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I paced, I listened, I rubbed at my temples and tried to calm down the storm in my head, I sat in the corner and dozed on and off, I did my best to clean the wound in my thigh…
The heavy door opened with a grinding squeak at some point, and I jumped to my feet just like last time.
Two big dudes hurried toward me with a third aiming a gun to my head. They spoke in rapid Spanish, and I did absolutely nothing. I tensed up and sucked in a breath; that was all. No fighting, no screaming. I worked on suppressing my fears and my shock and my—fuck, all of it, because I couldn’t fucking lose it right now. I couldn’t afford to freak out or miss vital clues. River and Reese flanked me, spoke in my ear, coached me.Focus. Catalogue their features. Assess them but do nothing. You can fuck with their heads too, sweetheart. Keep them on their toes, pup.I registered scars, their heights, eye color, tattoos—the guy with the gun was smoking, and it gave me an idea.
The men dragged me out of the cell and down a corridor, where tiled walls were sweating and the cement floor was covered in an inch of rust-colored water. Fluorescent lights flickered along the way.
I had to bide my time. The gun pointed at me didn’t scare me, for once. He wouldn’t kill me. They wouldn’t bring me all this way just to put one in my brain. I was here for a reason. They wanted me to do something.
I’d been held and restrained in…five, six…seven locations? Each one had come with one or two cocky motherfuckers who’d wanted to fight me. They’d provoked me, shoved me around, smacked me, until I’d gone apeshit on them.
One man had spoken English. He’d told me I had a reputation now since I’d broken a man’s neck the evening I’d been taken.
I clenched my jaw as another door opened down the corridor. The man standing there was older. He wore a tan linen suit, a little wrinkled, like the type of clothes old men wore in Florida. He had a hat and everything, and he didn’t seem bothered to be ruining his leather shoes in the water.
The goons grabbing at me ushered me inside the room, and I blinked at the harsh lighting.
They shoved me in there, into one of three wide shower stalls, and I lost my footing and landed on my ass.
“You will get ready.” Holy shit, the older man spoke to me. InEnglish. “We have been promised you are feral.”
I pushed myself off the floor and eyed the motherfucker. “You want feral? Take a step closer.”
He let out a deep chuckle. “Save it for tonight.” He gestured to one of the others, and the door was closed.
I swallowed hard, my heart pounding, my stare flicking from one point to another. Three metal sinks, built-in mirrors. Nothing that could be taken off and used as a weapon. There was a bathroom in here too, one I desperately needed to use. But first, I walked over to the middle sink and sifted through the items left there. Little square compresses, tiny bits of surgical tape, fuckin’ Neosporin straight out of the US. What the fuck. Useless. I would’ve preferred a roll of surgical tape I could choke someone out with.
If I was being honest.
I’d been given a pair of black sweatpants too.
I picked up the compress packets instead, and I read the label. I mean, I assumed they were compresses. They looked the part. I opened it, and sure enough.
Well, fuck me.
Colombia.
Down at the very bottom of the label was an address or a headquarters of some sort. Bogotá, Colombia.
A breath gusted out of me, my fate sinking in, and I lifted my gaze to the mirror and immediately flinched. I hadn’t paid attention to my reflection earlier. Jesus Christ. I was a living, breathing bruise. Or a rash. My skin was red and irritated in places, blotchy here and there, sufficiently bruised up. I had countless cuts and scrapes in various stages of healing. Yellowing skin, some spots ranging in black and purple, red and pink… I’d lost weight. I had shadows under my eyes.
I barely recognized the look in my eyes, until I heard River and remembered something he’d told me once.
“It’s the thousand-mile stare.”
River and Reese had maybe three or four photos altogether taken from their years working in conflict areas. I’d found one of them tumbling out from between the pages of a book. Emerson had taken it, a close-up of Reese after he and River had come home from a mission in Russia. And the look in Reese’s eyes… I’d never forget it. He’d been sitting on the porch at Emerson and Danny’s farm, beer in his hand, smoke dangling between his lips, a faint smile, but that…voidin his eyes… It’d been so painful to see. To really see, right there, in his face, the pain and suffering he had witnessed, gone through, and exposed others to.
I sniffled and felt something warm trickle down my cheeks, so I scrubbed my hands over my face.
I wanna go home. Please find me.
* * *
Darkness had fallen when I was brought outside by two armed guards.
I’d been cuffed behind my back once more.
The bag they’d put over my head was made from rougher fibers, so I got some glimpses of my surroundings. My bare feet walked through wet grass and mud. Torches lit up the path. I caught movement everywhere. Voices got louder. The sounds of the jungle refused to be pushed into the background; it was so loud—not to mention more believable now that I knew I was in Colombia. I had to be, right?
