Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Torture sucked.
That was Blink’s main thought as his captors used their fists to beat on him. Then they switched to sticks, hitting the bottom of his feet, making them bleed as they jeered and taunted.
His second-most prominent thought—that was a woman in the cell next to his. Not an animal. Not a fellow military prisoner. But a woman. At first, he’d thought it was a child. But as he stared at her, he’d realized she was an adult. She was malnourished, filthy, and as skinny as anyone he’d ever seen who was still alive.
Yet, her eyes told him she was alert. Hadn’t yet succumbed to whatever torture their captors had inflicted upon her. And that knowledge gave Blink the strength to withstand what they were dishing out at the moment.
He knew they were just getting started. He understood how being a POW worked. He’d been trained for this moment. It sucked, and no Navy SEAL ever wanted to be in his position, but he wouldn’t crack.
It took longer than he’d hoped, but eventually his captors got bored, or tired, or needed to do something else. He didn’t know which, and he didn’t care. All he cared about was getting a reprieve. Blink had no doubt they’d start up again soon, but it wouldn’t matter. He wouldn’t tell these assholes anything about the planned extraction point of his team or if there were any other HVTs the SEALs were hunting.
They’d managed to break a finger or two, split his lip open, and the cigarette burns on his ankles and feet hurt like a bitch, but nothing they’d done would keep him from being able to walk when the time came. Even the wounds on the bottom of his feet wouldn’t prevent him from getting the hell out of there. Trust in the fact that he’d be rescued helped Blink compartmentalize what was happening to him physically.
Thinking about the woman in the cell next to his also kept his mind occupied while he was beaten. Why was she in that cell? How long had she been there? Where was she from?
He had too many questions and no answers. He was impatient to be taken back to his cell. Not to lick his wounds or to sleep, but to talk to the woman.
Blink made sure to groan extra loud when he was dropped once more onto the floor of his cell, but his eyes immediately sought out the woman he’d gotten a glimpse of earlier.
She was in the same place. Didn’t look like she’d moved even one inch. Huddled in a little ball, her knees up, arms around them, pressed into the corner. And like earlier, she was staring at him as if she could see right through to all his innermost thoughts. Her blue eyes bore into his own as he was once more locked into his cell.
None of his captors even looked in her direction as they left the room, shutting the door behind them, which Blink thought was odd. It made him want to know what her deal was even more.
A pained moan escaped as he shifted on the hard floor. He closed his eyes for a moment as he took stock of his injuries. He ached all over, but he’d live. Live to be tortured another day, which he was sure was the goal. But every day that passed was one closer to rescue. Blink knew that down to his toes. Help was coming, he just had to hang on until it arrived.
“I’m Blink,” he told the woman, his voice seeming to echo in the room around him. “My name is actually Nate, but people call me Blink.”
He waited but got no response.
“What’s your name?”
Still nothing.
He sighed. “Can you understand me?”
Blink waited…and then he got it. A nod so slight, some people might’ve mistaken it as nothing more than the woman adjusting slightly. But he took it for what it was, an acknowledgement of his words.
He was elated, even as he felt sorry for her. And while he hated that she was in this situation—and obviously had been for a long while, if her appearance was any indication—he was even more curious, now that he knew she understood English. Who was she? How did she get here?
But he didn’t expect to get any answers. Not right now, at least. She was obviously traumatized, which wasn’t a surprise. This was no place for anyone, much less a woman as slight as her. She looked like a stiff breeze could knock her over. He hadn’t missed the way her collarbones protruded from her skin. The way her cheeks were hollowed. How her arms clasped her knees so tightly they seemed to be the only things holding her together.
Blink made a decision—he wasn’t leaving her. Rescuers wouldn’t be expecting to liberate a second person, but in no way was he the type of man who would leave any living being in this shit hole.
The longer he lay there on the cold, hard floor, the more his body throbbed. He would kill for some water right about now. Or even one of the crappy MREs that he’d been eating for the last week. But his captors obviously weren’t concerned about feeding him.
He shifted on the floor and grimaced. Looking back over at the woman, he could barely make her out in the darkness, but he saw she hadn’t moved. Not even an inch. She was still looking in his direction as if waiting for something.
