Chapter Six
When the door opens again, they move quickly.
Too quickly for my body to catch up.
The man releases the cuffs from the chair and half a second later my wrists are locked together behind my back. The metal tightens, and my shoulders tense.
Another man grips my arm and pulls me to my feet. A low ache starts in my right shoulder. I stumble, my balance off because my hands aren’t where my body expects them to be.
“Watch it,” the second man snaps.
“I need a moment,” I say. My tone isn’t defiant. Or panicked. “My hands—”
He doesn’t seem to care, and drags me through the door and around a corner. I misjudge the distance, my shoulder clipping the wall.
The response is immediate. Reflexive. He yanks my arm up and back to counter my momentum.
Something in my shoulder gives.
The sensation is wrong before it’s painful. But when the pain comes, it’s all at once, sharp and white-hot, flooding down my arm.
My vision grays at the edges. A roar fills my ears. I cry out, the sound tearing free before my brain catches up.
“Stop resisting,” the man snaps.
“I’m not—” My voice fractures. I bite down hard enough to taste copper.
They don’t slow. They don’t look at me. We keep moving as if nothing happened.
My body scrambles for balance and order, but everything hurts. Then the pattern snaps into place. This is order. Just not mine. They’re not reacting to a misstep. They’re following a plan.
One of them keeps my cuffed hands lifted too high between my shoulder blades, using the chain to steer me. The pressure drives straight into the displaced joint, forcing my shoulders into an angle they shouldn’t hold.
My nervous system scrambles for regulation. For a pause. For a single moment to orient.
I plant my feet. Reflex. Muscle memory from a life I don’t officially have anymore.
The man holding the cuffs loses patience. The shove hits my back inches from the dislocation. I can’t stop myself from falling.
My left side hits first. Then my cheek scrapes the concrete. Air rips from my lungs in a sound I don’t recognize as my own. Pain lances through my ribs, sharp and immediate.
“Get her up,” another man mutters.
Hands on both arms now. Too many. Pulling without coordination. Without care. “I told you she was resisting,” the first man says.
“I wasn’t,” I manage, gasping. “My shoulder’s dislocated.”
No one responds.
They haul me upright. The movement sends my vision washing out. My arm hangs at a terrible angle, unmistakably out of place, every step jarring the joint until it feels like it no longer belongs to me.
An engine idles nearby. I blink hard, forcing the world back into focus.
A gray van. Unmarked. Mud-smeared plates. One of the rear doors is open, revealing a metal bench bolted to the floor. No padding. Nothing to brace against.
They push me inside, then let go.
I hit the bench sideways. The pure agony ripping through my already throbbing side steals what little breath I had left. Curling inward only makes it worse.
The door slam shut.
The compartment is fully armored. No windows. No access to the cab. The air hums faintly with the engine, a steady vibration that travels through the walls and into my bones.
When the van lurches forward, I slide off the bench and onto the floor.
For several seconds, I don’t move.
I can’t.
Breathing comes in shallow, uneven gasps. The space feels smaller without sight lines, the air thick with the smell of metal and oil. My vision tunnels, dark pressing in at the edges as pain crowds everything else out.
Focus, Raine.
Shoulder first.
I’ve reduced dislocations before. But only in controlled environments with adequate space and both hands free.
Not like this.
I push myself onto my knees, slowly. Deliberately. Guided more by pressure than sight. The floor vibrates beneath me. I find the bench with my shin, then the wall with my shoulder. I widen my stance for balance, brace hard, and angle my torso so the movement will track cleanly.
Drawing in a breath I don’t really have, I roll my shoulder forward and down, forcing it through the arc my body remembers.
The sound is wrong. Wet. Grinding.
I scream. There’s no stopping it.
The floor rushes up to meet me, and I gasp as sweat breaks across my skin. The pain doesn’t vanish, but it changes. Loses its edge. Becomes something dense and punishing instead of blinding.
Workable.
I take inventory.
Ribs. Shallow breaths only. I shift carefully to the left. Then right. The pain answers immediately, sharp enough to make my vision blur.
At least one fracture. Possibly two.
Don’t twist. Don’t cough. Don’t give them another reason to put their hands on you.
My thoughts start to scatter, edges fraying as my body fights for priority. I rock back and forth by inches. Just enough movement to stay oriented. To remind myself where I am.
Portland was supposed to be a training assignment, not whatever this is. Not pain and broken ribs and restraints and a windowless van taking me somewhere I could simply…disappear.
The vehicle skids around a hard turn, and I slam into the wall. A fresh wave of agony flares along my left side. The sound that claws up my throat is something between a scream and a whimper. I force it back down.
I won’t give them anything else they can call resistance.
I focus on the rumble of the engine, using the low, constant background noise to help settle my thoughts. Whatever this is, I have to stay conscious if I have any hope of learning the shape of it.
They didn’t expect cooperation. They expected confusion. And I gave it to them. Just enough to justify the injuries.
That cold realization is worse than the pain. Because now I know this was all intentional.