swept me over from head to toe. “Then I’m coming back here and killing every single one of them.”

Good plan.

“I’m going to pass out now,” I managed. “Sorry.”

Then I dropped.