Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
S loane’s eyes rolled in her head. Everything felt distant. Disconnected. Foggy.
If she could just find something to hold on to… A sound. A sensation. She could pull herself out of the whirling darkness. But there was nothing around her. Nothing but cold. Nothing at all.
Shit.
A groan involuntarily left her throat. She couldn’t say how much time had passed since she landed back in the darkness, but her mind and body were starting to come back. To reboot from whatever had happened.
Had she been drugged? Sloane moved her fingers, and to her surprise, they responded. A good sign, even if the freezing cold was seeping into every nerve ending that was coming back online in her body.
Her arms pressed into her side, and she forced her body to follow her commands. To reach out and touch against her body. Fear seeped into her bloodstream, and as soon as her fingertips brushed against the bare skin of her thigh, it spiked so high the dizziness and disorientation came rushing back.
Sloane’s whole body trembled with shivers as she forced herself up against the wall. The rough texture screamed concrete blocks, and as her eyes focused more and more in the space, she began to understand that this time was different. She hadn’t been taken to a cave.
How the hell had it happened, again? He’d somehow gotten her. Taken her away from the shelter. Trapped her once more.
And just like before, she was stripped down to nothing. The back of her neck was damp, and when Sloane reached up, she found the cause: her hair. He must have stripped her clothes from her and dumped water over her exposed body. Left to get hypothermia just like she’d been fourteen years before.
Everything was dark. So fucking dark it was terrifying. She crossed her ankles and dragged her legs up towards her chest, laying her head down in her arms as she tried to curl into a tight ball to conserve what little warmth was leaving her body.
Sloane worked desperately to remember anything from the night. She could hear the panicked call from Courtney. And the conversation deciding that she would go to the shelter with Gage and Nash. Oh god. What had happened? What did he do to them?
She forced her eyes up, rapidly blinking as she tried to focus on the space around her. It was so damn dark she could barely see anything. Her hand moved out to the right, fighting to feel something other than concrete. As her gaze wandered to follow her hand, she saw it. Her vision was grainy with exhaustion and distorted from whatever drugs were trying to make their way out of her system, but there definitely was a body-shaped shadow a few feet in front of her.
Shit. She couldn’t tell if they were breathing. If they were alive. If it was Nash, or Courtney, or… her stomach pitched… or if it was Gage.
It took every ounce of strength she had, but Sloane moved her body until her ankle ached where the shackle was digging into her skin.
Her fingers reached out towards the person laying just a few feet away from her, but she couldn’t reach them. Their face was turned away, but one glance down at the arm twisted behind his back, where a special bracelet sat on his wrist, and Sloane knew Gage was there with her too. That realization made her eyes sting with tears. Because she knew what fate was coming for them.
Sloane knew she was going to be the reason why Gage died.
“Gage?” She croaked out his name. “Hey, Superman… Can you hear me? You have to wake u-up. You have to c-come back to me.” The words burned in her throat.
She couldn’t make out the rise and fall of his chest, but if she listened closely, and held her breath, she could hear the gentle in and out of his rhythmic breathing. Her eyes slipped closed, and her head flopped forward to rest on her arms. She was dizzy, and exhausted, and her toes and fingers were already going numb. Nothing about her mind was right. Every thought was a million miles away, and reaching for one felt like running through a field of fog.
How the hell was she going to get them out of there?
A whimper pulled her out of her spiraling thoughts. Oh god, Gage was finally coming around. Tears stung the raw skin on her face.
“Sloane…” he groaned as she tried to cover herself. There was a chance he might not be able to see her with how dark everything was, but she still wanted to cover up the evidence of what had already happened to her.
“I’m here. I’m here, Gage. It’s g-going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.” Her damn teeth chattered and she hated that even if he couldn’t see her, he’d be able to hear that in her voice.
She listened as he started moving around. And then she heard it. His leg pulled on the chain that was holding him in place. He was shackled just like she was.
“Am I blind or are we just someplace really dark?” he asked.
“I couldn’t really see anything either, at first.”
She watched him, the room no longer spinning, as he pushed himself to a seated position. The way his breathing turned sharp scared her.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“My head,” he groaned. “I’ll be fine.” She knew he meant for it to sound reassuring, but his pain bled into his words. “Are you…tied up?”
“I have something metal like a shackle around my ankle,” she admitted. “T-There’s nothing within my reach to use as a tool. I can’t get it off my leg.”
“Shit. Me too. Okay. God, my fucking head is pounding. I hate that I can’t see a goddamn thing.”
“Give it some time. I think… whatever I was drugged with is probably in your system too. But my eyes adjusted, and so will yours.”
She reached her hand out towards him.
“Can you come over here? I think we might be close enough that we could touch our hands together.”
“Fuck, my body feels like it went ten rounds with Hawk when he’s in a mood. Did you see what happened?”
