Page 73 of Winter’s Fire

Lucy pricked up her ears. That was something Diana had omitted to mention when Logan had questioned her. “What makes you say that?”

Diana rolled her eyes, as if Lucy had asked the most idiotic question in creation. “I overheard them when they were bringing me here yesterday. One of them said something about the boat coming back from Nenufar. They wouldn’t need a boat if we’re on the same island, would they?”

That rather depended on whether they meant Nenufar the island or Nenufar the resort. Either way, Lucy filed the information for future reference—knowing there was a boat they could escape in might be useful.

“Where they brought you from—was anyone else being held there?”

Diana gave a condescending sigh. “Weren’t you eavesdropping? About a dozen or so other women. God, they never stopped crying.”

Lucy wasn’t a violent woman, but Diana was testing her self-control to the limit. The harpy was certainly a talented actress—yesterday, with Logan, she’d played the delicate, abused victim to perfection, but today, she had “armour-plated bitch” down pat.

~~*~~

Every time she was left alone with Diana, Lucy somehow managed to find the inner strength to deal with the other woman and her sniping remarks. Instead of rising to the bait, she reinforced her mental wall to shut out the hateful words, but she could do nothing in the face of worry and fear for Logan’s safety, and the raw, bleeding agony of his comprehensive rejection of her.

The worry and fear were winning. Her imagination provided an unrelenting torment of speculation about what they were doing to Logan, but when they returned him to the cell, he refused to answer her questions. Not that he needed to answer them—just looking at him told her all she needed to know.

Today, though, something was different. Lucy didn’t know what it was—there was no obvious reason for her to feel so uneasy, but as the time approached for Logan to be brought back, her usual fear swelled into a choking mass.

The grate of the bolts being drawn back—a noise that now triggered an almost Pavlovian response of trepidation—jerked Lucy’s attention to the door. It opened, and Logan was pushed inside. He stumbled and sprawled across the dirty stone floor, landing with a tortured groan. Lucy scrambled over the space between them, managing to coax him over onto his back as Diana landed on the other side of him. She was already blubbing her eyes out, and her hands flapped uselessly around him, like wet laundry in a storm.

“Logan! Logan!”

Lucy spared the other woman a glare as Diana sobbed his name. Hysterics wouldn’t help, though Lucy felt ready to break down herself when she saw how badly Logan had been beaten. The extent of his injuries shocked her, and the way his arm hovered over his chest made her fear for his ribs. They were already badly bruised, but if they were broken…

“What the hell have they done to you?”

“I didn’t move fast enough this time.”

The problem wasn’t his ribs—it was the ugly, six-inch cut along his side, ragged and gaping, and the source of the patch of blood that was almost lost among the other stains on what was now a tattered excuse for a shirt.

There was no way that was going to heal without proper medical attention. The first aid kit had contained the bare minimum to begin with. It was now severely depleted, and totally inadequate for a challenge like this. Fired with anger, Lucy lunged to her feet and hammered on the door.

“Hey! I know there’s someone out there! I need extra water, surgical gloves and a suture kit, and I need it now!” She hit the door again. “You hear me? I need a kit now, or he’ll bleed to death!”

Lucy clenched her teeth at the extra-loud wail Diana gave. What she’d give for a ball gag to shut the woman up. She needed to think. They were trapped in a nightmare that even her worst fears couldn’t have cooked up, and she had no idea what to do.

“Lucy?”

More a groan than anything else, Logan’s utterance of her name had her rushing back to his side. Her stomach churned again. Before she could stop herself, she clasped his hand and stroked the hair back from his forehead. Grimy and battered and in love with another woman, he was still the most precious thing in her life.

“What can I do?”

“Help me sit up.”

“No, you need to—”

“I need to sit up. Help me. Please.”

The big man wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Lucy wasn’t sure she could manage on her own, and she didn’t want him to risk aggravating his injuries. She looked to Diana for help, but she’d retreated to a corner when Lucy launched her attack on the door and was clearly in no hurry to leave it, in case she broke another nail.

Somehow, Lucy managed to prop Logan up against the pillar as the door behind her opened. Two men appeared, both armed. One of them held a green and white case substantially larger than the kit they’d been given originally, along with a dozen shrink-wrapped bottles of water. Lucy started towards him and stopped dead when the other levelled his AK-47 directly at her. She didn’t take her gaze off them as they left the case and water on the floor and backed out of the cellar. So brave of them—not.

Lucy inspected the contents of the case. Not brilliant, but at least it contained most of what she’d asked for. Unfortunately for Logan, there was no local anaesthetic, but there was pain medication. She popped two of the pills from the packaging and pressed them into Logan’s hand before ripping open the plastic around the water bottles. She unscrewed the top of one and passed it to Logan. “They’ll help with the pain. Can you manage to drink some of this?”

Logan took the water from her, tossed the pills into his mouth, and put the bottle to his lips. Lucy waited while he drank a good half. “Okay, we need to get your shirt off. No, let me. I want you to move as little as possible.”

As slowly and gently as she could, Lucy eased the filthy garment off him, and tried not to react to the mess she uncovered. The wailing from the corner increased in volume. Lucy clamped her lips together and pumped a generous dose of the alcohol rub into her palm, before donning a pair of surgical gloves.