Darkest Before Dawn (KGI series) (3 page)

She panted softly and peered through the piles of debris atop her and experimentally tried to wiggle her body, testing not only for more severe pain that would signal serious injury but also to see if she had any chance at getting herself out of the rubble pinning her to the floor.

It was pitch-black, signaling that night had fallen. She breathed a sigh of relief before quickly realizing that she wasn’t out of the woods by a long shot. The night only helped her if she could somehow extricate herself from her prison and be mobile enough to flee into the protection of the dark.

Before despair could completely envelop her, she firmly pushed the negative emotion away. She was in enough danger without her convincing herself she had no chance. At this point, hope was all she had. And a very strong will to survive. To not be defeated by men who thrived on pain, fear and complete subjugation of everyone who didn’t hold to their ideology.

She would get home. She would find a way. And by God,
when she did, she’d send the biggest “fuck you” to the terrorist cell that had murdered her coworkers—her friends—and let them know that a simple American woman took their best shot and survived it.

Imbued by a new sense of purpose and determination, she set her mind to figuring out what she could move and what the best course of action was to pull herself from the carnage under which she found herself imprisoned.

The minutes ticked by with agonizing slowness. Pain was her constant companion. Sweat bathed her body, but she was too damp for only sweat. She knew she was bleeding. Not horribly so and not fast or she wouldn’t be conscious. But sticky warmth clung to her skin and she could smell it now that the acrid smell of mold, plaster, destroyed stone and wood and the chemical smell of explosives had diminished, carried away by the night wind.

She took her time, testing each part of her body, starting with her feet. She wiggled her toes and then flexed her feet and then rotated her legs as best she was able, wincing when her knee bumped into a jagged piece of stone. The walls of the clinic were completely stone, the ceiling made of wood with heavy beams supporting the structure. The floor was concrete and no amount of sweeping or cleaning prevented the sand from blowing in and accumulating on every surface. It made trying to keep a sterile environment one bitch of a job, and infection was always a worry among the doctors and nurses.

Her knee felt tight. Swollen. And very sore. She bent it slowly in small increments, not wanting to do further damage if it was badly injured, but she desperately needed to have the use of her legs. Her arms weren’t as important. But she needed her legs and feet to get her the hell away from this place. As quickly as humanly possible.

She couldn’t count on help coming in. No rescue. The State Department had issued a decree ordering all U.S. citizens from the region, and there would be no aid for those who ignored the warning. There were no U.S. troops in the area. No embassy. No American presence here at all.

And no other group or country’s military dared to oppose the militant savages for fear of reprisal. They were too busy
holding a summit where everyone talked the issue to death instead of taking action, a fact that infuriated Honor.

How could any government turn away from the pain and suffering of countless men, women and children in such a widespread area? Why wasn’t there more public outrage? God only knew it was reported in the media around the clock. Was everyone so fatigued by the constant coverage that it had become tedious and they’d distanced themselves? Or were they just so smug and comfortable in their safe environment that they had no care for the plight of others?

She harnessed the helpless rage that clawed at her, and she held it to her. It served to heighten her determination and strength to free herself.

After her careful examination of her limbs and the areas of her body that protected her most vital organs, she was satisfied—or perhaps merely hopeful—that she could do this.

She started with her hands, scratching and shoving away all manner of clutter, swearing when her fingers caught on sharper objects, slicing the skin and causing her to bleed. Her fingernails tore raggedly, ripping into the quick, but it was minor compared to the pulsing pain in the rest of her body and only sharpened her drive. The more setbacks she incurred, the angrier she grew, and adrenaline took the place of pain and the self-defeating thought process her mind seemed to be caught up in.

It was hard to work, positioned as she was—on her stomach or rather awkwardly angled slightly to her side. It forced her to work mostly with one hand, the one not bent under her body and useless except to clear what it could reach.

