Page 24 of Lethal Pursuit

She screamed. She couldn’t help it. The agonized cries tore out of her without her permission and she couldn’t stop. Time and space lost all meaning. Her entire existence shrank into a red haze of pain. The uncontrollable sounds of her suffering rang unchecked off the cavern walls and down the corridor to where the other cells lay.

EIGHT

JACKSON WAS INhell and there was no way out.

As a battlefield airman at higher risk for capture, after basic SERE school he’d been selected for advanced training, which amounted to “advanced beatings.” He’d hated every moment of it. He’d surprised himself with how well he’d handled the pain, but part of him had always known the handlers would stop short of life-threatening damage.

The captors here had no such limitations.

The sounds of Maya’s terror and agony slowly stripped away his resolve to stay detached. Locked in his cell with his hands and feet bound and forced to sit idly by while they tortured her was almost more than he could bear. He’d give anything for the chance to charge in there and kill the man responsible, set her free, bargain for her life with his own.

Her screams raised the hair on the back of his neck and made his gut twist. They’d started out low and muffled, but now they echoed down the corridor, filling every atom of space with her terror and suffering.

He couldn’t block them out. Couldn’t stop praying. Those screams were real, not staged. He knew they were because she was yelling in Spanish, begging for mercy. Her voice was choked, hoarse. Desperate. And still the man torturing her didn’t let up. He’d pause for only a few minutes, as though to let the worst of the pain recede, then start in all over again. Jackson took a deep breath and released it slowly, fighting back the red haze of rage. He wanted to kill that motherfucker for hurting Maya.

He could hear something striking her flesh repeatedly. His mind conjured up dozens of horrific scenarios, each one of them as terrible as the last. He dug his numbed fingers into the rock wall andclenched his muscles until his body trembled. Nothing helped.

“Fucking monsters,” Doug muttered under his breath, shifting in agitation against the wall of his own cell. He’d been silent since the interrogation began, but obviously it had taken a toll on him too.

Jackson didn’t respond. He couldn’t because he’d either choke on the words or puke, he wasn’t sure which.

The kid standing in the corridor began pacing again, back and forth down the length of the cells, fidgeting and running a hand through his hair. It was clear he was uncomfortable with what was happening in the other room, though he did nothing to try to stop it. He was too afraid of his leader.

Jackson had already tried to get the kid’s attention, but either he was ignoring him or didn’t speak English. He hadn’t responded when Jackson had spat something at him about whether beating an unarmed woman was the true practice of Islam. From the kid’s increasing agitation, he damn well knew it wasn’t.

When the last scream faded into stillness, Jackson held his breath, praying it was over. Nothing came from the room now but low moans, sobs. His lungs constricted at those heartbreaking sounds. He had to squeeze his eyes shut and think of something else to erase the image of Maya spread out on the floor naked, beaten and bleeding. Or worse.

Fuck.

“Mohammed.” The sharp command came from the room Maya was in, followed by something in Pashto Jackson couldn’t understand.

The boy snapped to attention and took a halting step in that direction then hesitated, as though he had no interest in seeing what his leader had done to Maya. He swallowed audibly and began walking down the corridor. A few minutes later he returned, carrying her across his shoulders.

Jackson sat up, heart pounding. The lighting was poor at best, but his eyes remained riveted to her. She lay limp across Mohammed’s shoulder, her head lolling with each step. She was dressed, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been violated sexually. Her shallow, rapid breaths shuddered in and out, telling him she was still conscious. Every few seconds a pained, pitiful whimper cut through the silence.

The pressure of tears filled his throat. He swallowed them down, keeping his blurry gaze on her as Mohammed took her to the empty cell next to Jackson’s and placed her gently inside. Even that seemed to cause her a great deal of pain, because her breath caught and she gave a throttled cry that ripped through the quiet.

Mohammed froze in uncertainty, laying her down only when his leader snapped something at him. He stepped away and closed the cell door behind him.

Soft treads approached, and the man responsible for her suffering paused in front of the partition between Jackson’s and the Sec Def’s cells. He carried a lantern in one hand, the candle now burned down to a stub. But it gave just enough light for Jackson to see Maya’s body.

She was curled on her side in the middle of her cell, facing toward him. The light glinted off her unbound coffee-colored hair, and Jackson got his first glimpse of her face. He sucked in a swift breath and bit down so hard his molars ached. Fucking Christ, the bastard had beaten her to a pulp.

One eye was already swollen shut. Her cheeks were wet with tears and blood trickled from a wound in her mouth. She cradled her left wrist against her body, and her shallow breathing told him it hurt to draw a breath.

The primal male in him howled in agonized outrage that they’d done this to her. The medic in him was terrified she might have internal damage and bleeding. Every single muscle in his body was rigid to the point of snapping, rage and horror flooding his system so hard and fast it made him dizzy. Only his bound hands prevented him from reaching for her.

Holding the lantern, the leader stood there quietly for a time, as though he wanted them to see exactly what kind of damage he’d inflicted upon her. When he spoke, there was a quiet smugness to his voice that only intensified Jackson’s hatred. If he got the chance, he’d kill him with his bare hands.

“Your female colleague had nothing of value to offer me. But you do,” he said pointedly to Doug. “For her sake, I pray you cooperate with our demands. If not...” He let the sentence dangle for a moment, purposely building the tension. “I am not sure she can withstandmuch more of that.” With that, he turned away and strode back down the corridor, taking the light with him.

The instant the rug swung back down over the opening, Jackson was on his knees, crawling up to the bars that separated them. “Maya.” His throat was so tight it came out as a croak. “Maya, can you hear me?”

“She’s in shock,” Doug said, as if Jackson couldn’t tell that for himself. “Maybe she’s better off that way.”

Jackson’s hackles rose and he ignored the man’s advice. “Maya, I’m here. I’m right here, can you hear me?” His heart was in his throat and for a long moment he didn’t think she would respond. Then he heard her shifting ever so slowly in the darkness, a little gasp of pain falling from her lips. “Maya...”

“H-hurts,” she whimpered, a bare whisper of sound that told him the effort of speaking was too painful to bear.

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