Page 12 of Deceptive Lies

“You were going to disobey my orders this morning,” Professor Mahmoud said as his shoes became his whole body and he landed on the floor of her tiny cell just a couple of steps away from her.

Even though the air outside wasn't much cooler than the stifling air trapped in her musty little oven of a cell, it was still cooler, and for a moment Willow ignored the maniac standing before her and took a few gulps of it. Since the heat was pretty close to unbearable, there was a constant sheen of sweat on her skin, it made her skin slippery, and every movement had the cuff around her wrist slide around. At first, she’d thought that it could be a way to slip her hand right out of the cuff, get the drop on Mahmoud when he came for her, and find a way to escape.

Now she knew it was just another thing to cause her pain.

Now as she stood slowly, shakily, it banged against her already bruised and torn skin.

Every ounce of pain as she drew herself up straight, refusing to cower before this coward of a man, served as a reminder of how quickly her life was rushing to an end. It was like her body had been turned into an hourglass, each beating caused a little more sand to fall from one side to the other. When all the sand was gone …

Then she would be too.

But that didn't mean she would cower.

No way.

She knew she was doing something dangerous when she decided to follow Professor Mahmoud to Egypt. She’d weighed the risks against the gains and concluded that it was worth it.

If this was how she was going to die, she could at least hold her head up high and know that she’d done her best to take her father’s tragedy and turn it around, make it something good.

“I didn't speak a word, I followed your rules,” she told the professor, gaining a small rush of satisfaction at the annoyance that flaredin his eyes.

This was the only bit of power she possessed in this situation. Her ability to stand her ground and not fold before the man who thought he had a right to do as he pleased and hurt whomever he chose.

All Willow could pray for was that she could hold onto that strength right until the end. That even as she took her final breath, she didn't give this psychopath the satisfaction of begging, pleading, or cowering.

“You were going to,” Professor Mahmoud snapped.

“But I didn't. And you have no way of proving otherwise.” That was kind of a silly comment to throw at him since proof meant nothing there. She wasn't being charged with a crime and wasn't standing before a judge in a court of law. There were no rules, there were just men who would do whatever it took to force their beliefs on the rest of the world.

“You are not very smart are you, Ms. Purcell?” Professor Mahmoud snarled as he stepped closer, snapping out a hand to wrap around her neck and shoving her back up against the wall just like the American had done to him several hours ago. “You do not seem to learn your lesson no matter how many times I teach you.”

That’s because the lesson he wanted to teach her wasn't one she was willing to learn.

She didn't believe, as he did, that women were nothing more than vessels to be used to provide the next generation of boys they could train to become just like them. Slaves to cook, clean, and cater to their every whim.

Nothing he could do would ever make her believe that.

It killed the professor that it was a woman who had been trying to bring him down, and while he was enjoying inflicting his punishments, it was infuriating to him that he couldn’t bend her to his will. Which was why it was so important that she stood firm.

Stay strong.

You can do this.

If you don’t believe in yourself nobody else will.

The pep talk was enough that she only grunted when his fist connected with her stomach, shoving the air from her lungs.

Another followed quickly after, and then a third.

Predictable as he was, Professor Mahmoud stepped back after that.When his hand left her throat, Willow sagged forward, dragging in breaths and doing her best to compartmentalize the throbbing pain in her stomach.

“I will break you,” he snapped as he pulled out a key and unlocked the cuff from around her wrist then threw her over his shoulder. Like always, he passed her up to one of his men standing above the trapdoor, then climbed up to join them.

Snatching her from his friend’s arms, the professor literally threw her onto the ground, her body bouncing from the force, then stood above her sneering down at her. With the bright blue sky surrounding them and the sun highlighting him from behind, making him appear more shadowlike than human, Willow felt she was looking directly at the devil.

This man was pure evil, there was no other way to describe him.

The only comfort she could take in her death was knowing that upon it, every scrap of evidence she’d managed to uncover would be sent directly to her boss, the cops, the university the professor worked for, and a government contact she had. Before getting on the plane, she’d left instructions with her lawyer that if no one heard from her in a month, he was to access her files and pass them along to the designated people.

---