End Note

by Sonya Loveday

  It came to me then—the rumble of multiple engines, the muffled sound, the sudden jolting of the floor. I was on an airplane. The floor shimmied again, and my stomach erupted. I couldn’t hold myself up, I couldn’t roll myself away, and when the floor bucked again, my head slammed down.

  WAKING THE SECOND TIME WAS more unpleasant than the first. Some time in my bout of oblivion, I’d vomited on myself. The acidic stench made my stomach roll, and I played hell keeping it down. It seemed like endless hours before the plane descended. Thankfully, the rest of the flight was somewhat smooth. At least it was until we landed.

  The plane bounced along the tarmac in jolts so big that it bounced my entire body along the small space I’d been held in. My neck strained, keeping my head from cracking against the floor. When we came to a shuddering stop, the engines whined and then ceased.

  Voices rose and fell as if people were walking around the outside of the plane. While the words were too muffled to understand, I couldn’t help but envision several large men all toting guns, like they did in the movies.

  Towards the front of the plane, I heard several sets of footsteps moving across the floor. It vibrated underneath me with their heavy weight.

  “Get up!” a thickly accented voice bellowed at me.

  I turned over, staring up at a man dressed in ratty clothes with a semi-automatic pointed at my face.

  “I can’t get up. My feet are tied,” I said, pointing at the rope wrapped around my ankles.

  He leaned back and spoke to someone behind him as I tried to roll myself over to sit up. Panting to keep from passing out, I managed to prop myself up on my bound arms and push myself into somewhat of a sitting position. The gunman stepped further into the hold and off to the left, allowing another man with a very large knife to pass by him. They bickered back and forth. The one wielding the knife used it to point between the three of us. The crude blade slashed through the air in arcs the more agitated he became. The guy holding the gun shouted, and then stepped over, placing the gun barrel against my head.

  “You move. You die,” he threatened, digging the barrel against my temple.

  I bit my lip, cursing myself, the gun against my head, the man holding it there, and gravity, because I could feel myself listing with no way to stop.

  The knife slashed through the rope wrapped around my ankles. Just as quickly, his other arm fisted my shirt, forcing me to my feet.

  The problem was that I couldn’t stay on my feet. With no circulation from being tied up, my legs refused to hold me upright. That pissed the two men off. They argued again in short bursts of angry words until the bigger one handed his gun over and hauled me over his shoulder, smacking me into everything he could until we were off the plane.

  I HURT EVERYWHERE. THERE WASN’T a spot on my body that didn’t recoil when I poked at it. Even my eyelashes hurt with every blink. My captures hadn’t made my transport easy. The guy carrying me dumped me, over his shoulder, into the bed of a small pickup and climbed in to sit towards the cab, by my feet. When his gun had been handed back, he put the strap over his shoulder and aimed the barrel down, thankfully away from me since his finger hovered over the trigger the entire ride.

  I wasn’t sure, but I was under the assumption that the knife wielder was the one driving, and he did his best to hit every damn rut in the road. I was bounced all over the bed of the truck and, at one point, banged into the man sitting beside me. He, in return, kicked me in the chest to move me back to the other side of the rust-flaked bed.

  The only good news, or silver lining, was they hadn’t killed me. Wondering what that meant, I spent a good hour trying to come up with some sort of reasonable explanation for it.

  I’d been able to slip my bound wrists over my head to protect it from the rough ride. It was pure hell on my shoulders, but it kept my head from splitting open like an overripe watermelon.

  I was hardheaded, but damn, it wasn’t made of concrete. And even concrete broke if you beat on it enough.

  Staring up at the dim sunlight peeking though the canopy of trees, I saw vines snaking across the road from treetop to treetop. Seeing that led me to believe we were in some sort of jungle, but where? The two guys with me spoke a language I’d never really heard before, but I tried placing it anyway. It could have been some form of Spanish, or French for all I knew. However, I was leaning more toward French. It wouldn’t matter anyway since I didn’t understand a single thing they said other than, “You move. You die.” That had been plain English at least.