She had no concept of the passing of time, only the urgency that she escape before dawn, when the killers would no doubt return to resume their body count. She bit into her lip to hold back her tears of grief, determined that they wouldn’t beat her. Only she could tell the stories of the now-dead heroes and heroines who’d devoted their lives to helping others. Only she could bear witness to the atrocity committed here, and their bravery and selflessness would not go unheralded. Not if she had anything to say about it.

After what seemed to be hours, she had uncovered the
entire upper half of her body and for a moment she sank down, resting her cheek against the floor as she prepared for the next step. Somehow she had to turn over and sit as upright as possible so she could work on freeing the lower half of her body. Her legs. Her only hope for getting away from this place.

Gathering her strength—and courage—she began twisting her body, wincing as every muscle protested the awkward movement. She felt weak as a kitten. Sweat now soaked her tattered clothing. Between it and the blood coating portions of her body, her pants and shirt stuck to her like they’d been glued on.

Her injured knee would give her the greatest problem. She had to rotate her entire bottom half, regardless of the weight pressing down on it.

Gritting her teeth, she planted one palm down on the floor and twisted her upper body so that her other hand hovered inches above the floor on her other side. She pushed upward, straining, twisting and then gasping as pain splintered through her legs. Both of them.

God, would she be unable to walk after all? Had she broken them both, and was she in too much shock to feel the breaks? The only pain she could identify was in her knee.

Again, she wiggled her toes and feet, seeking reassurance that she hadn’t imagined being able to do so moments earlier. She paid closer attention this time, leaning in an uncomfortable, awkward pose as she concentrated fiercely on whether she felt pain or weakness.

Then the thought occurred to her that the reason she wasn’t feeling pain or weakness could be that she couldn’t feel her legs at all. As soon as the panicked thought blazed through her mind, she shoved it impatiently aside. Irrational, hysterical thoughts had no place here. If she’d been paralyzed she wouldn’t be able to move her feet or know that she was capable of moving them, and she wouldn’t feel the throbbing pain in her knee.

Her fears at a more manageable level, Honor braced herself and stared determinedly at the mound covering her lower half. She was absurdly pleased, and excitement coursed through her veins when she felt the soft whisper of night air
over the toes of her left foot. She wiggled again, paying more attention, realizing that they were poking out of the rubble.

A shudder overtook her. Thank God the militants hadn’t gotten close enough to her to see the end of her foot protruding. They would have uncovered her to see if she was dead like the others. Upon finding her alive? She slammed her mind shut, refusing to continue down that thought path. They hadn’t found her. They wouldn’t find her. So there was no need to torment herself with what could have been. She was more focused on what would never be.

Her lips thinning, pressing together in a vow not to allow a single sound past them, she turned her body with more resolve this time instead of the experimental twisting she’d done at first. A grimace shook the line of her lips and she ground her teeth together, her jaw aching from the pressure.

Determination was alive inside her. It took over. Became her. In that moment, failure to make her escape wasn’t even a remote possibility. A pained hiss exploded from her open mouth, her breaths hard as she exerted more pressure, straining rigidly to rotate her hips and legs.

Fire blew down the back side of her legs as they scraped at the jagged edges of rock, metal, wood and glass. Her stomach jolted and squeezed inwardly as if seeking to rid itself of any content when her injured knee banged into an immovable object. She saw stars, and tears burned the edges of her eyelids. It only made her angrier. Her fury grew until she shook with it.

“Why won’t you help me?” she raged, her gaze casting upward before shame fell over her much as the building had. “Sorry,” she muttered, closing her eyes. “But I could really use your help right now. An angel would be nice if you’re too busy to see to it personally.”

She huffed in another breath, found the center of calm that was nestled in the rage boiling through her veins. Yelling at God wasn’t going to get her anywhere. And as the old saying went, God helped those who helped themselves, and right now she wasn’t doing anything remotely helpful. Whining, wishing she’d died and constantly battling tears weren’t the hallmark of someone worthy of the gift of life. And yet,
here she lay. So close to freedom while the others also lay close by, their souls already gone from this world.

