by Gemma Hart
I twisted my wrists but the rough ropes held fast. All I felt were the abrasions against my wrist as I futilely tried to work my way free.
It all felt like some kind of crazy nightmare. It had happened so fast that I could barely process my current situation.
I had just arrived at the refugee camp. It was in complete ruins after the earthquake. All the tents had collapsed and some of them were buried underneath sand dunes that had popped up after the quake.
Margie and I had decided to split up and work with two different UN teams so we could be more efficient. But no sooner had I seen Margie off that a large black truck swerved into the sight. I barely had a chance to realize the truck looked familiar when two men jumped out, grabbed me, and threw me into the back seat where Randall was waiting for me with a length of rope.
I had listened to his call with Cooper and could hear Cooper’s strained voice as he tried not to let his anger take hold of him.
Oh my god, please don’t let me have put him in danger.
They were on a peacekeeping mission. How many times had I been told that? How could a peacekeeping team go on a rescue mission? I pictured all the horrific ways Cooper could die trying to save me.
I had tried not to cry out in the car to alarm him but Randall had made sure I had made noise. He had wrapped a large hand around my throat, squeezing till I saw black spots. Or he had grabbed a fistful of my hair, pulling my face closer to the phone so my cries of pain could be heard more clearly.
Finally, after hanging up the phone, Randall had made a motion to one of his men. A gag was firmly tied around my mouth and then a bag was thrown over my head.
When the bag was finally removed and I got a chance to take a breath of fresh air, I was being led into an unfamiliar room and thrown into a chair.
The room looked like some kind of abandoned meeting hall, much like the one that had collapsed in town.
We had driven for quite a while so perhaps we were now in a different town?
“You know,” Randall suddenly started, making me jump in surprise, “I think it’s a little odd that a doctor would find herself attracted to a mercenary.”
He waited a bit, expecting me to make some kind of response. But I kept quiet, unsure where he was going with this conversation and unwilling to participate.
Ignoring my silence, he continued, “After all, isn’t it the doctor’s oath to save lives and help the helpless? How can you follow that oath while being with a man whose job it is to search and kill people?”
“That is not his job!” I retorted, unable to keep my silence any longer.
“Oh really?” Randall said, brow raised, clearly enjoying the idea of getting under my skin. “And you know the job of a mercenary now? After only so many weeks with the man.”
“He doesn’t kill indiscriminately,” I said through my teeth, irate that this man was putting Cooper through hell right now by kidnapping me then had the gall to insult him on top of that. “His job is to stop people who are causing death and destruction in the first place.”
“Death and destruction,” Randall repeated. “How dramatic. A lot of time the people Easy Team targets are people who are trying to make a living in this world. And that’s not always an easy thing. Get out of any first world country, and making a living becomes a dirty, messy business that can be bloody at times. But that’s the nature of the world.”
I stared at the man. “Is that how you justify El Salvador?” I said.
A momentary look of genuine surprise crossed Randall’s face. “Wow, so Hawk has told you about El Salvador,” he said, almost to himself. “That’s probably one of the highest compliments he could pay you. He considers that mission a personal shame of his. He’s always trying to bury that chapter of his life.”
“Well no wonder!” I said. “You made him inadvertently responsible for dozens of deaths. Deaths that didn’t need to happen but did because of you.”
“Like I said, making a living can be a bloody business,” he said, walking towards me.
“So long as the blood spilt isn’t yours,” I said, anger and fear roiling through me like a storm. Adrenaline flooded my veins making me nearly quiver in overstimulation.
Randall leaned down, putting himself eye to eye with me. The man was lean and dark like a jaguar. And just as dangerous. In another world he might’ve been considered handsome but in this world, in the world where I knew of all the heinous misdeeds he had committed, he looked monstrous.
He ran a thumb down my jaw and brushed lightly against my bottom lip. I jerked my head away but had very little room to escape.
“That’s right,” he said softly. “As long as the blood isn’t mine.”
Tears suddenly sprang to my eyes. I was just so angry. So frightened. The man had killed so many in his wake, all for the sake of greed. And the lives he had not taken, he had ruined. I thought of all those little girls in the camp. Lost souls that he had scattered into the darkest corners of the world.
But I was frightened as well. Terrified. Clearly, this man didn’t even give a second look at horrific violence or cruelty. He didn’t care as long as his bottom line was met.
And to know now that I was one of his pawns was terrifying. I was one of those game pieces that he had absolutely no qualms about destroying if it meant it would aid his end goal.
Randall continued to study me.
“You’re quite mouthy for someone who could very well die at my hands,” he said, a faint twitch playing at the corner of his lips. It looked like the amused smile a snake would give to a brave mouse before he ate it.
Having him literally say what I had been thinking aloud made me gasp a little. I closed my eyes and felt a hot tear roll down my cheek.
“Ah, there we go,” he said in a soft, pleased voice. A thumb brushed against my cheek, wiping away the tear. My skin recoiled at his touch. “That’s more like it, Dr. Lyon.”
A beat of tense silence passed between us. I almost stopped breathing, knowing he was so close to me.