  The guy sitting beside me kept a constant eye on our surroundings. His head moved left to right, as if scanning for a possible attack.

  WHEN THE TRUCK ROLLED TO a stop, I was forced onto my stomach and blindfolded. I’d been hauled out of the truck, none to gently, and forced to stagger in complete blindness with only a jab from whoever walked beside me to keep me in the right direction. When I was hauled to a stop and shoved to the floor, I ripped the cloth from my eyes and found myself in a small bedroom. Nothing fancy by any means, but there was at least a bed. I wondered if I had been left on my own, opening the door to see. The knife wielder who’d kidnapped me looked up from where he sat sharpening his knife and curled his lip. “You, back in.”

  I looked from him to the open hallway. If I could gain the element of surprise, I might make it past him and then out of the door. From there, I’d figure out what to do. It must have been obvious I was creating an escape plan because he shot up from his seat and stuck the knife out in front of me as if inspecting it, looking between it and my throat.

  I took an involuntary step back, and he made a guttural noise that could have meant so many different things.

  He jabbed the knife in my direction. “You run. I kill.”

  There was nothing funny about the situation at all, but I found myself snorting at his Tarzan talk anyway. They could have left someone who spoke enough English to actually scare me with their words instead of a six-inch blade and no real way to communicate.

  “Do you even know what you’re saying?” I tested his ability to understand me.

  He scowled and plunged the knife in my direction again, nicking me in the arm that time. A bead of blood welled up, and he jabbed at me again. I moved out of the way with a snarl of my own.

  “You inside.” He raised his hand, pointing to the bedroom.

  “No. I want to know where the hell I am, and why you kidnapped me.” Crossing my arms, I used the most belligerent tone I could muster up. I knew it was a stupid move. He still had a knife, and he clearly had no qualms using it.

  The tiny pinprick he’d left on my arm openly bled in a long, red-ribboned line down my arm. It was probably dripping on the floor since I’d crossed my arms.

  He took a step towards me, baring his yellowed teeth. The smell of his noxious breath made my nose curl and instinctively, I stepped back to get away from the offending odor. Uncrossing my arms, I waved a hand in front of my face. “You seriously need a breath mint.”

  He lunged for me then. I ducked to the right to get out of his way, finding myself in the hallway with him inside of the room. I made short work of running down the hall, desperate to find a door that led outside.

  My feet left the floor in one hard jerk as an arm wrapped around my neck. At a full run, I was lucky the move hadn’t crushed my windpipe.

  “Am I to assume you were looking for the facilities, Mr. Jackson?” a cultured voice asked from somewhere behind me.

  The arm at my throat kept me from replying. The only thing I could do was keep the toes of my shoes pushed against the ground to lift my neck high enough to take my next breath.

  “That is all, Jean. I do believe Mr. Jackson will be most happy to walk on his own to my study.”

  The arm released me, and I stumbled forward, catching myself on my braced arms. When I stood up, I found only one man in the hallway with me. And he was not at all what I’d expected a terrorist to look like.

  He was an older man with snow-white hair and
a dark tan that gave him a warm look. Deep grooves lined his eyes and bracketed his mouth, as if he’d repeatedly tasted something foul every time he ate. His beady brown eyes met my inspection openly.

  “I do believe we have a few things to discuss, Mr. Jackson. If you would, please follow me?”

  Curiosity of what he thought we needed to discuss prodded me along, but mostly, I wanted to scope out where I was and which doors led where so that my next attempt at an escape worked.

  We walked until the hallway turned left and I caught my first glimpse of freedom. The problem was a guard was stationed by the door, and he wasn’t holding a knife. Instead, he held an assault rifle over his shoulder and a pair of binoculars up to his face. My stomach knotted seeing that. Maybe a night escape would work better. Binoculars were great during the day, but they didn’t help at night unless they were night vision. The particular pair he had in his hands were just the standard ones.

