Page 4 of Scarred By Love

"Let's go." The man held a gun to Sarah's head and jutted his chin forward. I followed a third man across the deck of the ship. All the while checking my surroundings without making it obvious that I was scouting the place. We bypassed another two men on the way to the lower level. That meant eight men in total so far.

Eventually we were led to the belly of the ship to a cargo hold no bigger than six feet by six feet and certainly not tall enough for me to stand.

"Get in," the guy with the gun demanded.

Sarah's brown eyes, which reminded me of melted chocolate, grew wide as she looked to me. I could see the panic clear as day.

"Go ahead," I encouraged her.

She climbed down first before I slipped in behind her. I was tempted to take the guy out, since there was only one leading us down there, but I needed to bide my time and see if there were more than the eight men I counted and what they wanted with us.

The hatch slammed shut and plunged us into darkness. I waited a few minutes before testing to see if by some bizarre chance the asshole left the lock off, but sadly, the heavy wood didn't budge.

"Oh God." The lack of vision due to the darkness allowed my other senses to kick up a notch and I could hear Sarah hyperventilating across from me. "We are going to die down here, aren't we?"

I wasn't the type of person who gave people false hope. I was more of a straight shooter, so when I answered, I gave Sarah the truth. "I'm going to do everything I can to keep that from happening." It was the best I could give her.

"How the hell can you be so calm?"

I didn't know if it was the hysteria talking or if she was just trying to make conversation, but when I spoke again, it was nothing but the truth even if my answer wasn't something I liked to talk about.

"Because this isn't the first time I've been kidnapped."

CHAPTER FOUR

Sarah

This isn't the first time I've been kidnapped.

Graham's answer played over and over in my head. Despite the panic, my heart ached for the man who was forced to accept this reality not once, but twice.

"Will you tell me about it?" I needed to talk if I had any hope of staying sane. Darkness never bothered me until I was forced in this hole with no way out.

"About what?"

"The first time you were captured." I heard the sharp inhale of his breath, so I quickly continued. "You don't have to, but talking would really help me right now. If you haven't noticed, I'm freaking out a bit and I need a distraction. I know you don't like to talk but sitting here in silence is bound to make me go insane and I figured you wouldn't want that."

I was rambling. That seemed to happen a lot around this man. The poor guy was going to wish he was never forced to sit next to me on that plane.

"It was during my last deployment." When Graham didn't continue, dread started to kick in. The thought of sitting there in silence made my skin crawl. I wasn't sure how I was going to survive however long our captors planned to keep us hostage.

Graham must've taken pity on me because a few minutes later he spoke again. "My entire team was captured. We were ambushed during what was supposed to be a routine check on a village."

"How long were you held?" I asked when it didn't seem like he was going to give me much else. I should've offered to change the subject, but my curiosity was piqued.

"Five weeks."

I gasped. There was no way I could stay locked in this hole for five weeks. I would go insane in a matter of days.

"Is that how you got the scar on your eye?" Probably not my finest transition but, again, curiosity. It was going to get me in trouble one day.

Graham barked out a laugh and it was the best sound I’d heard in a long time. The man sure had a nice one. "No, that honor belongs to my ex-wife."

"Wait, come again? Your ex-wife cut your eye?"

"No, but the man she was openly flirting with in a bar while we were married did."

Okay, this was a story I needed to hear. "You're going to have to give me more than that."

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