The possibility that their cells were being monitored occurred to him, but as he looked around, he didn’t see any blinking lights indicating cameras. And judging by the condition of the place, he wasn’t sure the men who’d nabbed him had a terribly sophisticated security system, which would work in his favor when help came.
Still, he wouldn’t discount the idea that they were being watched. He wanted to talk to the woman. Wanted to put her at ease. But he couldn’t tell her that help was coming. That the tracker Tex had insisted he wear was still safe and secure inside the waistband of his underwear .
“As I said before…I’m Nate. I don’t know about you, but I’d kill for a huge cup of coffee. No, a caramel macchiato. I know, that’s not usually a drink you’d think a guy would like, but I’m addicted to the things. Besides, it’s caramel…who doesn’t like that? My friend, Safe, he makes the best coffee. He has one of those fancy machines you see in coffee shops right in his house. The first time I went to his place and he fired that thing up, I almost knocked my other friends out of the way to get to the first cup of coffee. Oh, and you know what else I miss?”
Blink was talking more to himself than the woman; it was comforting to hear something other than the oppressive silence or his captors yelling at him in a language he didn’t understand.
“Cheetos. Not the puffy kind, those are gross, but the real thing. The small, hard, crunchy bits. Flash makes fun of me for liking that crap, but I could live on them. Okay, probably not, because they’re full of stuff that isn’t good for me, but there’s nothing like sitting on the couch watching football and getting my fingers all orange from eating those things.”
It was ironic that Blink was in a situation where he had to do all the talking. He wasn’t a talker. Never had been. But as he spoke, he swore he could see the woman across from him relaxing a fraction. As if his voice was comforting. Hell, she probably hadn’t heard a friendly voice since she’d been thrown in this hellhole.
So he continued talking. About nothing. Stupid shit. But he couldn’t seem to stop. It was as if a dam had broken.
“I have a twin brother. His name is Tate. Yes—Nate and Tate. Ridiculous, but what can you do? My mom left when we were young. Around four. Said she couldn’t handle being a wife and mother anymore. When my dad got home from work, she met him at the door with her suitcase in hand and told him she was leaving. And that was it. She was gone.
“My dad though, he’s amazing. I know it wasn’t easy being left with two rambunctious four-year-old boys. We were hellions. I mean, I don’t remember much from that time, but Tate and I competed with each other all the time, about everything . Who could eat the fastest, who could do their homework the fastest, who could fall asleep first, who would lose their first tooth…it went on and on. He liked the Dallas Cowboys, so I decided I liked the Pittsburgh Steelers. I joined the swim team, and he decided to become a runner. We were total opposites, and would do whatever we could to one-up each other. But he’s also my best friend.”
Blink stared up at the ceiling of his cell, watching the darker shadows move and shift above him. Thinking about his brother. He wondered where he was right that second. Whether he knew Blink had been captured. Probably not officially, but as many twins did, they had a connection. Many people would dismiss it as wishful thinking, but when Tate broke his arm when he was eight, Blink had known about it the second it happened. When Blink was in a car accident when he was seventeen, Tate had beaten him to the hospital.
“Asshole joined the Army when I decided to go into the Navy. I know he did it just to piss me off,” Blink said with a small huff of laughter. Thinking about Tate was actually painful. He hadn’t seen his twin in way too long, and right then and there, he vowed to fix that the second he got back to California. He had no idea if Tate was deployed at the moment, but he’d do whatever it took to spend a few days with his brother.
“Anyway, my dad…he was awesome. Didn’t even pause when our mother left. He figured shit out. Got babysitters, found a job where he could be at home when we got out of school. Our old man didn’t miss one swim meet or track competition. We could always hear him cheering from the stands. But he also didn’t put up with our shit, either. The one time we snuck out to go to a party in high school, he was waiting up for us when we returned at three in the morning. Knowing we’d disappointed him, that the trust he had in us was broken, was enough for us to never want to do it again.”
Hearing a slight sound, Blink turned his head and saw the woman had lowered herself to the floor. Her legs were still curled into herself, but her head was resting on one of her arms now as she lay on her side, still staring at him.
“He’s still alive, in case you were wondering,” Blink told her. “My dad. Lives in Florida like a king. All the ladies giggle and titter around him as if he literally is the King of England or something. But he never got serious with a woman after my mom left. He loved her. And she broke his damn heart. And honestly, I used to never want to get close enough to a woman for her to hurt me like that. But then I met Remi. She and Kevlar…they’re…”
His words faded. Blink wasn’t sure how to explain the relationship his team leader had with his girlfriend.