  I’d taken all of that in and processed it in the time it took to walk past the open doorway. At least I had an idea of one way out. Maybe there were other unguarded areas.

  “This compound is one of the more secure on the island,” the old man in front of me said as if reading my mind. “I can assure you, Mr. Jackson, the only way out is if you are escorted or dead. It would be a shame for the latter.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I am just a man, seeking to do my job.” He stopped, gesturing for me to enter into the room we’d stopped in front of. “But I assure you, I am very good at my job, Mr. Jackson. Very good.”

  Fear skittered down my spine. What kind of damn job could he have meant?

  “Please sit. I only have a few minutes to speak with you, and I would like very much to get all the answers I need before I must go.”

  “Go where exactly?” I asked, taking the seat he pointed at as he made his way around a desk littered with rolled tubes of papers and a scattering of writing utensils.

  He wagged a finger and gave me a smile that didn’t quite sit right. “Uh-uh… Mr. Jackson. I will be asking the questions.”

  I blew out a deep breath and shrugged. “Well, then you’ll be very disappointed with our conversation.”

  He clasped his hands in front of him and leaned a little closer. “I will be the judge of that.”

  WE GOT NOWHERE. HIS QUESTIONS were nothing I could answer. Who was Cole Franklin? What prototypes was he getting ready to reveal to the government. Who was Trenton Fisher? What was his last mission? Where was the next location going to be set up? Who was Oliver Piedmont?

  I jolted at his last question. “Ah, so you know this Oliver Piedmont?”

  I shifted in my seat. Could he be talking about the same Oliver I knew? It had to be him since all his questions worked around Cole Enterprise. What struck me as odd was that he never once asked about my parents.

  “Answer me, Mr. Jackson. Do you, or do you not, know Oliver Piedmont?”

  What could it hurt? It wasn’t like I knew anything about Oliver that would help whatever cause the man in front of me was working for. “I know of an Oliver, but I can’t say it’s the same Oliver you’re asking me about.”

  He smiled with a weaseled sort of grin and lifted a pen from the blotter on his desk, inspecting it as he said, “Oh, I’m sure this Oliver is one and the same. After all, he works for Cole Enterprise and reports to a…” He looked at me, holding my gaze as he finished, “Nadia Jackson.”

  My hands clutched at the arms of the chair. I forced myself to keep still and not shoot across the desk to put the pen he held in his hands through his neck.

  “Ah, I see I’ve touched somewhat of a nerve,” he said, chuckling as he dropped the pen and pushed himself out of his chair. “And now we must come to the part I dislike, really, if I must be honest, but it is necessary…”

  I turned, intent on asking him what he meant, and didn’t have time to duck when the knife welder’s fist shot out and knocked me out of my seat.

  Grabbing my feet, he dragged me out of the room, past the old man, and down the hallway. We passed the open doorway that led to freedom and I twisted my body like a landed fish, grabbing for the doorframe. But one good jerk from the knife wielder pulled my hands from the casing and continued.

  I’d kept my wits about me, staying alert and aware until the trip down the stairs. The knife welder hiked my legs further up his back, pinning me at an awkward angle and banging me into everything on our descent down. With arms flailing, I almost toppled both of us down the stairs. I believe that was where he hit his breaking point with me, because the next thing I knew, I was waking up tied to a chair underneath a bright light.

  “Now, we’re going to do this the easy way… or the hard. Your choice, Mr. Jackson.” The old man stepped into the light, holding a needle up as a thin stream of liquid burst from the tip.

  My foolish attempts to push myself back into the chair were met with a laugh that made my heart stutter to a stop before it went into triple time.

  “Now, who is Oliver Piedmont, and why is Nadia, your mother, looking for Robert de Fleur?”

  “Who? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”

  “That is not the answer I am looking for,” he said, stepping into the darkness, leaving only the hand holding the syringe in the light.

