Page 39 of Strangers in Love

Aline.

Just the thought of what could happen to her made me sick.

For a moment, I was back in Iraq, setting Leo down behind a chunk of concrete. Putting him right in the path of a bomb. And then it wasn’t Leo I saw looking up at me. It was Aline. Bleeding and broken. Just about to be blown up–

It took more effort than I liked, but I was able to shove it all down and bring myself back to the present. If I wanted to keep Aline alive and safe, I couldn’t lose my shit. She needed me.

She needed me.

Something about those three words helped me snap out of it and focus. There was a cold, still place inside me, a place I went to when I needed to make smart, logical decisions. A lot of soldiers had the same sort of thing. It let us do things that others couldn’t. Survive situations without going crazy. We had to be willing to kill, to make choices that could have all types of serious consequences. The only way to really do that was to be able to separate as much as possible from feelings.

I let that click into place inside me, and everything became clear.

Two guards walked by, and I ran forward as quickly and quietly as possible. The little bit of recon we’d done had shown us that this was the best door for us to use since it was tucked back far enough to be hidden in shadows. It also was the only one without a keypad, which meant as soon as Bruce showed up to cover me, I knelt down and pulled two thin metal tools from the front pocket of my vest.

My step-cousin slash sorta-brother Blaze Gracen was a Professor of Education at John Hopkins…and he’d taught all of us how to pick locks. I’d used the skill for some not-so-legit shit more than once growing up, but at least now I got to use it for some good.

Fifteen seconds and I had the door open. Dez went first, and Fever followed. Cain, then Bruce, and me at the end. We split off as we went, each going to our own hallway, with two heading upstairs. We hadn’t known how many hallways we’d have to go down, so we’d planned for several possibilities. One of them would be the right one.

So far, so good.

Twenty-Eight

Aline

I wishedI knew what time it was. Or what day it was.

In my ransom video, I’d said that the ransom was due at noon on Thursday. The problem was, I didn’t know what day or time it was, so I didn’t know where we stood in regard to the deadline.

I had no doubt that my parents would pay, but it would be nice to be able to prepare myself. Prepare the others too. As soon as I was free to talk to my parents, we’d begin the process of getting the others’ ransoms paid. I didn’t want to leave without reassuring them of that fact. They deserved to know that they were going to be rescued soon, especially since they’d all been here longer than I had.

Fighting their despair wasn’t easy. Even though I didn’t know how much time had passed since I’d made the video or since I’d faced off against those guards, I’d been able to watch the progression of negativity in each of the others. I understood how hard it was for them, not knowing for certain if they had the money or the connections available to give our captors what they wanted. Since I didn’t have that particular worry, I considered it my duty to try to keep everyone’s spirits up without being obnoxious about it, which was harder than I’d thought it would be.

The others were asleep, or at least I thought they were. I heard nothing but their breathing and what little I could see of them showed they weren’t moving. No one had said anything for a while, actually, even when I’d known we’d all been awake. That worried me.

When I was seven or eight-years-old, I’d been obsessed with books where people had to survive in extreme circumstances.Hatchet,Island of the Blue Dolphins, evenRobinson CarusoandLord of the Flies. I would spend hours in the library, looking for more of the same kind of stories. Losing the will to live almost always played a role, even in the books written for children. Being isolated appeared to make things worse, but even in pairs or groups, there would come a point when people would stop talking, stop doing things. People trapped in extreme cold succumbed to hypothermia when they gave into sleep.

Cold wasn’t the problem here, but I was afraid that what was happening would have a similar effect. If this was fiction, I’d slap them and tell them to wake up, to keep going, that things were going to get better. That we’d all make it through this alive.

Except every second that ticked by was a reminder that this was real life, and real life didn’t always have a happy ending.

I closed my eyes even though it wasn’t really any darker with them closed. I needed to find that peaceful part of myself again. The place where I could say that I truly believed things would work out and not be lying.

It wasn’t meditation, exactly, but it was a sort of centering myself, grounding myself in the belief that good things did happen. As far as I was aware, my family didn’t know I had to do this sometimes. I’d gotten the impression over the years that they assumed I was always happy and upbeat because I didn’t see the bad in the world. Sure, this situation definitely wasn’t one I’d considered when signing up for Neutral Ground, but I hadn’t been completely naïve.

Maybe.

My eyes flew open at the sound of the door being unlocked. A moment later, the door was pushed open, flooding the cell with light bright enough to make me put up a hand to shield my eyes. I heard the footsteps and realized they were coming toward me a split second before a hand clamped down on my wrist.

“Bitch.”

Him.

Great.

Before the thought had even left my mind, he’d pulled me to my feet. I blinked rapidly, trying to get back my vision. Being able to see wasn’t actually going to help anything, but it would make me feel better.

Then he started toward the door, dragging me along as I struggled to get my feet under me. I heard some movement behind me, but none of the others said anything or tried to stop us. Not a surprise.

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