Sweat clings to my damaged body like a second skin.
There’s not a single part of me that doesn’t ache. I can’t even feel the still-healing stab wound in my shoulder anymore, thanks to the bitter cold spreading through me.
Has death finally come for me? Has the end to my torment finally arrived?
I think of Sierra. My twin sister.
She’s who I’ll miss the most. But at least she’ll never see me as haunted as I surely am now. The screams of my murdered teammates echo through my mind on constant repeat. I wish I could drown them out now. There’s a part of me that yearns for the torture River Culvers enjoys sending my way, because at least then my own screams eclipse everything else.
Lately, in the small moments of
sleep I catch, I dream of the farm back home. Of my dad out working the cattle and my mother tending to the garden. I dream of running through fields with my sister. Of sitting on a porch swing and drinking sweet iced tea.
Why couldn’t I have just been
content with that life? Why did I feel this burning desire to find more? Look where it got me. Tortured in a country I probably wouldn’t even be able to find on a map.
The door scrapes open somewhere behind me.
Where I used to feel fear at their arrival, now I feel nothing. I’ve grown numb. What more can they take from me when they’ve already stolen everything?
“Come back for more?” I sneer, my voice hoarse and unrecognizable.
The new arrival doesn’t speak, and when he comes around in front of me, I note that I’ve never seen him before.
“Who are you?” I demand.
“Someone who is here to help you.” He reaches up and undoes the shackle around my right wrist.
I fall, unable to support my own
weight. He catches me though, holding me up as if I weigh nothing while he undoes the shackle on my left arm.
The stranger takes my full body weight and guides me over toward the chair River sits in whenever he comes to watch me bleed.
“This is a trick.” I try to squirm against the man’s hold, but he keeps me upright.
“No,” he insists. “But you need to keep your voice down. Let’s not make this more complicated than it needs to be.” The man pulls back and grips my face. “Look at me, Silas.”
They call me SEAL here. Or Williamson. Never Silas.
“Who are you?”
“I’m here to help you. Now listen to me. You are going to leave this room and head left
down the hall. There are some turns you’ll take as the hall veers off, but there’s a door at the end that will lead you out of here. It will be unlocked for you. Get out, go right. There’s a tunnel under the fence. Use it to get to freedom.”
I narrow my gaze on him, feeling a bit of my strength return with each passing moment. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because there is more for you to do in this life,” he replies as he pulls me to my feet. “Get out of here. Move fast. Remain quiet.”
I nod, still unsure if this man can be trusted. It wouldn’t be the first time River has toyed with me like this. Last time, he set his dog after me. What if this is another trick?
Go.
The word echoes through my mind.
“Go, Silas. If you don’t, you will die in this place. I will make sure the door is unlocked
and the path clear.” He smiles softly at me, then slips out of the room.
I stare after him a moment, trying to figure out just how I’m going to get the strength
to walk out the door, when mere moments ago I thought death had come to collect
me.
Go.
That word again. I stand, putting one foot in front of the other until I reach the door.
Then I slip out into the hall and head down the left side just as the stranger told me to. I don’t let my mind wander on worries, I just focus on that one silent order.
Go.
Everything aches, my body burning with each movement. But as I make my way down the damp, concrete hallway, I know that if I stop—even for a moment—it will mean death.
He helped me escape this time, but I know that I’ll never escape again.
So even as every movement is yet more torture, I continue pushing forward.
I step on a clump of concrete breaking away from the tunnel floor and pause, hissing
through clenched teeth as it bites into the soft flesh of my bare foot. Warm blood trickles from the injury, but I have nothing to wrap it. Even if I did, I can’t risk the time it would take to do so.
Soon I’ll be pushing through a door and taking my chances in the deep jungles surrounding the area I’ve been held in since I was captured almost a month ago. But dying out there is a lot more enticing than living in this perpetual hell.
I’ll happily take my chances.
Each step that takes me closer to freedom cements my desire to survive. I have to make it home. If not for me, then for my entire team who didn’t make it through our initial contact with the American crime boss we were here to stop. My command has to know what happened. They have to know so they can act.
Still, people will say I’m lucky. But to me, luck would have been bleeding out on the ground before they ever brought me back into the compound. Then I wouldn’t carry the weight of everything that was done to me over the past three weeks.
A woman’s scream rips through the stale air, and I sink against the wall, hiding in the shadows. My heart pounds, my head burning with an ache I’m sure will split me in two if it doesn’t stop soon.
“Is that all you’ve got?” she yells. American. Though I’m not surprised. The compound we’re in belongs to one of the most notorious drug runners in the U.S. Most of the guards are American, except for the one who let me go.
“You let him die!” a man bellows.