  A shuffle of footsteps brought in the knife wielder as he took the syringe from the old man and made quick work of jabbing the needle into the fleshy part of the inside of my thigh.

  Fire shot through my veins as whatever he’d injected into me burned a path through the network of vessels that pulsed in unison to purge the invasion as it raced towards my heart.

  A scream pooled in my gut and shot towards my mouth, only to be stuck at my throat as if the muscles had been paralyzed, restricting any sound other than the short, gasping breaths that burst forth with every exhale.

  I wasn’t sure how long it took the liquid to spread through my system. The only thing I knew for sure was that my entire body felt like pudding and the only thing holding it in was my skin. I tilted forward what little I could with a wobbly backbone of licorice, looking closer at my arm. Or was it a tree limb? Something splashed down on it, and I crossed my eyes to bring it into focus. It was definitely my arm, I thought anyway. The wet spot wiggled and wobbled against the hairy surface, and I realized that the pudding, my insides, was escaping me.

  “Ah, I see that did the trick. How are you feeling, Mr. Jackson?”

  It took a few attempts, but I was able to turn my head enough to see a little old man peering down at me. Blinking, I brought him in and out of focus several times, trying to associate him with something just out of my reach. “Mmnn, ah lil… lilla…” A little what I couldn’t say, so I just gave up and tried for a shrug, which moved my head. With my chin on my chest, I heaved a sigh of defeat.

  “Well, let’s just give you a little time to adjust, shall we? When I come back, maybe you’ll be ready to give me the answers I seek.”

  He left, snuffing the light and leaving me to the darkness.

  I WOKE UP, SHIVERING AGAINST the bonds that held me in place. My mouth, which felt filled with cotton, smacked as I caught the water droplets that slid down the corners of my lips. What the hell had happened?

  “Awake now, are we?” the old man asked.

  I cracked my eyes to look up at him and was met with a piercing light that burned my retinas.

  “It is unfortunate you have such a low tolerance for substances, Mr. Jackson. It also stands to reason that while you would have been much more forthcoming that way, I believe that time has come and passed. Now, while I understand you might still have a bit of the drug in your system, I will ask you one last time. And this time, if I’m not given the answers I want…”

  The knife wielder walked into the light, holding up a set of jumper cables. He tapped them together, showering sparks along his arms and the floor.

  Torture. If I didn’t answer the old man with what he wanted to know, then the knife wield
er would light me up like a strand of Christmas lights.

  “Let’s start off with what I know, shall we?”

  Oh, God.

  He peered at me as he asked his first question. “You are Jared Jackson, son of Nadia Jackson.”

  I nodded and received a grunt of approval, which set the old man’s feet in motion as he paced slowly back and forth in front of me.

  “Oliver Piedmont works for Cole Enterprise.”

  I nodded again, and the old man stopped in front of me, one hand in the air as if ticking off facts.

  “Oliver works for Nadia, who in turn, works for Cole Enterprise. What I want to know, Mr. Jackson, is what mission does Nadia have Oliver working on?”

  “He’s not working on any mission,” I answered truthfully.

  “Lie,” the old man shot back at me as he gestured for the knife wielder to step forward. “And we were doing so well, Mr. Jackson.”

  “No… no…” There was nowhere to go as the electricity ripped through me, and I slammed in convulsions against the chair I’d been tied to.

  It stopped moments after it started, leaving me tingly and numb at the same time.

  “Let’s not have to do that again. It is most uncomfortable to watch,” the old man said, grimacing as if he’d endured the pain instead of me.

  I fought past the numbness and told the old man what I knew of Oliver. “He’s not on any mission. My mother had him in place as my security detail. That’s it. That’s all I know.”

  “Security for what?” he asked, his bushy eyebrow climbing like a caterpillar up his forehead.

  “I’m in a band. My mother thought it best if I had security traveling with me when I toured.”