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SEVENTEEN
Asher didn’t remember much.
He remembered hearing an Australian accent mumble something outside their motel door no more than thirty seconds after Harry had left. Asher had assumed Harry had forgotten something, so he stupidly opened the door.
So stupid.
Harry had told him not to open the door for anyone. In fact, Harry had told him to push the table across to block the doorway. Asher hadn’t done that either.
They’d spent the last few days in a bubble of sorts, after so many days of it just the two of them, and Asher got complacent. He got stupid.
And he got caught.
He should have been grateful he didn’t get a bullet in his head right then and there.
He’d already put the USB in the tin of mints, but as the two men grabbed him, Asher knew he had to hide it from them; he managed to kick it under the bed in the struggle. He hadn’t meant to drop his phone though. He worried then if Harry would be able to track him if Asher didn’t have his phone... but it was too late. The bigger of the two men kneed Asher with an uppercut to the chin, and Asher’s world went dark.
He came to sometime later and quickly realised he was in the back of a moving van. He was lying on his side, his hands were tied behind his back, and there were two different men in the back with him now. They wore dark army uniforms that Asher didn’t recognise. They sneered at him and one of them kick-stomped Asher in the stomach.
Asher had laughed through the pain. “He’s gonna find me,” he said. “And he’s gonna fuck you all up.”
It probably wasn’t smart to goad his captors, but he couldn’t help himself. Because Asher knew, like he knew the sky was blue, that Harry would stop at nothing to find him.
And he thought, in that split second, that he was glad he’d left his phone behind because Harry would know then that he didn’t leave of his own accord. Would Harry think that Asher skipped out on him if he didn’t find the phone? Not to mention the duffle bag of guns... Would Harry doubt Asher’s loyalty to him?
No. He wouldn’t. Like Asher wouldn’t doubt Harry’s loyalty.
Harry would find a way to track him down.
Asher had to believe that.
The second man punched him in the side of the head, and through a swirl of pain and nausea, he fell back into darkness.
When they dragged him out of the van, Asher couldn’t see much. It was dark, he had no shoes on and could feel sand under his feet. There was another vehicle there already, and Asher counted four other men. The two Australian men, who Harry had identified in the photographs as Gibson and Hull, dragged him inside and tied him onto an old wooden chair, and Gibson proceeded to hit him, taunt him, tell him they were just gonna play with him for a bit until they called Harry, maybe send him photos of how Asher was holding up.
Then Harry would come, like the predictable dog he was.
Asher looked Gibson right in the eyes. “He’s gonna fuck you up the most.”
He could remember the first several hits, but everything went dark after a blow to his temple.
Reality seeped back in and out in waves, blurred with pain, both dull and sharp, and it seemed to last for an age.
But dear God, when he heard Harry’s voice, he could have cried. He tried to shake off the blur, the haze. His vision was all wrong, and he realised he could only see out of one eye, and even then, no more than a slit of blur.
He heard gunshots.
He worried for Harry, but then his large, warm, gentle hand on his shoulder grounded him. Saved him.
Harry.
Asher tried to stay conscious, to stay awake. He tried to fight off the darkness that kept lapping at the edges, but it was all too heavy. Everything hurt. His head felt as if it’d been run over with a steamroller. His ribs weren’t much better. He couldn’t see at all now, and not having vision was terrifying. He couldn’t see any threat and he’d spent his entire life relying on his ability to read any situation.
But even not being able to see, Asher knew he was safe now.
Harry had come for him.
He knew he would, but it still filled him with something he wasn’t familiar with. He grasped Harry’s hand, held it as tight as he could, and never wanted to let him go.
