Lethal Pursuit (8 page)

You have to live
,
Maya.
Living is the only way to get revenge on the bastard who did this to me.
Swear to me you’ll never give in.
Swear it.

She’d dedicated her life to upholding her sister’s dying wish. Here in this dark prison, that final promise was about to be tested to its limits.

Male voices came from outside the small room they’d placed her in. Maya swallowed but it did nothing to ease the tightness in her dry throat. Her heart thudded a hard, pounding rhythm and a cold sweat broke out over her skin.

These men lived by their own laws, their own code of conduct. Islam was supposed to be one of the most peaceful religions, but these men twisted it into an extreme, violent facsimile. That they were Muslims didn’t necessarily protect her from rape, though she hoped it would. They perverted their religion to suit their own agenda, so it was possible rape wasn’t an aberration to them.

Maya’s skin crawled. Having to endure that cruel degradation at their hands would be almost as bad as dying. All the SERE training in the world couldn’t prepare her for the brutal reality of that.

Her mind wandered back to a conversation she’d had with Pilar shortly after running away from their
abuela’s
house.

How did you stand it
,
Pilar?

I
left my body and went somewhere else in my head.
Someplace he could never find me or touch me again.
A
place where fear and pain don’t exist.

Maya had mentally prepared herself for the possibility of capture and rape as much as any female service member could before deploying. It had been something she’d thought about only in passing, telling herself the chances of it ever happening were miniscule. Now that the moment was here, could she take it? She would rather die than break under torture.

Someone swept aside the corner of the carpet covering the entrance and two men strode in, carrying a lantern. One remained by the doorway, while the other set the lantern on a crate close to her and came to stand directly in front of her. She fixed her gaze straight ahead, staring at nothing, careful not to bow her head or give any outward sign of fear. Given how frightened she was, it wasn’t easy.

A hard hand flashed out and gripped her jaw, forcing her head up. She didn’t bother resisting because she didn’t have much choice and it would be a waste of energy, but she refused to meet his gaze. His hold was forceful, bordering right on the edge of painful, his long fingers digging into her flesh like talons.

She stared stubbornly at the V in his throat, where his thick dark beard stopped a few inches above the collar of his shirt. She could see the edges of his defined pectoral muscles there, sensed the raw power in his arms and shoulders, his formidable will. This man was hard as steel inside and out. He radiated a cold, controlled anger she had no desire to see unleashed on her. It took everything she had to keep from trembling.

“Name.”

The cold rasp of his voice sent a chill down her spine. She drew in a breath, ready with the standard name, rank and serial number response, surprised at how steady her voice came out. “Lieutenant Maya Lopez, five-seven-two—”

“Enough.” He dropped his hand.

She clamped her jaw closed and waited.

He circled her slowly, like a wolf stalking its prey. He was tall, around six feet or more, somewhere in his thirties and built lean. The traditional baggy clothing he wore did nothing to disguise the raw power seething inside that whipcord body.

A shiver crawled through her as he spoke again. “It sickens me how weak Americans are to let women wear a uniform. Tell me, Lieutenant Lopez, why you are fighting this war.” His voice dripped with disdain at her rank. When she didn’t respond, he paused in front of her. “Answer me.”

“I can’t answer that question.” Now her voice shook.

“You will.
Now.
”

Here it comes.
She tensed, preparing as much as she could for that first blow. It didn’t fall, and eventually Maya allowed herself to relax a fraction. All her senses were tuned to the man in front of her, locking on him with a kind of hyper-focus she’d only ever previously experienced during combat.

He shifted again, and Maya could feel the frustration pulsing off him. His hands flexed once, his fingers curling into fists of rage. Then he turned to the man at the doorway and barked something at him in another language. Pashto, maybe. The rug covering the opening lifted as the man rolled it back, then his retreating footsteps echoed until they faded into silence.

In the midst of that suffocating void, the waiting, the anticipation of pain was almost unbearable. She didn’t understand why he’d asked the man to unroll the rug and leave. Unless he was coming back with something. Another prisoner, or maybe a weapon? A torture tool? A list of possibilities ran through her mind. Pulling out her fingernails. Gouging out her eyes. Cutting her. Her breathing sped up, despite her effort to control it. Shit, she didn’t know if she could withstand whatever he had in store for her.

A low chuckle filled the vacuum of silence. “Very good. You should be afraid,” the man said softly, the satisfaction in his tone making her skin prickle.