Suddenly, I heard a muffled high pitched cry.
My eyes flew open and I tried my best to look behind me. But we were in an empty room, Randall and I. His men were outside standing guard. There was no around who could’ve made that kind of sound.
But I had definitely heard it.
It had been muffled and distant sounding but I had heard the high cry of someone.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Nothing worth talking about,” Randall said in annoyance as he straightened up.
He put his hand in his pocket where I knew his cell phone was. “Now let’s hope Hawk calls soon,” he said. “Or else who knows what might happen to you?”
My heart thudded against my chest. “He might not call,” I said huskily, my throat tight with adrenaline.
Randall rubbed his hand against his chin as he looked at me. “Oh yeah? You think he wouldn’t? That doesn’t say a lot about his love for you,” he said.
I raised my own chin a fraction of an inch higher. “No but it says a lot about who he is as a man. He wouldn’t risk the lives of his men on a death trap.” I took in a breath. “He has honor.”
Randall snorted. “Honor.” He said the word in a derisive spat. “And let’s see how far that’ll get you. Honor certainly won’t pay the bills.”
“But selling little girls will?” I countered before I could stop myself.
Randall looked up at me sharply. He crossed over to me in two long strides and put his hands on the arms of the chair, keeping me imprisoned in front of him. I tried to squirm away but was trapped.
“That’s right,” he said, his breath brushing against my cheek. “But don’t think that doesn’t mean a grown woman won’t either. I bet I can pay a bill or two with your body and face.” He cupped my chin and when I tried to pull away he gripped my cheeks tighter, turning my face towards him. I could tell by the pain in my face that his fingers would leave bruises.
“How much do you think you could fetch, hm?” he asked,
his voice like a slimy caress. “Or maybe, if Hawk really wants to defend his ‘honor,’ I’ll sell you at a loss. At a bargain. Want to see what kind of man would take you on when he pays bargain basement prices? Want to see what kind of life you would lead when you become worth less than his cow?”
I tried to pull away again but his finger dug into my cheeks, keeping me immobilized. Tears gathered at my lashes as I felt powerless, helpless.
Randall’s eyes glittered in the dim room. He looked like he was on some kind of high. The high of cruelty. The high of power. With every painful jerk and word, his face grew wilder with a manic kind of glow.
“But before I’d let you go,” he continued, his face mere inches from mine, “I’d have to find out for myself what Hawk has been enjoying. He always did have the best taste when it came to pussy.”
And without any warning, his lips descended on mine, his tongue plunging into my mouth. I tried to push away, squirm out of his kiss, if it could even be called that. But he grabbed onto the nape of my neck and held me prisoner.
His lips pressed against me bruisingly with his tongue penetrating me and tasting me in the most violating manner. Hot tears fell down my cheeks as I tried to gather enough breath to scream or to cry out. Anything to get him to just stop touching me.
Driven by an impulse that was almost animalistic, I turned my head towards him and bit down as hard as I could on his bottom lip.
“Gargh!” he cried out as he jerked away from me. I gasped as I finally got to breathe air that had been mingled with his breath.
He touched his lips were blood began to drip down his chin. He looked down at his stained fingers, rubbing finger and thumb in the blood.
Then with precise movements, he walked towards me, and threw his hand back before releasing it against my cheek, slapping me so hard the chair actually wobbled sideways.
He had hit me so hard, so quickly, that all the air in my lungs evaporated. I made no cry. Almost instantly, I felt my cheek begin to swell and bruise. My jaw was sore and it hurt to move my mouth. I wasn’t sure if it was fractured or not.
“Let me tell you something,” Randall said, his voice a little breathless from anger and arousal. “The demons that haunt me haunt Hawk. We’re more alike than you realize. And if you can’t stand me, then you don’t know Hawk.”
I looked up at him, my hair fallen across my face, tears matting some strands down as my cheek puffed and swelled in agonizing pain.
Randall nodded as if verifying some fact, his bottom lip bloodied and swollen. He walked towards the door.
“You don’t know Hawk,” he said again before closing the door behind him, leaving me completely alone in the dark room.
Chapter Twenty
Cooper
“You can’t meet him at the camp,” Bear said. “He won’t bring Dr. Lyon if we meet him there.”
“Plus, then you’d really be on the hook of trying to get him out of the country,” Dozer added.
“Which is impossible,” I finished grimly.
The men of Easy Team nodded, their faces equally grim at the reality of the situation.
“What’s our store look like?” I asked.
“We’ve got a serviceable sniper rifle and several rounds. We also managed some explosives but we’re going to have to be very strategic in how we use them. It’s not a lot,” Tweety reported.
We were huddled in our barracks, all of us grouped together. My body hummed with energy like a crackling live wire. I wanted to run into the desert, beat Randall to a bloody pulp, then rescue Emilia and never let her out of my sight again.
I pressed my lips considering. “Well with how high value of a target he is, I think it would make sense if I said he couldn’t come through such a heavily populated part of the border. There’s a town and a refugee camp here crawling with UN workers and some Qunari soldiers.”
Bear nodded, getting where I was going.