“Maybe I need to back up,” he said. Then he proceeded to tell the mysterious woman all about Remi and Kevlar. How they’d met when they were stranded in the ocean together. About one of Kevlar’s ex-teammates scheming to murder Remi. He downplayed his role in the fiasco; he still had a lot of guilt that he hadn’t figured out a way to stop the asshole before he’d actually put Remi into that hole in the ground.
“My point,” Blink said with a small chuckle, “is that I want that now. What they have. I used to think what they found was a one-time thing. A fluke. But then Safe had to go and meet Wren.”
He spent the next ten minutes explaining how another teammate of his had found his soul mate.
“She’s out there,” Blink said in a barely there whisper. “I don’t know her name, her story, or where she is, but I just hope and pray that one day when we cross paths, I’ll recognize her…and somehow manage to make her see through the stoic, boring shell I show the rest of the world to the man who will cherish her for the rest of our lives.”
It was cheesy as hell. Melodramatic for sure. But Blink wanted what his father had been robbed of. Raising young boys wasn’t easy, and he and Tate hadn’t realized how much of a deterrent they’d been when it came to any woman wanting a relationship with their dad.
A low sound had Blink turning his head and looking at the woman once more. She’d lifted her head and was staring in his direction. As he waited, she made the sound again. It was a cross between a groan and a growl. For some reason, it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
He had no idea what she was trying to communicate. But the fact that she had made some sort of sound felt like a monumentally big deal.
“Right, I’m going on and on about nothing,” he told her. “Believe it or not, I’m the quiet guy. The one who doesn’t say anything unless something needs to be said. And here I am, blabbering my fool head off. You’re probably over there wondering why the hell you got stuck with a cellmate who won’t shut the hell up.”
She made another sound deep in her throat. And this time Blink saw her actually shake her head.
“No?” he asked, feeling giddy. She was interacting with him! Not simply staring with those huge, wounded blue eyes. He wanted to sit up, throw his fists in the air, and exclaim yes! But he decided that would probably scare the hell out of her. And even if he wasn’t shackled, he didn’t think he could move his arm over his head. It hurt like hell.
“So you like hearing me go on and on about nothing?” he asked.
Blink waited patiently and was rewarded with her chin dipping down a fraction.
He smiled. Huge. Making his split lip throb. “Right. So, what else do you want me to talk about? My fascinating morning routine? How I only use cold water to wash my clothes because my dad once warned me about washing in hot water and how it would shrink my shirts, and I’ve been terrified of all my clothes coming out the size of toddler shit ever since?”
Blink could’ve sworn he saw the woman’s lips twitch, but it was dark enough that he couldn’t be sure. He smiled again himself though, and turned his head so he was staring up at the ceiling once more. “One year, my dad decided he wanted to take Tate and me on vacation. He didn’t have a destination in mind, simply packed some clothes and some snacks and threw us in the car and off we went. Those two weeks are some of the best memories of my life.”
Blink talked until his voice went hoarse. His throat hurt, he would do just about anything for some water, but he didn’t stop. Talking about his family, stuff that was as far removed from this stinking cell as possible, helped him continue to compartmentalize, turn off his aches and pains.
When he’d finished sharing a memory about the first girl he’d ever kissed, when he was in the fourth grade, Blink turned to look at the woman. Her eyes were closed and she seemed to be asleep.
Some men would be annoyed that the woman they were trying to entertain had gone to sleep on them. But hearing her deep breaths in the otherwise quiet cells felt like a victory to Blink. Intellectually, he knew she had to sleep sometime. No human could stay awake forever. And knowing his voice was the last thing she’d heard before nodding off, and not the oppressive silence of their cells or the angry shouts of their captors, made him feel good.
It was a lame word to describe his sense of satisfaction, but his head hurt, as did most of his body, and he couldn’t think of a better one at the moment.
Closing his own eyes, Blink heard the distinct drip of water coming from somewhere, the low murmur of men’s voices on the other side of the door down the short hall leading to their cells, and the long, slow, deep breaths of the woman incarcerated next to him.