Half hidden in shadow, she didn’t see his arm move. His open palm flashed out and hit her cheek with a resounding crack that swung her head around. Maya gasped and clenched her teeth together to keep from crying out. Her heart gave a terrified jolt as she collected herself. The left side of her face stung and her eyes watered.

During the brief SERE course, they’d told her to cry out, to vocalize her pain and fright if a captor beat her, because it usually made them go easier. Now that it was actually happening, that stubborn part of her demanded she stand her ground and refuse to give in. And she knew in her heart that crying and begging would do no good anyway. This man had no mercy in him.

Another blow landed on the opposite cheek, this one with more force. She flinched and instinctively cringed away, but her arms were tied too tightly for her to move much.

“Why are you fighting here?” he demanded ruthlessly, towering over her.

“My country asked me to,” she answered in defiance, breaking the protocol of only giving name, rank and serial number.

“It is not your place to invade and occupy our sacred homeland. We will expel you as we have all the other occupiers.” This time his fist slammed into her stomach.

Though she’d tensed her muscles, the punch still caught her off guard. She doubled over with a grunt and sucked in a shallow breath as the blow set off a blaze of fire across her damaged ribs. Her face was clammy with perspiration when she managed to open her eyes and force her body upright. In the light she saw him unbuckle his belt, heard the leather slither through the loops holding it around his waist and wanted to vomit.

You can take this.
You
will
take this.
Pain and humiliation won’t kill you.
You have to survive.
You promised.
She was shaking so hard her teeth were chattering. The gnawing fear, the sense of disbelief that this was truly happening, were paralyzing.

He lowered his hand and waved the belt slightly, making the leather strip come alive, slithering along the ground like a snake waiting to strike. Her stomach rolled.

But he didn’t drop his pants or make a move to undress her. Instead he raised his arm and brought the belt down sharply across her thighs. Maya arched under the bite of the leather through her pants as pain exploded in her nerve endings. A jagged gasp ripped from her throat before she could control it. She strangled on it, fighting to hold it back, not let him see how frightened she was or how much it hurt.

“Say it.”

Say
what
? What the hell did he want her to say? She could barely breathe, much less speak.

He brought the belt down again and again in angry yet controlled movements, lashing her thighs, her upper arms, across her upper back, wherever he could reach. “Say it! Tell me how much it hurts.”

Maya squeezed her eyes shut and bit down hard on the insides of her cheeks, something primal in her refusing to cry out. She was a lieutenant in the United States Air Force. It was her duty to fight. She’d vowed it to her fellow airmen, to her country. Her only power now lay in resistance. She couldn’t give in, couldn’t show fear now, because it would only fuel his cruelty.

His open hand slapped her across the face again, and this time she tasted the metallic tang of blood in her mouth. A strange roaring filled her ears, her heart racing too hard, too fast. Sparks of light flickered behind her closed eyelids, her body fighting against the agony sizzling along her nerve endings.

The man was panting now, and she knew it was more from rage than exertion. Not only was she his enemy, she was a woman. In his mind, that made her lowlier than an animal. “Infidel whore,” he spat, and punched her beneath her left eye. His knuckles plowed into her cheekbone with a sickening crack.

She screamed, her head snapping backward with the force of the blow, the momentum throwing the chair back. She hit the floor with a thud. The back of her skull smacked into the hard ground, her left wrist taking the brunt of her weight as she fell, crushing it beneath the chair back. She felt the bone snap. Shards of agony splintered through her arm, ribs and across her damaged face.

A strangled cry tore from her, her lungs compressed against her ribs. Gasping for air, whimpering now, she turned her head weakly to spit out a mouthful of blood, wondering if she would die in this room.

And he wasn’t done with her yet. Without raising her up, he wrenched at the laces of her boots and tossed them aside. Disoriented and nauseated from the blinding pain encompassing her, Maya tried to lash out with her feet, but the bonds held her ankles to the tipped chair’s legs. He yanked off her socks and before the cool air on her feet registered in her whirring brain, he raised the belt high in the air and lashed it down with a loud crack on the tender soles of her feet.

The first blow tore through her nerve endings like a blowtorch. Maya forgot how to breathe, her whole body going rigid with the hot shock of it. He did it again. And again. The merciless leather bit into her ultra-sensitive skin with each lash. It was electric, unlike anything she’d ever imagined. Every cell in her body was on fire, writhing in agony.

She dimly realized she was screaming and gritted her teeth to stifle the noise. Her body arched and twisted with each cruel lash of the belt in an effort to escape the torment, despite her other injuries. The pain was hideous, inescapable, hitting her everywhere at once, overloading her nervous system.

