Page 23 of Lethal Pursuit

In the midst of that suffocating void, the waiting, the anticipation of pain was almost unbearable. She didn’t understand why he’d asked the man to unroll the rug and leave. Unless he was coming back with something. Another prisoner, or maybe a weapon? A torture tool? A list of possibilities ran through her mind. Pulling out her fingernails. Gouging out her eyes. Cutting her. Her breathing sped up, despite her effort to control it. Shit, she didn’t know if she could withstand whatever he had in store for her.

A low chuckle filled the vacuum of silence. “Very good. You should be afraid,” the man said softly, the satisfaction in his tone making her skin prickle.

Half hidden in shadow, she didn’t see his arm move. His open palm flashed out and hit her cheek with a resounding crack that swung her head around. Maya gasped and clenched her teeth together to keep from crying out. Her heart gave a terrified jolt as she collected herself. The left side of her face stung and her eyes watered.

During the brief SERE course, they’d told her to cry out, to vocalize her pain and fright if a captor beat her, because it usually made them go easier. Now that it was actually happening, that stubborn part of her demanded she stand her ground and refuse to give in. And she knew in her heart that crying and begging would do no good anyway. This man had no mercy in him.

Another blow landed on the opposite cheek, this one with more force. She flinched and instinctively cringed away, but her arms were tied too tightly for her to move much.

“Why are you fighting here?” he demanded ruthlessly, towering over her.

“My country asked me to,” she answered in defiance, breaking the protocol of only giving name, rank and serial number.

“It is not your place to invade and occupy our sacred homeland. We will expel you as we have all the other occupiers.” This time his fist slammed into her stomach.

Though she’d tensed her muscles, the punch still caught her off guard. She doubled over with a grunt and sucked in a shallow breathas the blow set off a blaze of fire across her damaged ribs. Her face was clammy with perspiration when she managed to open her eyes and force her body upright. In the light she saw him unbuckle his belt, heard the leather slither through the loops holding it around his waist and wanted to vomit.

You can take this. Youwilltake this. Pain and humiliation won’t kill you. You have to survive. You promised.She was shaking so hard her teeth were chattering. The gnawing fear, the sense of disbelief that this was truly happening, were paralyzing.

He lowered his hand and waved the belt slightly, making the leather strip come alive, slithering along the ground like a snake waiting to strike. Her stomach rolled.

But he didn’t drop his pants or make a move to undress her. Instead he raised his arm and brought the belt down sharply across her thighs. Maya arched under the bite of the leather through her pants as pain exploded in her nerve endings. A jagged gasp ripped from her throat before she could control it. She strangled on it, fighting to hold it back, not let him see how frightened she was or how much it hurt.

“Say it.”

Saywhat? What the hell did he want her to say? She could barely breathe, much less speak.

He brought the belt down again and again in angry yet controlled movements, lashing her thighs, her upper arms, across her upper back, wherever he could reach. “Say it! Tell me how much it hurts.”

Maya squeezed her eyes shut and bit down hard on the insides of her cheeks, something primal in her refusing to cry out. She was a lieutenant in the United States Air Force. It was her duty to fight. She’d vowed it to her fellow airmen, to her country. Her only power now lay in resistance. She couldn’t give in, couldn’t show fear now, because it would only fuel his cruelty.

His open hand slapped her across the face again, and this time she tasted the metallic tang of blood in her mouth. A strange roaring filled her ears, her heart racing too hard, too fast. Sparks of light flickered behind her closed eyelids, her body fighting against the agony sizzling along her nerve endings.

The man was panting now, and she knew it was more from ragethan exertion. Not only was she his enemy, she was a woman. In his mind, that made her lowlier than an animal. “Infidel whore,” he spat, and punched her beneath her left eye. His knuckles plowed into her cheekbone with a sickening crack.

She screamed, her head snapping backward with the force of the blow, the momentum throwing the chair back. She hit the floor with a thud. The back of her skull smacked into the hard ground, her left wrist taking the brunt of her weight as she fell, crushing it beneath the chair back. She felt the bone snap. Shards of agony splintered through her arm, ribs and across her damaged face.

A strangled cry tore from her, her lungs compressed against her ribs. Gasping for air, whimpering now, she turned her head weakly to spit out a mouthful of blood, wondering if she would die in this room.

And he wasn’t done with her yet. Without raising her up, he wrenched at the laces of her boots and tossed them aside. Disoriented and nauseated from the blinding pain encompassing her, Maya tried to lash out with her feet, but the bonds held her ankles to the tipped chair’s legs. He yanked off her socks and before the cool air on her feet registered in her whirring brain, he raised the belt high in the air and lashed it down with a loud crack on the tender soles of her feet.

The first blow tore through her nerve endings like a blowtorch. Maya forgot how to breathe, her whole body going rigid with the hot shock of it. He did it again. And again. The merciless leather bit into her ultra-sensitive skin with each lash. It was electric, unlike anything she’d ever imagined. Every cell in her body was on fire, writhing in agony.

She dimly realized she was screaming and gritted her teeth to stifle the noise. Her body arched and twisted with each cruel lash of the belt in an effort to escape the torment, despite her other injuries. The pain was hideous, inescapable, hitting her everywhere at once, overloading her nervous system.

Maya shook and fought for each desperate gasp she drew into her aching lungs. When he stopped, she pried open her wet, swollen eyes a fraction of an inch to stare up at her tormentor with undisguised loathing.

Her show of hatred seemed to amuse him. One side of his mouthcurled up in the midst of that heavy beard. “Scream,” he taunted piteously, the amber glow of the lantern transforming his face into a terrifying mask of hollows and shadows. His yellow eyes gleamed like a demon’s. He was getting off on her pain, she realized distantly as she fought the despair swamping her.

“I’ll keep going until you give me what I want. Scream to your infidel God to save you. I want them tohearyou in their cells, woman,” he snarled, once again raising the belt.

Something inside Maya shriveled and died at his words. In that terrifying moment, waiting for the next vicious lash of the belt, she finally realized what he was after. More than just her suffering and degradation. He had a more malevolent intent in mind.

He was going to use her as a weapon to break the male captives.

Tears of horror and pain stung her eyes and she managed to shake her head, a last show of defiance. “N-no.”Please let me make it through this. Please don’t let him break me.

Those hellish eyes glowed in the lantern light. “Scream,” he commanded and brought the belt down on the tender soles of her feet in another cruel, whistling arc, this strike harder than all the others.

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