Page 24 of Into the Fire: After
With revolting clarity, I blinked until his face before me came into focus. “You let her,” I breathed. “You…you let them get her?”
Betrayal, hot as lava, overtook me.
Brooks swallowed, but didn’t deny it.
“They’ll kill her, Brooks.”
“You don’t pay half a million bucks for someone just to kill them.” His thumbs traced over my cheeks. A calming gesture. It did nothing. “We have time, and we’re getting them out.”
I barely heard him. Barely saw him. Taryn’s beautiful, smiling face in my mind morphed into a mask of agony, sweaty and wretched as they forced her body through endless rounds of artificial heat.
He had no clue.
The words to tell him stalled and died in my throat. They didn’t matter. The truth of it was, he was right. If they were torturing her, then she was still alive, and we still had time.
And if that time ran out before we got her back, before we got Lin and Caine too, I’d burn the entire fucking building to the ground and dare them to rise from the ashes. Because I’d be standing there with matches and gasoline, ready to go again.
Nine
Taryn
Myhairfeltsticky.
Weird what the mind grasped onto in times like these.
After seeing Lin and Caine, I was brought to a shower, where two women stripped me down and scrubbed me clean—scrubbedin the most literal sense. Rough brushes scraped over my still-sensitive skin and through my scalp, ridding my body of dirt and slick and blood and sweat and cum. I gritted my teeth through the whole thing, focusing on my relief I’d managed to slip the memory card to Lin before this.
They used the same clinical-smelling soap on my skin and my hair. Hence the sticky feeling as it dried.
I dressed in an over-the-head medical gown—thankfully no cliche butt views out the back—and was escorted to my new home for the duration of my captivity.
Captivity. Not my life. Because we were surviving this place.
The room was small, plain, clinical, but not overly awful. A medical bed sat in the middle, bolted to the floor. A prison-styletoilet and sink combo sat in the corner in open view of the room—and the four dome ceiling cameras positioned in the corners of the room.
Well, if they want to watch me shit and piss, that’s probably worse for them than me.
The fluorescent overhead light was harsh, one of them positioned directly over the bed.
“Someone will be by with your midday meal shortly,” one of the orderlies said as they both turned toward the door. “Your physical evaluation begins tomorrow morning.”
“What does th—”
The door shut, a lock ominously clicking over the rest of my question.
Apparentlyphysicalevaluationmeantundergoing every damn medical test known to man.
Day one started simply enough. Blood pressure, height, weight, heart rate. Vision and hearing tests. Lung capacity. A quick lunch break—identical to the previous day’s meals, plain chicken breast and broccoli—before a thorough visual inspection of my body, from crown to toes. A female beta nurse in scrubs jotted down notes on every mole, scar, and abrasion she found.
I didn’t get dinner that night so that they could take fasting bloodwork come morning. My growling stomach, still angry from the days of little to no food in the woods, kept me awake despite my exhaustion.
Day two started with vials and vials andvialsof fasting bloodwork. By the sixth one, I was woozy enough I nearly fell off the bed, and they finally gifted me with a tall glass of apple juiceand buttered toast. They allowed me to rest for most of the day, even dimming the lights so I could do more than doze.
How kind.
Day three, breast exam, then pelvic exam. External and internal sonograms to check out the goods, I guessed. I did my best to check out of my body until they’d finished.
Chicken and broccoli. Broken sleep. New day.