Maya shook and fought for each desperate gasp she drew into her aching lungs. When he stopped, she pried open her wet, swollen eyes a fraction of an inch to stare up at her tormentor with undisguised loathing.

Her show of hatred seemed to amuse him. One side of his mouth curled up in the midst of that heavy beard. “Scream,” he taunted piteously, the amber glow of the lantern transforming his face into a terrifying mask of hollows and shadows. His yellow eyes gleamed like a demon’s. He was getting off on her pain, she realized distantly as she fought the despair swamping her.

“I’ll keep going until you give me what I want. Scream to your infidel God to save you. I want them to
hear
you in their cells, woman,” he snarled, once again raising the belt.

Something inside Maya shriveled and died at his words. In that terrifying moment, waiting for the next vicious lash of the belt, she finally realized what he was after. More than just her suffering and degradation. He had a more malevolent intent in mind.

He was going to use her as a weapon to break the male captives.

Tears of horror and pain stung her eyes and she managed to shake her head, a last show of defiance. “N-no.”
Please let me make it through this.
Please don’t let him break me.

Those hellish eyes glowed in the lantern light. “Scream,” he commanded and brought the belt down on the tender soles of her feet in another cruel, whistling arc, this strike harder than all the others.

She screamed. She couldn’t help it. The agonized cries tore out of her without her permission and she couldn’t stop. Time and space lost all meaning. Her entire existence shrank into a red haze of pain. The uncontrollable sounds of her suffering rang unchecked off the cavern walls and down the corridor to where the other cells lay.

Chapter Eight

Jackson was in hell and there was no way out.

As a battlefield airman at higher risk for capture, after basic SERE school he’d been selected for advanced training, which amounted to “advanced beatings.” He’d hated every moment of it. He’d surprised himself with how well he’d handled the pain, but part of him had always known the handlers would stop short of life-threatening damage.

The captors here had no such limitations.

The sounds of Maya’s terror and agony slowly stripped away his resolve to stay detached. Locked in his cell with his hands and feet bound and forced to sit idly by while they tortured her was almost more than he could bear. He’d give anything for the chance to charge in there and kill the man responsible, set her free, bargain for her life with his own.

Her screams raised the hair on the back of his neck and made his gut twist. They’d started out low and muffled, but now they echoed down the corridor, filling every atom of space with her terror and suffering.

He couldn’t block them out. Couldn’t stop praying. Those screams were real, not staged. He knew they were because she was yelling in Spanish, begging for mercy. Her voice was choked, hoarse. Desperate. And still the man torturing her didn’t let up. He’d pause for only a few minutes, as though to let the worst of the pain recede, then start in all over again. Jackson took a deep breath and released it slowly, fighting back the red haze of rage. He wanted to kill that motherfucker for hurting Maya.

He could hear something striking her flesh repeatedly. His mind conjured up dozens of horrific scenarios, each one of them as terrible as the last. He dug his numbed fingers into the rock wall and clenched his muscles until his body trembled. Nothing helped.

“Fucking monsters,” Doug muttered under his breath, shifting in agitation against the wall of his own cell. He’d been silent since the interrogation began, but obviously it had taken a toll on him too.

Jackson didn’t respond. He couldn’t because he’d either choke on the words or puke, he wasn’t sure which.

The kid standing in the corridor began pacing again, back and forth down the length of the cells, fidgeting and running a hand through his hair. It was clear he was uncomfortable with what was happening in the other room, though he did nothing to try to stop it. He was too afraid of his leader.

Jackson had already tried to get the kid’s attention, but either he was ignoring him or didn’t speak English. He hadn’t responded when Jackson had spat something at him about whether beating an unarmed woman was the true practice of Islam. From the kid’s increasing agitation, he damn well knew it wasn’t.

When the last scream faded into stillness, Jackson held his breath, praying it was over. Nothing came from the room now but low moans, sobs. His lungs constricted at those heartbreaking sounds. He had to squeeze his eyes shut and think of something else to erase the image of Maya spread out on the floor naked, beaten and bleeding. Or worse.

Fuck.

“Mohammed.” The sharp command came from the room Maya was in, followed by something in Pashto Jackson couldn’t understand.

The boy snapped to attention and took a halting step in that direction then hesitated, as though he had no interest in seeing what his leader had done to Maya. He swallowed audibly and began walking down the corridor. A few minutes later he returned, carrying her across his shoulders.

Jackson sat up, heart pounding. The lighting was poor at best, but his eyes remained riveted to her. She lay limp across Mohammed’s shoulder, her head lolling with each step. She was dressed, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been violated sexually. Her shallow, rapid breaths shuddered in and out, telling him she was still conscious. Every few seconds a pained, pitiful whimper cut through the silence.

