Chapter 16
Jace
The ringing in my ears is louder than the music blaring through the cell block. It feels like somebody has taken a hatchet to my brain. I wish that was my only source of discomfort. It’s not. My whole fucking body hurts.
A bead of sweat escapes my hairline and sails toward the cut across my cheekbone. It stings as it dips inside, but it has nothing on the throbbing in my groin. Every breath I take reminds me that I feel as though I might throw up. It’s a fucking miracle I haven’t.
I don’t regret a single thing, though. Whether or not the kill order for Sean was a test, I was finished hurting my best friend.
Thirty hours after Lou and Digs made a break for it, a Green Beret unit was brought in from Kazakhstan.
I don’t know these twelve men, but they’re on Thompson’s same sickening level of deranged.
The first thing they did was strap me to that wooden table chock full of splinters that are still embedded in my back. When they started stretching my limbs in conjunction with the water they dumped over my cloth-covered face, I wondered if I was a goddamn softie. Why hadn’t I ever thought of that?
Probably because physical torture isn’t my thing.
That’s Digs’s specialty. I prefer to raid someone’s mind like an invasive species.
It’s why Sean and I make a great team. Well, until Lou came along.
I never had the chance to slither into her brain; although, part of me wanted to.
Not because I had the same attraction to her as Sean, but since I found her to be curious.
It’s not every day you meet someone who thinks being waterboarded is… entertaining.
I know Sean hates that he’s a sadist, but I don’t mind the label. If anything, it was a relief when that head doctor with the bright red lipstick slapped it on my file. Growing up, I knew I was different, more twisted than my peers. Now I know why.
In some ways, being stationed here was a gift.
I appreciate the structure, the discipline, and enjoy the heady rush when I inflict pain on others, even if the walls seem to have turned into a different, more insidious beast in the last few days.
I probably would’ve gone with Sean and Louhi if not for my mom.
We’re close, and I couldn’t leave without talking to her, but there wasn’t time for that.
I never would’ve been able to disappear on her without a trace.
She deserves more than, “Sorry, Mom, I’m going on the run with two other fugitives.
Don’t worry about me, I’ve made an assassin friend who can probably keep me safe. Have a great life.”
I didn’t make a contingency plan, though, and I’ll carry that regret with me for the rest of my life.
My mom is going to crumble when that soldier knocks on her door with the words, “Ma’am, we’re sorry, but your son has been killed in the line of duty.
” It’s been my mom and I against the world for as long as I can remember.
Even if I somehow make it out of this alive, the odds are not in my favor for making contact with her again.
At least she’ll have Sean’s mom. They’ll need each other more than ever before.
I’d planned to leave this hellscape in three years when my time here is done. What I didn’t account for is how long three years is when being repeatedly waterboarded and beaten to within an inch of my life.
I close my eyes, trying to ease the pounding in my skull.
Instead, I picture Major Thompson’s face—again.
I’ve been fantasizing about how I might end that dickface’s life since Lou and Digs made The Great Island Escape.
If I would’ve gone with them, would things have ended differently? I suppose it doesn’t matter now.
Torturing Thompson would be fun, but playing with his mind until it combusts would be better.
That’s what I’d do; I’d bend his brain until it broke.
I’d need a hot, tight cunt waiting for me, though.
Shattering Thompson’s spirit would only serve to make me hard, and yanking on my cock after something that epic wouldn’t suffice.
I’m surprised these assholes didn’t castrate me. Something tells me that was on the menu. I reach between my legs and cup myself, just for reassurance that I didn’t black out. Thankfully, my pillar and stones are still there. Can you hear that sound? It’s womankind sighing in relief.
There was a moment there, between the buckets of ice being dumped on my lap, when I thought I might actually have met Satan himself. Turns out, the devil has many, many faces.
The cushioned layers of my brain that have diligently protected my psyche are beginning to peel back, exposing the more raw, dangerous thoughts that tell me death would be preferential.
I’ve already decided that I won’t let them torture me to death. Every other choice has been taken from me. I won’t let them decide how I die, too.
The iron bars on my cage shake, the sound only making my head pound harder, and I grind my teeth. These dickheads should be careful pushing me too far. I have nothing left to fucking lose. The only thing stopping me from launching myself at the sources of noise is that I can barely move.
“…place is as disgusting as the inmates,” a soldier says as the door to my cell grates open with a screech that claws its way down my spine.
“Filthy,” another confirms as a boot is rammed into the lower left side of my back. I screw my eyes shut against the blinding agony radiating through my kidney but otherwise remain silent. They want a reaction.
“We don’t get paid enough for this,” the guard mutters, his voice teeming with disdain. There’s a shrill scraping noise, and I peek open an eyelid just enough to confirm my suspicion that they’re attempting to clean the cell. “At least the cells in Kazakhstan had toilets.”
The painful grating sound claws at the inside of my brain like nails on a chalkboard, and I wince internally. “I don’t know how anyone survives this…”
Then, there’s a more high-pitched jarring that’s almost enough to make me want to rip my brain from my skull.
“…no way…siblings lived through…” Someone laughs, or at least I think that’s what that sound is. It’s hard to hear anything over the pain that has filled every cell of my body. “Think they’re both still alive?”
“Fuck, I hope not. I…she’s dead. That’s what Digs deserves.” At the mention of my best friend, I grind my teeth and try to make my mind focus, but my head is fucking killing me.
“I think she was scamming him,” the other voice says at the same time a clang peals through the cell block. “I bet she met up with…”
Fuck, it’s so loud. It’s a monumental effort not to cover my ears, but I don’t want them to know I’m listening to them—or at least trying to.
“Who throws away a success rate like his for some pussy?” Are they talking about Lou? If so, I hope that pussy saves our lives pretty damn soon.
I never thought I’d see the day, but fuck, I think I miss Special Forces.
I didn’t enjoy being a Green Beret as much as I thought I would when I completed the qualification course.
At least the threat of death was only ever on the other side of my own barrel.
Now, it’s coming from my own brothers and the government I’ve served loyally for years.
My eyelids feel like sandpaper as I peel them apart and stare at the stained concrete wall in front of me. I don’t know what my mother would think of me if she saw me like this, but I’d like to believe she’d understand why I turned my back on the man I was just a few days ago.
I hope Louhi arrives before I’m forced to do something I’m a little less proud of.