“I don’t think so. The last thing I can remember is being in the truck with you and Nash, on our way to the shelter.” She hated the way her voice shook. She needed to bury all her emotions except rage. Rage that she was back in the same situation. Rage that he’d taken Gage and was subjecting him to the same torture. She needed to remember that she trained for years, knowing it might happen. All the things that Kimi taught her in the weeks and months following her escape, all the things Gage and Stone and Hawk and Gunner and Nash had practiced with her, she could use to protect herself. Maybe even get both of them out. She had to believe that there was no way he was going to win this time.
“Red?”
“Do you think he hurt Courtney and Nash?”
“I don’t know. I don’t really remember what was going on.”
Maybe it wasn’t just the drugs. Gage’s injuries could be more severe than what she was thinking. “I’m worried about you. Can you tell me what hurts?”
“Everything.” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “But mostly my head.”
She hissed. “Can you try and come over here, please? Maybe if we’re closer together I can see enough to check you out. If you have a concussion, it’s going to slow us down.”
“I’m fine. I need to know some things, though, and I need you to be completely honest with me.”
“Okay.”
“Did he touch you?”
She paused, not wanting to pay too close of attention to how her body felt. “I-I don’t remember anything.”
“Does it feel… I mean, can you feel anything…”
“No. Not that way.”
Gage groaned as he started to move towards her. She winced at the slow movements, knowing he was in pain. Her breath stalled in her chest until the moment they were finally close enough to slip their hands together. Relief slammed into her heart, and she forced herself not to let the lump of emotions in her throat overwhelm her.
“Red, you’re fucking freezing.”
“I woke up soaking wet… and I don’t have any clothes on.”
“Fuck. Can you come closer to me?” Gage growled as he shifted. A hiss of pain had her holding her hands up.
“I’m fine. Don’t h-hurt yourself more.”
“Christ,” he groaned. “Move your arms towards me, baby. I want you to put on my shirt, okay? It might cushion the cold here.”
“No. If you’re injured more than I can see, moving your arms to take your shirt off will be too painful. I don’t want you to hurt more.”
“Fuck that. I’m not letting you freeze to death in front of me.” He pulled his shirt off and Sloane watched in horror as his face froze in pain. Gage didn’t breathe. She let her eyes trace over every inch of his exposed skin, nearly vomiting at the darkness marring his sides. Finally, with shaking hands, he handed his shirt to her. “I’m so sorry, Sloane.”
Why was he apologizing to her? It was all her fault. She reached into the farthest corners of her mind and tried to pull a blanket of apathy over her thoughts. There was no room for emotions or weakness in that moment. They needed to come up with a plan. They needed to get out of wherever the hell they were.
She reached out and took his shirt from him. God, she had to blink back another round of tears as his warmth wrapped around her. It smelled exactly like all those times she’d dressed in his shirts to go to bed. What she wouldn’t give to be back in his apartment right then, getting ready to curl up together. Her resolve strengthened.
“No. Feeling like that is only going to take up precious brain power. We need to think. There’s a reason why I went through so much training, Gage. He doesn’t know, but I’m stronger than I was before. I got myself out once, I’m going to make sure we make it out of this.”
“If you have a chance to go, Red, don’t even stop for one second to think about me.”
“I’m not?—”
“You will leave me behind if you need to. You will not stay because of me. The only thing that matters is you getting back safe and sound. You have the opportunity, you take it.”
“That isn’t the only thing that matters. We’re a team. I’m not leaving you behind. Isn’t that the most important thing you learned in the Navy?”
“It might have been the most important thing in the Navy, but the only thing that matters to me now is making sure you’re safe.”
Heavy footsteps moved above them and she squeezed Gage’s hand tighter.
“Do you have your necklace?”
Sloane’s fingers pressed against her neck. “No. Shit, I’m so sorry Gage. You shouldn’t even be here. He should have just taken me. This is all my fault.”
“Red, you think I’d want to be out there while you’re missing? I’d be going out of my mind. Together, we have a real chance at stopping this asshole.”
More footsteps, but it still only sounded like one set. A loud thump cracked above them and a dragging sound made Sloane’s stomach sink.
“I think we’re in a house, baby.”
“Does that mean… are we in a fucking basement right now?” She hissed her question out, that rage building back into her bloodstream. “How the fuck did I get myself trapped in a basement twice in one year? That has to be some sort of insane record.”
A crack of light flooded the space and illuminated a familiar set of stairs. Boxes stacked on either side that she knew were filled with familiar memories.
They weren’t just in a random basement.
They were in her fucking basement.
“Gage…” Panic rose in her throat as bile churned in her stomach.
“Is there anything you can reach around you that we can use as a weapon?”
“No. I don’t have anything within reach. Do you?” Her eyes dropped to the floor around them, frantically looking over the space she wasn’t able to feel around earlier.
“No. But it’s okay. We’ll think of something.”
His hand tightened around hers as their captor walked down the stairs.