The pressure of tears filled his throat. He swallowed them down, keeping his blurry gaze on her as Mohammed took her to the empty cell next to Jackson’s and placed her gently inside. Even that seemed to cause her a great deal of pain, because her breath caught and she gave a throttled cry that ripped through the quiet.

Mohammed froze in uncertainty, laying her down only when his leader snapped something at him. He stepped away and closed the cell door behind him.

Soft treads approached, and the man responsible for her suffering paused in front of the partition between Jackson’s and the Sec Def’s cells. He carried a lantern in one hand, the candle now burned down to a stub. But it gave just enough light for Jackson to see Maya’s body.

She was curled on her side in the middle of her cell, facing toward him. The light glinted off her unbound coffee-colored hair, and Jackson got his first glimpse of her face. He sucked in a swift breath and bit down so hard his molars ached. Fucking Christ, the bastard had beaten her to a pulp.

One eye was already swollen shut. Her cheeks were wet with tears and blood trickled from a wound in her mouth. She cradled her left wrist against her body, and her shallow breathing told him it hurt to draw a breath.

The primal male in him howled in agonized outrage that they’d done this to her. The medic in him was terrified she might have internal damage and bleeding. Every single muscle in his body was rigid to the point of snapping, rage and horror flooding his system so hard and fast it made him dizzy. Only his bound hands prevented him from reaching for her.

Holding the lantern, the leader stood there quietly for a time, as though he wanted them to see exactly what kind of damage he’d inflicted upon her. When he spoke, there was a quiet smugness to his voice that only intensified Jackson’s hatred. If he got the chance, he’d kill him with his bare hands.

“Your female colleague had nothing of value to offer me. But you do,” he said pointedly to Doug. “For her sake, I pray you cooperate with our demands. If not...” He let the sentence dangle for a moment, purposely building the tension. “I am not sure she can withstand much more of that.” With that, he turned away and strode back down the corridor, taking the light with him.

The instant the rug swung back down over the opening, Jackson was on his knees, crawling up to the bars that separated them. “Maya.” His throat was so tight it came out as a croak. “Maya, can you hear me?”

“She’s in shock,” Doug said, as if Jackson couldn’t tell that for himself. “Maybe she’s better off that way.”

Jackson’s hackles rose and he ignored the man’s advice. “Maya, I’m here. I’m right here, can you hear me?” His heart was in his throat and for a long moment he didn’t think she would respond. Then he heard her shifting ever so slowly in the darkness, a little gasp of pain falling from her lips. “Maya...”

“H-hurts,” she whimpered, a bare whisper of sound that told him the effort of speaking was too painful to bear.

His eyes stung hotter. “I know. Can you tell me where?” If he suspected she had internal injuries, he’d yell for a guard and keep on yelling until they let him treat her and agree to release her. He didn’t care what they did to him after that.

He’d made the decision after the ordeal of advanced SERE school that in the event of being captured, he’d rather die fighting than live on his knees. But he’d live on his knees if it would save Maya. He’d do goddamn anything for that, including sell his soul.

“Maya?” He kept his voice low and steady, despite the tearing pain in his chest. She needed calm now, for him to anchor her. “Tell me where it hurts.”

She sucked in another shallow breath, bit back a cry. “R-ribs. Wrist. Face. Feet.”

Feet? Had that fucker pried her toenails out or something? The sense of vertigo returned. He closed his eyes and pulled in a deep breath to steady himself. “What about your chest or stomach, somewhere inside? Does it hurt inside anywhere?”

“Mmm-hmm.” The response was uttered from between gritted teeth.

His pulse shot up. “Where, honey?”

“Ev-everywhere...”

Jackson closed his eyes. He couldn’t fucking
do
anything. It tore him up inside to know that. Even if he started shouting for the guards and by some miracle they let him tend to her, he had no equipment or supplies. Taking a calming breath, he opened his eyes and tried to see her in the darkness. She was quiet, but he could hear her shivering and those soft, little choked noises she made, as if she didn’t want anyone to know she was crying and was doing everything in her power to hold them in. Having seen firsthand just how strong and formidable she was, it broke his heart.

Lying down on the cold stone floor, he stretched out against the bars of his cell and pressed against them as hard as he could, desperate to get closer to her. When he spoke again, he did so in Spanish so that if any of the captors were listening they wouldn’t be able to understand. This was for Maya alone. His voice was an aching whisper. “Maya. I’m right here, baby. Can you touch me?”

