Dissident (The Bellator Saga Book 1)
Page 26
Good. Maureen liked her. And Nora could be trusted. “Fantastic. I’m going to head out a little early today. If I don’t see you, have a good weekend.”
Sarah smiled. “Thanks.”
Maureen headed out the door toward the parking garage. She didn’t have much time to work with. God willing, she’d be able to pull this off.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Her eyes were shut but the light seemed bright. Heaven, Caroline thought. I’m in heaven. She had passed out so easily in the cold. Death had been so much easier than she thought it would be. Just like falling asleep.
No, wait. She went to Mass every Sunday but her attention span was marginal at best. She had voted to expand abortion services and access to contraception more than a few times, and had a disturbingly fanatical dedication to her IUD. Her sex life, though largely contained to two marriages, was far more Penthouse Forum than good Catholic girl.
When she married Jack she adjusted her middle class perspective rather quickly and lived large, enjoying all the niceties that came with being fabulously wealthy. She hadn’t been to confession in years and had many, many sins to declare. There was no way she’d be able to go straight to heaven unless she was actually right about everything. And she seriously doubted that.
This had to be purgatory. A very high wattage purgatory.
She was laying down. It seemed odd that she wasn’t standing. She went through the parochial school file cabinet in her head but couldn’t remember a damn thing about the specifics of purgatory. Maybe you just floated horizontally until your state of grace was sufficient enough to go up a few levels.
She’d always been a fidgety sleeper and the same restlessness applied whenever she tried to lay down for any reason. She wasn’t quite ready to open her eyes yet but stretching seemed like a good idea. She started to move her arms and discovered she had a limited range of motion. That was odd.
Yawning, she blinked and looked around. It took a minute for her vision to clear, and she realized how thankful she was that Jack had talked her into having Lasik surgery a few years ago. Otherwise, she probably wouldn’t have been able to see a damn thing.
She was in a hospital room. There was an IV attached to her left arm. Despite the fuzziness that came from what had to be a heavy dose of some serious sedatives, she was in immense pain.
Her right arm was handcuffed to the bedrail. And she remembered.
* * * * *
Caroline was leaning against the tree, her eyes closed. Part of her was hoping that Jack would come back. She didn’t know why she’d made him leave. She didn’t want to die alone. But they’d done so much, risked their lives and the lives of their families and friends for so long that it seemed silly for them both to be arrested, or worse. Surrender wasn’t an option.
She firmly believed that he had a much better chance of succeeding without her slowing him down. She’d gotten herself into so much trouble over the last few years that it was only a matter of time before her guardian angel flew off her shoulder and moved on to a less frustrating protectee.
She was cold. She’d forgotten to put her gloves back on and now her hands were so frozen that she could barely move them. She knew it would be over soon. She begged God to take her. She felt herself sinking.
The rustling she and Jack heard previously grew louder, and before Caroline knew it the four soldiers were standing above her.
“Where is he?” one of the men asked, his gun pointed at her head.
She looked up at him. Her mouth remained shut. There was no way she was telling him anything.
Another one of the soldiers kicked at her leg. Caroline took a closer look and recognized him from the raid on their home the day before. His aim had sucked but he still managed to wing her in the leg as she and Jack made a frantic dash to the car.
He noticed the large amount of dried blood surrounding the hole in her pants. “Looks like I got you after all,” he said, pressing down on the wound with his boot.
She groaned in pain, suddenly wide awake. The first soldier knelt on the ground next to her, pressing the muzzle of the gun against her cheek. “Where’s your husband?” he asked.
“Who?” she rasped.
He raised the handgun, bringing it down hard onto her face. Her nose spurted blood and she let out a whimper.
“Tell me!” he barked.
The pain was dreadful. She’d never had anyone hit her in the face before. It pissed her off that this asshole soldier actually had the gall to do it.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” she said.
He hit her again, harder. “Where is he? Where’s McIntyre?”
Blood was dripping down from her nose into her mouth and she tried to spit it out. “I don’t know who that is,” she choked.
He grabbed Caroline by her coat collar and dragged her to her feet, slamming her up against the tree. He brought his arm up against her neck, cutting off her airway. She struggled against him, trying to breathe, and felt herself starting to fall into the dark abyss that she’d almost reached right before they arrived. Caroline heard one of the other men speak.
“We can’t kill her, Sarge. They wanted us to bring them in alive.”
The sergeant relaxed his grip and Caroline gulped for air. He kept her pinned tightly to the tree.
“Oh, she’ll be alive. But she doesn’t have to look pretty.” He drew his hand back and hit her with the pistol again, then threw her down.
Caroline fell face first into the snow, coughing and sputtering. She struggled to rise to her hands and knees. The sergeant stomped down hard on her back and she cried out in pain, collapsing to the ground. She tried to cover her head to shield herself from any other blows but it didn’t work. There were far too many of them and only one of her. The other three soldiers had rifles and their knack for beating the shit out of people with their weapons was much better than their ability to fire them accurately. Tears sprang from her eyes involuntarily as the four men exacted their rage upon her head, her back, her legs, almost every inch of her until she was screaming in agony.
“I think she got the message,” one of them finally said.
The sergeant yanked Caroline up by her hair. Her vision was blurred and she could barely make him out aside from his uniform. But she could tell he and the others had enjoyed themselves. The thought sickened her.
Her gray pea coat was tinged with red, and her eyes were almost swollen shut. Her hair was matted down and her face was smeared with a mixture of blood and tears. The soldiers smiled maliciously, admiring their handiwork.
“The First Lady of Pennsylvania,” the sergeant scoffed. “Not so much of a lady any more, are you?” He backhanded her a final time, and everything went black.
* * * * *
Caroline jerked at the memory. Fuck. This definitely wasn’t purgatory.
End of Part One
Caroline’s journey is far from over. The stakes are greater and the plot gets heavier in Conscience, which will be released on August 17, 2015. While Dissident is a mix of steamy romance and romantic suspense, Conscience crosses over into the realm of erotic political thriller. It is now available for pre-order at most major ebook retailers.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to everyone who has supported me on this ride so far, particularly my friends, beta readers and editors, and the book bloggers who took a chance on an unknown and gave me promo spots and granted review requests. I’ve had these characters in my head for years and was thrilled when I finally found a vehicle for them. You’ve provided me with the encouragement I needed in order to make this happen. I am grateful that you will continue to be with me as I see this saga through to the end. And THEN I’ll mention you by name. If. You’re. Lucky.
I’m entirely new to this and am doing this on my own with the help of bloggers, friends, and other self-published authors and it is a terrifying yet exhilarating process to see if I can make it work. Word of mouth and positive promotion can take a newbie like me a long way, and I appre
ciate the efforts made by my readers. If you enjoyed this book, please tell your friends about it and leave a review on Goodreads, Amazon, etc.
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