Page 15 of All The Way Under
I shake my head. “I don’t mean anyone any harm. Please, don’t hurt me. I’ll do whatever you say. I just miss my friend, and that boat was the last thing left of him.”
The driver calms him, using his name, Raza. Raza seems satisfied, or maybe carsick from the winding roads we’re speeding on. He turns back to face the windshield.
I notice he’s fidgeting with something in his lap, and I shift uncomfortably in my seat, trying to get a better view without being obvious. My hands are zip tied behind my back, so when he turns back to face me and I see the syringe, I have a knee-jerk reaction to bash my head forward into Raza’s. But the forward motion was perfect, and even though his nose is bleeding, the needle went through my jeans and into my thigh.
The sedation seeps over my body like a web. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. It’s begun. The part of this that will be the hardest. The unpredictable nature.
Raza is staring at me, fury singeing holes into my soul as blood trickles down his face. “I told you he was holding back,” he says in English.
He wanted me to hear. So he knows I know my act sucks.
“He’s not who he says he is.”
Before I drift completely, I’m hit with a profound sense of failure. I fucked this up before it even began—didn’t even make it to second base.
When I open my eyes, two men are dragging me, legs dangling, to a door that’s built into the side of a craggy, mountain-like feature. The drugs cause me to process everything in a foggy dream state. I hear them grunting as they maneuvermy limp body across the sand, but I know the second my thoughts crystallize.
When I hear her scream.
It’s not the scream of fear or panic like you’d expect. No, no, this woman is fucking furious, incensed beyond all recognition. Then she comes into view, hands wrapped around the bars she’s encased behind, blonde hair wild, hanging loose around her face, mouth open as she devastates our goddamn ear drums with her war cries.
“Put him with asset twelve. Maybe she’ll kill him and make light work for us now that we know he’s not worth much.”
I recognize neither of the men carrying me are the men I know from the drive here.
One of them laughs. “Maybe it will calm her down. She can take out some of that aggression on him.”
We’re close enough now that the burning torches are illuminating her face. Her blue eyes meet mine, and maybe it’s the sedative, or possibly exhaustion, or maybe it’s because I told myself I’d be more like my brother to get through this, but all she looks like is trouble.
Saylor Wyndham locks her gaze with mine and lets out the most feral scream I’ve ever heard in my life.
CHAPTER FIVE
saylor
They called me crazy.They called me an insane woman. They said that I belonged in an insane asylum. All for what? Asking to use the toilet I know they have in their building, instead of the hole in the ground that’s attached to the back side of my mountaincage.
I see Nery and Ravelo dragging a monstrous man toward me, so I decide to show them what crazy really looks like. Screaming until my voice physically gives out seems to be the only thing they respond to. Nothing else gets their attention.
I hear them laughing about something, but their voices are low, so I can’t make out their words.
The man looks up, and I recognize the confusion. He’s coming off the drugs, the jab, and must be a recruit for our island in paradise, sans the paradise. Ravelo laughs again, and I know he’s said something about me because the captive man meets my eyes. Mostly, I look at him long enough to know if he’s someone I can trust or someone who is going to complicate my life further.
When I decide his vibe is not passing the first check, I yell as loud as I can, and as wild as I can manage with a sore throat. Gripping the bars, I shake the door as hard as I can, to no avail.
Ravelo drops the man and comes forward.
“Your roommate just arrived. Move back if you don’t want a jab,” he says in English.
Interesting. Usually, they speak in Portuguese. This must mean the man only speaks English.
“This cage isn’t big enough for both of us,” I scream. “He can go somewhere else,” I say.
Nery drops the guy’s other arm, unable to hold him up on his own. He’s big, muscular, nothing like the two scrawny men trying to hold up his weight.
“He’s going here. Rain is coming, and it’s the only room that doesn’t flood.”
“It always rains here,” I wail. “Every day it rains. How could you engineer something so simple so badly? How? You guys are a bunch of damn morons. I swear to God above, you’re going to kill me with your ignorance before you get your money!”