She took a shuddering breath and then those heartbreaking noises stopped as though she refused to let any more out. Was she ashamed? God, he wanted to hold her.

“Come here and touch me,” he urged softly, trying to give her the compassionate human connection she needed.

He heard her shift in the darkness, followed by the swift intake of a pained breath. He gritted his teeth against the urge to tell her to stop and willed her to come closer. There might not be anything he could do to alleviate her suffering, but he could at least try to give her some kind of solace.

He tracked every torturous inch of her progress with the sliding noises along the floor, her throttled groans of pain. All the while he kept urging her softly in Spanish, hoping his voice at least anchored her. At last she was close enough for him to register the warmth of her body on the other side of the bars. She reached through them to place a shaking hand against his face. Jackson’s throat closed up. He leaned into her touch, pressing his cheek hard into her icy palm, and rubbed gently. Her breath hitched on a sob.

“I’m here,” he whispered hoarsely. At that moment he’d have given anything to be able to make the bars disappear and have his arms free so he could hold her, soothe and warm her. “You’re not alone.”

She shifted those last few inches until she was laying full length against the bars. The only places they touched were her hand on his face and a few inches of their thighs, but he could feel the heat of her body and hoped the shared warmth would stem the worst of her shivering. Every time her muscles shook, it jarred her body, hurting her even more.

He turned his face into her palm and kissed the center of it, not trusting himself to speak. Then those trembling fingers traced over his face like she was trying to see him with her touch and traveled down to curl into his uniform, clutching the fabric as if it was a lifeline. He thought his heart would crack in two. “Just hang on, baby. Hang on to me.”

She expelled a rough breath and held on.

Doug spoke for the first time, his low-pitched voice carrying the English words from the cell behind him. “We’re here for you, Maya. You’re not alone. We’re going to get through this together, all of us.”

She said nothing, only shuddered and kept breathing in a shallow pattern that alarmed him. It killed him to be so close and yet be unable to help or touch her more than he was. An unknown amount of time passed, and her breaths evened out so much he thought she must be asleep. But her grip hadn’t relaxed on him and when she shifted, a ragged cry slipped free. The sound sliced through him like a scalpel. He pressed harder against the bars. She needed to feel him, feel his body up against her, his heartbeat beneath her cheek.

Lying as close to her as he was going to get, he did the only thing he could think of to soothe her.

He opened his mouth and began to sing softly.

* * *

Maya’s fingers had long since gone numb from clutching Jackson’s uniform shirt, but she refused to let go. The bars keeping them apart dug into her flesh, though she barely noticed the discomfort through all the other pain. Her ribs, face and the soles of her feet throbbed and burned until she wanted to scream from the relentless onslaught. Everything else just plain hurt.

Crawling to Jackson had been almost unbearable, but being able to touch him took the sharp edge off the fear and despair. The slight heat she could feel coming from him helped warm her a little. Yet the black void of hopelessness was there, waiting for her, ready to swallow her. She’d almost fallen in.

With that single session, that fanatical
malparido
had managed to break her. She’d screamed for him, endlessly. Her throat was swollen from it. It shamed her.

In the midst of her despair, Jackson’s low, melodic voice filled the darkness. It rolled over her senses like a caress, penetrating the shock and cold inside her. Singing. He was singing to her because he couldn’t touch her and it was the best he could do instead.

Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to drift, holding tight to his uniform and his voice. That low, beautifully modulated voice brought a sudden rush of tears to the surface. Her heart swelled until it felt like it was jammed against the inside of her bruised ribs.

Maya let the sound of it stroke her battered soul, vaguely recognizing an old Rat Pack song. She didn’t really hear most of the lyrics and they didn’t matter. The sentiment behind them did, and his effort to reach out to her. Somehow he’d known she needed him to ground her, keep her from going too deep in her head. She didn’t care that the Sec Def was in the cell next to Jackson and could overhear everything.

Jackson sang two more songs to her softly before falling silent.

A long pause followed before she could find her voice. “Thank you.” Saying the words made the cut in her lower lip bleed more, but she didn’t care.

“Anytime,
querida.
”

That endearment wasn’t fake, or said because he was desperate to make her hang on. He meant it. Knowing that flooded her cold body with a frisson of warmth.

He shifted against the bars once more, pressing harder into her touch as though he wanted more contact. Once again, he spoke in Spanish, the words slow and measured. “You’ve got to keep fighting, baby. I know it hurts and I know you’re scared, but you have to fight and get through this.”