Chapter 32
Sloan floated in a sea of searing hot pain, his mind in and out of consciousness.
He didn’t remember where he was, only knowing the lack of awareness was better than the alternative.
His head was yanked back by his overgrown hair, his neck agonizingly overextended, and he gagged on his own blood, the strength of the metallic taste a testament to his wounds.
“Open your eyes!” his attacker commanded. “We’re just getting started.”
That voice made him remember. SVX. He barely managed to crack open his swollen lids, the corrugated steel walls of the shipping container coming into view. A work lamp with a bare bulb hung high on the wall in front of him, figures in the shadows who occasionally spoke.
But this guy was his tormentor.
Time twisted and bent, leaving Sloan in a canyon of timelessness that echoed his cries. He would die here today, or tomorrow, or whenever they gave up on the chance he might talk. There were worse things to die for than the life of a child.
“I can do this all day, frogman.” The man kneed Sloan in his abdomen, which had already sustained more than a dozen traumatic blows.
Sloan saw stars, bending over as much as his restraints would allow and throwing up the small amount of bile that had collected in his stomach since the last time. “Whatever floats your boat,” he croaked. The back of his head exploded with pain, the base of his skull hit hard with a fist.
“I’m not stopping until you give us the girl.”
A shadow spoke. “He’s not kidding, Mr. Dvorak. Make things easier on yourself and give us the information we need.”
Sloan slowly lifted his head, noting it was far more difficult than the last time he’d done so, and grateful for the adrenaline that allowed him to move at all. “Information?”
“The girl, Selena,” said the shadow. “Tell us where she is.”
He grimaced, forcing himself upright and his shoulders back.
He lifted his chin, meeting the stare of the tormentor.
This man might have been a SEAL, or a Ranger, a Marine.
Someone who once fought for justice and now fought for anyone willing to pay.
Disgust bubbled through his bloodstream.
“Razorback was right. You guys are the scum of the private security industry.”
A powerful series of blows slammed his head sideways, then back. Punches pummeled his abdomen and side, a cry rushing out of his lungs at the crush of his tender kidney. His chair fell sideways, his arms strapped behind it.
The pop of gunfire filled the container. This was it. He was going to die. The shadowed men had enough of his antics, convinced he would never give up Selena’s location. A sense of relief washed over him. The pain was going to end. He closed his eyes.
When he opened them, someone was speaking in Spanish. The tormenter lay dead on the ground in front of him, two bullet holes in his forehead and a growing pool of blood on the floor of the container. Sloan couldn’t turn his head to see more than that.
Footsteps ran in and stopped at his head. “Sloan?”
He opened his eyes to find Selena standing over him. It hurt even to form words with his mouth. “Hey, sweetie. You okay?”
“I hid in the woods like you said, but then Bill came and showed me how to get to the police.”
“Bill?”
She nodded. “He waved for me to follow him, but every time I got close to him, he’d move farther away. When I came out of the trees, I saw the police station.”
“Bill, your SEAL friend who died?”
She nodded, lying down and putting her arm around his shoulder. “I know you’re going to be okay. Bill said so. He said it’s not your time to go yet.”
He sobbed once, a single sound of intense emotion before he forced himself to stop.
“It’s okay now, Sloan. I’ll take care of you.”
“I need a phone,” he ground out past the emotion that knotted his throat.
Selena spoke to the officers in Spanish, one of them handing her a device, and turned back to him. “Type in this number,” he said. “We’re calling Razorback.”