Page 44 of Stolen Faith

Brennon cleared his throat. “That…sounds like you know from experience.”

Rowan shifted uncomfortably. “SERE training includes some R2I.”

“Ah yes, those are letters in the English language, and we totally know what they mean,” Brennon joked.

“Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape training covers many different situations, including how to resist interrogation if captured. But like I said, the first thing they say is that you can resist interrogation, like Izabel did, but you can’t resist torture. You will break. Everyone does.”

“I can’t help but notice he didn’t answer the question about knowledge based on experience,” Brennon said. “Saving something for the honeymoon?”

Rowan shrugged, but again didn’t reply.

“If they come back,” Izabel said softly. “I will…” She cleared her throat. “That was terrifying. I thought I was going to drown, and I couldn’t do anything. I’m helpless here. I can’t stop them. Nothing I say or do…” She blinked and a tear slid down her cheek. “I hate crying. It makes me feel weak.”

“Okay, that’s…we’re going to unpack that,” Brennon said.

“Therapy,” Rowan agreed. “But if they come back, you’re going to employ some other R2I techniques.”

“Like what?” Brennon asked.

“Look at me, Izabel.” Rowan used his command voice. Her gaze snapped to him. “If they put your head under the water, you fight for a count of forty, then go limp. Don’t think about breathing, don’t think about what happens next. All you think about is the next number.”

“How can I—”

“One. What comes next?” He barked the words.

“Two,” she said softly.

“Next?”

“Three.”

“Good. All you hear if your head goes under that water is numbers and my voice saying ‘next.’”

“What happens when she gets to forty?” Brennon asked.

“At forty, stop fighting. You go limp. Every part of your body. It will hurt with the zip-ties, but you go limp. Imagine yourself getting heavy.”

“You want her to pretend she’s passed out,” Brennon said.

“Yes. Get heavy, that’s all you think about. How heavy you can make your body.”

Izabel’s lips twitched in a small smile. “I think I can do that.”

“I know you can. They don’t want you dead, so they’ll pull you out when you go limp.”

“Okay, I can do that.”

“The next thing you…” Rowan paused, wondering if he should stop. Because this might make her think about all the other things that could happen to her if they came back.

“Just say it,” Izabel said after a moment.

Rowan nodded at her. “That’s not your body.”

“What?”

“When they come back in here, that’s not your body. It’s someone else’s body. You have empathy for that body, but it’s not yours. What happens to it doesn’t affect you.”

His words hung heavy, and from the weight of the silence, Rowan knew they understood what he wasn’t saying.

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