“You tell him that you’ll come to him,” he finished.
“Wherever he is, it’s clearly safe enough for him to be hiding there. We can tell him that’d be the best starting point in getting him out safely,” I said.
Tennessee tilted his head, considering. “If he goes for that, which considering how desperate he is, he probably will, then that won’t give us any chance to recon the site,” he said.
I nodded, breathing out in one grunt. “No time to recon and no time to scout for the best sniper position. We’d have to do it all on the fly and quickly so that no one would catch on to us.”
Bear gave a slap on Tennessee’s arm. “We’ve got one of the best snipers around,” he said with a smile. “If anyone can swing a killshot, it’s Tenny.”
Tennessee grinned in response and I felt a little heartened to be around the team. But I had to be fair.
“This is strictly off the books,” I admitted. “Commander Wolffe will probably find out about this but you know what they say—better to ask for forgiveness than beg for permission. This way we won’t be going against direct orders in case he ordered us to stand down. But I completely understand if any one of you does not feel comfortable doing this. We are going behind our commander’s back after all. So if you want to step out, this is the time to do it. And no judgment for it.”
The men all remained seated. Bear looked up at me with a look of familiar and exasperated friendship.
“Did you honestly think you’d do this on your own?” he demanded. He gave me a look of disapproval. “You’re not that good, you know.”
I shook my head, smiling. That was the code of Easy Team. We were brothers in blood and sweat. We would be there for each other no matter the cost. And that was something Randall never understood.
Thinking of Randall, a vision of Emilia and her pained cries flashed across my mind.
Immediately, my body tightened in preparation for action.
“Okay, then I’m going to make the call,” I said. “Bear, you organize the truck. Ten, you’ll probably have to drop back a few clicks from the site, wherever it may be. It’d be best for you to break away and find a spot than for you to get to the site and find a reason to break away then.”
Tennessee nodded.
I looked at the rest of the guys. “Alright. Get prepped. We leave tonight.”
***
“What the fuck kind of trick is this?” Randall demanded.
I gripped the phone, willing myself not to let my frustration overrun my good sense. I had to get him to see my story if I was to get close enough to him and Emilia.
“Did you forget where the fuck we are?” I said calmly. “We’re smack in between a sizable refugee camp and a city. After the earthquake, both places are now crawling with UN workers and Qunari soldiers. This is the last place to make an inconspicuous getaway.”
Randall made a grunt of frustration but through his heavy breathing I could tell he was getting the picture.
“Then what the hell are you planning to do?” he demanded. “Hm? You were the closest to the borders. Now what!”
“Wherever you are, clearly it is safe and isolated enough that you are comfortable hiding there,” I said slowly. I had to roll this out carefully. If he disagreed with me or tried to change the location, there was no way to guarantee Emilia would be brought out. And I refused to let that happen.
“The first thing we need is cover. If a peacekeeping team can hear chatter about you, that means you are a high value target—”
“No shit!” Randall spat. I could hear the stress in his voice. Clearly the cells out to get him had been breathing down his neck for awhile and now he was down to the wire in terms of escaping.
“Without cover, we have nothing. It doesn’t matter if we’re clicks away from a border if those clicks are populated by soldiers and UN workers,” I said. “With cover, we can take a better route out of the country. We could work our way to an airstrip, even.”
I let that last nugget drop quietly.
That was huge. An airstrip.
�
�Airstrip?” Randall jumped on that like I had hoped. “Where? Which one? You have a plane?”
“There’s an airstrip that some rescue organizations have been using to ship in their volunteers. We could dress you as a rescue volunteer on his way back home. I’m assuming you have the right falsified papers.”
Randall made a dismissive noise as if that was obvious. I could almost hear the wheels in his head thinking, turning over my offer. He was right on the precipice. Right on the edge of my plans.
“But without decent cover, there’ll be no way to get to the airstrip. Not with this much heat falling on you.”
My last push.
There was a long moment of silence when finally it was broken by a heavy sigh.
“Fine,” he said and I nearly crushed the phone in my hand in relief. “We’re fifteen miles southeast of a town called Upriu. There’s an old city hall building there. That’s where we’ll be waiting.”
“We’re heading there right now,” I said, stepping out of the tent and making motions to Bear, letting him know we needed to move.
“Glad to see you’re still willing to help out old friends,” Randall said with mock gratitude.
“This is in trade of Emilia,” I said tersely. “That’s all this is for.”
Randall chuckled. “Hawk, you’re getting sloppy in your old age,” he said ruefully. “It’s never good to show your weaknesses like that. Don’t you know?”
But before I could respond, the line went dead.
My jaw tightened and I stared out into the dark desert. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that but I had a damn good idea. But I was going to do everything in my power to make sure that idea didn’t become a reality.
***
“Is Emilia really kidnapped then?” Doc Jones asked, grabbing my arm.
I was just about to jump into the truck when the older man had grabbed my arm. I turned around and saw Margie and Tammy standing by him, looking up at me in frantic worry.
I could tell Margie had been crying, her eyes were swollen and red.
I sighed. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, it’s true.”