Chapter Seventy-One
THE AFGHAN HURRIED down the steps and rushed toward the young woman.
“Who the fuck are you?” she barked, marching forward.
The stranger put a smile on his face that shifted to loathing as he got within striking distance, his open palm slapping her across her cheek and jaw with a force that dropped her to her knees. He yanked back on her black hair and grabbed her around the throat.
“Who the fuck am I? Who the fuck are you?” he spat.
Before she could respond, the Afghan threw her forward into the dirt and placed his knee against the base of her spine, pressing his hand into the side of her face, pinning it to the ground.
His free hand frisked her from her Doc Martens up her bare leg beneath the fabric of the long black silhouette, along her waistband, and up the spaghetti straps that held the gray-and-black bodice to her upper body.
He roughly turned her over, sliding his knee between her legs and slapping her across the face once more.
He then exerted downward pressure against her neck with a grip of iron while he frisked her front.
Satisfied she was unarmed, he wrenched her to her feet, forced her up the steps of the cabin, and threw her to the floor just inches from Walker’s suspended naked body.
Walker opened his eyes, regaining consciousness from the electrical current that had shocked his system.
He struggled to speak. “Belle…”
“Chris!” she cried.
The Afghan cranked the telephone again, sending the incapacitating current through Walker’s body, the air heavy with the smell of burnt flesh from his toe and genitals.
As his eyes rolled back in his head and his body spasmed, the Afghan turned and kicked Belle in the ribs, doubling her over from the pain.
He rummaged through a small bag in the corner and removed two short lengths of rope, before dragging Belle by the hair to a post that supported the roof.
He knelt down and wrenched her hands behind her back, securing them around the wood pillar.
He slapped her hard across the face to get her to stop thrashing, which allowed him to tie her feet together with the twine.
Standing up, he wiped his sweaty hands on his pants and walked back to his bag, pulling out a long Choora knife.
He drew it from its wooden sheath and placed the tip of the eleven-inch blade under his prisoner’s chin, pressing it up.
It cut through the skin on the underside of Walker’s jaw, driving his head up from his chest.
When the Afghan spoke, he was not talking to his debilitated captive, he was talking to the girl.
“Who are you?”
Belle drew her knees to her chest and glared at the monster before her.
“Who?” he said, driving the knife farther up, blood starting to flow down the blade and onto his hand.
“Mirabelle Travois.”
“What are you doing here?”
“This is my cabin.”
The Afghan removed the knife from under Walker’s chin, wiping his bloody hands on the leg of his pants.
“You picked a bad time to visit.”
“Are you going to kill him?”
He found it interesting that the girl asked about Walker before herself.
“That is probable, but it’s not up to me.”
“You waiting for orders from Bates?”
The Afghan stepped to the frightened girl, knelt, and put the knife against her throat.
“How do you know that name?”
“I know you are going to kill me too, so it doesn’t matter. Fuck you!”
The man stood and backhanded her across the face with his empty hand.
Her nose began to bleed, the blood dripping into her mouth.
“You American women need to know your place. You talk to me like that again and your death will be more painful than his,” he said, jerking his head toward the unconscious man dangling from the rafter.
“You dress like a whore and talk like a whore, and you will be treated like one, do you understand me?”
Belle spat at her tormenter.
He reared back again, only to pause when a new set of headlights sliced through the darkness.