“And I’d do it again!” she retorts, then cries out once more as the resounding crack of a slap echoes down the hall. I clench my hands into fists, then take a deep, steadying breath and wait for it to be safe. I should just leave. Continue sneaking out, but if I do—if I leave this woman behind—what kind of man does that make me?
Save her. The two words come to me clear as day, surely my conscience telling me that I can’t leave her here. It’s the same stern order as the word go. The same push toward action.
Even if I don’t know her, I have to save her.
Even if it means we both get caught, I have to take her with me.
I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life.
A door along the wall opens, and two men stalk out.
“I’m going to go find out what we’re supposed to do with her. My guess is they’ll want her head for this.”
“Shame, it’s a pretty head,” the other replies.
The door begins to swing closed, so I retrieve the chunk of concrete I stepped on and rush forward to catch the door before it locks shut. Then I wait to make sure the men keep walking. One thing I’ve learned, arrogance does not equal intelligence. If they’re so arrogant to believe they’re untouchable here, they won’t notice something as simple as a door not closing when it should.
Sure enough, they keep walking, so I sneak inside, prop the door open with the concrete chunk, and turn.
I’m standing in what is clearly a surgical room of some kind. There’s a hospital bed streaked with blood and an assortment of medical tools and supplies. The woman is chained to a chair, blue scrubs bloodied. Her dark hair falls like a curtain in front of her face, though her breathing is steady enough to show she’s alive. There’s a tray of sharp tools to her right, so I reach over and grab a scalpel.
“Come for more?” she demands, then looks up at me. I’m pinned beneath a mossy green gaze, though both eyes are bloodshot. Her face is bruised and bloody, and a large scratch runs down one side of her cheek. “Who are you?”
“Chief Petty Officer Williamson, ma’am,” I say as I rush forward and cut through her bindings. “I’m getting out of here, and I’m taking you with me.”
“Just like that?” she asks, rubbing her freed wrists.
“Just like that,” I reply.
“You don’t even know why I’m here.”
“I know you’re not supposed to be here and that these men are going to kill you.”
“And you can’t let that happen.”
“No ma’am, I can’t.”
“So you’re a Boy Scout, then.” She stands.
I study her, trying to decide whether or not I’ve made a mistake. “No, I’m a SEAL.”
“Navy,” she replies. “You’re all Boy Scouts. I’m Bianca.” She looks me up and down. “You look pretty bad yourself.”
Glancing down at my blood-streaked bare chest and what’s left of my uniform pants, I can’t argue with her. I don’t even know what my face must look like. It’s likely even more battered than hers. “I’m not trying to win any beauty pageants,” I tell her. “Now, are we going or not?”
“Let me grab some things.” She rushes to the side and grabs a blue bag, then stuffs the supplies from the tray inside. “Ready.”
Keeping the scalpel in my hand, I creep toward the door and peer out. The hall is still empty. Remaining in the shadows, I stick close to the wall, trying to pay attention to any sounds that might signal trouble.
There’s yelling somewhere, though it’s so distant I can’t quite make out where it’s coming from, but I still pick up my feet faster, moving as quickly as I can through the hall until—I spot the door up ahead.
Freedom.
“Shut everything down!” someone screams from behind us. “We have two escapees!”
I reach back and grab the woman’s hand, then yank her forward as I sprint toward the exit. If they go into lockdown, we’ll never leave this place. I know it deep down in my soul. So I run.
Even as my feet sting.
My muscles burn.
My head pounds.
I hit the heavy door and shove it open, then close it softly behind us to avoid any loud noises, before we sprint into the trees. It’s dark overhead, so watching where we’re going is an impossibility. There’s yelling from the compound behind us, and it just forces me to run faster, to push my body as hard as I can.
But it’s not a maintainable speed, so I can only hope we can outrun them before I lose it. I’m just grateful Bianca is keeping my pace with relative ease.
I’m not sure how long we run, but by the time dawn is breaking, I no longer hear anyone behind us. So, choosing a large tree to take cover against, we stop to rest. My breathing is ragged, my body numb from the chill in the air and likely the amount of blood I’ve lost over the past few hours since two of my crudely stitched stab wounds have reopened.
“I need to look you over,” the woman says as she kneels in front of me and opens the bag of stolen supplies. “Otherwise you’re going to die before you can get us out of this place.”
“You’re a doctor?” I ask.
“Trauma surgeon,” she replies. “Bianca Theodore at your service. Though I normally treat Rangers, I think I can make an exception for a SEAL this time around.” She flashes me a smile that I know is meant to be disarming as she slips into a pair of gloves she pulled from the bag. “This is not going to feel great,” she warns, then gently presses against one of the wounds in my side.
I hiss through clenched teeth as pain shoots up through my body.
“Yeah. So listen, I know we just met and all, and I hate causing pain to people who just saved me, but you should know—this going to hurt—badly.”
