But it wasn’t him they were coming for. Her cell was unlocked, and the two guards ripped her from him and roughly walked her out of the cell. To her horror, they brought her into that room with the barrel and the water.
Zasha stood near the small dingy window. “Welcome back,” she said, her eyes cold and dead. “Now, where were we?”
The guards shoved her forward, and Chry took as big a breath as she could.
2
2-Stroke lay there after Chry was taken, not knowing if he would ever see her again. A cold sensation spread through his middle, and his insides bunched into a hard knot. Emotion threatened to swamp him. The thought of never seeing her again, of all that beauty, potential, kick-ass attitude gone… It made him feel hollow.
Then he visualized her returning, whole and hanging onto life as fiercely as he was hanging onto it. He knew all about the everyday struggle to just exist. He had used that experience to build up his ability to surge back after he was reduced down to the very bare minimum of his foundations, not only as a man, but as a human being.
He was scraping bottom and hanging on by sheer will. The drugs were unexpected, and they had dragged him kicking and screaming into the hell of his life before he’d killed his father. The constant fear, the pain, the uncertainty. All of it was rolled into a ball he thought he had expelled a long time ago. But monsters were called monsters for a reason.
He wasn’t a kid anymore. He was a man…a SEAL, and that was fucking everything. He was committed one hundred percent to performing his duty. One hundred percent wasn’t fifty or even ninety-eight percent. One hundred was one hundred. Any less would be off mission, any less would be a failure, and SEALs didn’t fail. They won every fucking time. He could do no less because that’s what he decided he wanted in life.
He might be here in this cell, and his enemy might have control of what happened to his body, but they could never control his thoughts. He would always be the master of his mind.
He’d proved that to himself in BUD/S, and every SEAL in that class had been broken down to the basics. Survive. He intended to do that. And what was more, he intended to take Chry with him.
Zasha was unpredictable, mentally unstable, and a fucking sadistic beast.
What she wanted was their surrender, their mental surrender. That was what was behind her wanting Chry to give up the codes and him to renounce the US. His resistance was important and part of what made him a warrior, but denouncing the brotherhood? Unthinkable, impossible, never going to happen. He might as well cut off a limb. The brotherhood wasn’t what they were…it was who they were. Denying their bond was the same as turning his back on them, severing an unspoken and sacred oath. She didn’t understand what made the bond they had all formed during BUD/s so strong, and she never would. It made them all unbreakable.
2-Stroke had failed every time at quitting. Whether it was before BUD/S or after. Quitting was never an option.
Chry was cut from the same cloth, had different experiences, but she also sucked at quitting which was why she would win over and over. “Hang on, babe. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere without you. Just, hang on,” he whispered in a hoarse voice. He visualized her face, her determination—her—and kept breathing, kept resisting every avenue his mind kept traveling.
He would go down swinging, never out of the fight until he was permanently out. And, if he could, he would come back and haunt the hell out of that crazy bitch.
Chry was doing everything she could to hang on. She was fighting her fear, fighting for her very integrity. She’d taken a vow, pledged herself to Uncle Sam. If she crumbled at the first test of that resolve, who was she? Zasha wouldn’t have the upper hand in destroying Chry. Even if she died here under the water where they held her, her air spent, her lungs giving out, the breath she’d taken her last, she would die for what she believed in.
When her body relaxed, no more air to feed her brain, the man yanked her out of the barrel, but the bastard who held her barely gave her enough time to fill her lungs before he plunged her back in. Chry caught just a glimpse of Zasha’s face and her now animated eyes. She was enjoying this.
Of course, she would. Zasha was driven by revenge, anger, and loss so deep she was nothing but a black hole inside. The need for it had devoured everything else until all she ate, slept, and breathed was vengeance.
The man pushed her torso so hard against the barrel, it impeded her ability to breathe. After a minute she started to struggle, her head feeling light and airy as if she were floating. After another thirty seconds, she fought to exhale. She could only hope she would blackout before she drowned.
Breathe. There was no more air to accomplish something so simple. Her heartbeat resonated in her ears. It was all she could hear beyond the strain of holding her breath. In this place where they took away everything that made her human, she prepared to die.
The man yanked her out again and she collapsed to the floor. She lay there shivering, the voices above her nothing but angry scattered words.
Zasha knelt beside her. “You are stubborn. I’m offering you a way to get out of more torture and you refuse to answer one question.” She smiled like they were best pals. Chry always had an inkling that Kelly Sparks wasn’t the woman she pretended to be. Maybe it was her experience on the street, but there had always been a detached disingenuity to her interactions with people.
Sweat pooled at the base of her spine, at her temples. The clamminess of her skin reeked of fear. She had no advantage here, but she pushed herself up to a sitting position, her back against the barrel.
Answering that one question would lead her down the road to treason. Betraying her country was not a game of quick, easy steps. “F-u-c-k y-o-u!” Chry managed between gasping breaths of air.
Zasha’s face contorted and she backhanded Chry so hard her head slammed against the wooden barrel and she dropped to the floor. Dazed, she lay there absorbing the pain exploding in her face.
“You will tell me those codes, or I think we’re close to the end of your journey.”
The not so veiled threat was supposed to invoke fear, terror. Chry refused to give her anything. She remained on the floor, taking in gulping, rasping breaths.
“Oh, take her back to her cell.”
Zasha’s thug forced her to her feet, and on rubbery legs, she was dragged back to her cell. Frantically she looked for 2-Stroke, but the cell was empty. Were they taking another crack at him or had they separated them again? Hopes of getting out of here slipped through her fingers as they tossed her back into her cell. She went to the corner and curled into a ball of shivering pain and desperation.
She had to face the facts. Zasha was never going to ransom them or use them for bargaining chips. This was all about her personal vendetta. Chry took a rough breath and clamped down on her resolve. Next time they were together, they had to make a break for it.
It was either escape or death for them.
Saint stood toe to toe with Quell. Had he miscalculated, and she was on his enemy’s side? He was about to find out. It seemed Quell was as much an enigma in person as she was in cyberspace. He might not know her real name, but he did know she was more than beautiful, in a complex mixture of mind, body, attitude, and heart. Her dark hair was loose and long, flowing over her shoulders, some of it caught in his fists. With that delicate nose that gave her face an impish look, her eyes wide with a slight tilt, thickly lashed, she looked familiar in a way he couldn’t quite place.