She had a purpose. She thought it again. It bolstered her spirits and eased some of the fear eating away at her insides. Maybe everything up to now had merely been preparation for her true purpose instead of her having already found her purpose and serving it. She wasn’t going to find out if she didn’t get her ass out of here before the sun rose.

Turning off all the raging emotion building like a volcano about to erupt and refusing to acknowledge pain or the current limitations on her body, Honor attempted to turn again. This time she didn’t stop when the hideous scrape seared her legs or when her knee, so tender and swollen, screamed its protest of her movements. She refused to stop until finally both heels were planted on the floor, her feet and toes directed upward.

Her knee throbbed angrily, stretched by the new position and her leg lying flat and unbent. Hastily, she pushed herself upward until she leaned forward, palms planted amid the debris surrounding her.

Though her eyes had grown accustomed to having no light, it was impossible to see anything with detail with the entire area blanketed in suffocating darkness. Tentatively she reached down, feeling her way along her legs, her fingers lightly brushing over the obstacles that lay between her and freedom.

She swore when she encountered the heavy beam that she now remembered falling on her in the explosion. It had been what banged her knee up before she’d wound up facedown on the floor, the weight of half the building bearing down on her back. When the world had come crashing down on her, she’d fallen to her back but had instinctively rolled over, trying to protect herself in any way she could.

For a moment, she paused and dug her fingers sharply into her temples, pressing and rubbing in tight circles, digging in and applying firm pressure in hopes that she could make at least the dull drum in her head go away and clear the residue of murky fog that had stubbornly clung to her ever since she’d regained consciousness.

It was sheer will that had kept her from simply acquiescing and fading and giving in to the threat of darkness in her
mind, the thought that if she just let go, then the pain and fear,
everything
would simply go . . . away. But the reminder that when or even if she awakened, she would face a nightmare worse than death, that she would be thrust into the very bowels of hell and once again lament the fact that she’d survived, kept her sharply focused on her task.

It was one thing for the regret over having lived to have insidiously crept through her mind in a moment where she’d opened her eyes to pain, deep sorrow and confusion and to have briefly succumbed to the shameful thought in a moment of weakness before she’d collected her wits and regained her iron resolve—something she’d always possessed—and quite another to be in a situation where she gave the cowards responsible for this massacre the satisfaction of hearing her beg for death.

That angered her as much as the senseless deaths of so many good and generous people. People who’d never hurt another living soul. Whose only purpose was the driving desire to help those in need who couldn’t help themselves.

The hell she’d ever show fear or be so cowardly as to beg those bastards for anything. She’d denounce and spit on their “beliefs,” giving them the middle finger even if it wasn’t the actual gesture but pronounced in her every look, her response, even her breath. Her dying breath.

Even better to flip them the bird alive. Back home, having thwarted their plan to annihilate every last one of the relief workers. Be smugly triumphant and say with more than words,
You didn’t beat me. You couldn’t beat me
.

It was a fantasy, a goal that kept her clawing at the remainder of her bonds. She worked with renewed energy. Faster. Angrier. Flinging rock, chunks of plaster, decimated pieces of chairs and exam tables. Everything but the beam that lay across her legs.

She felt around, noting that she’d cleared everything from atop the beam. Then her hands dipped lower and she leaned forward as far as she was able, her breath squeezing out in tortured breaths as she strained to discover a way out from underneath the heavy piece of wood.

A thoughtful frown curved her lips downward and her forehead wrinkled. She moved her hands lower to confirm
the fact that the bottoms of her legs didn’t in fact lie on the floor, but rather there was a layer of rubble and debris, and her legs were trapped between that layer and the beam.

She moved her hands outward, feeling to the sides to see if the beam had any support other than her legs. Sure it was heavy, but it didn’t feel like she was bearing the brunt of its entire weight. She wouldn’t have been able to turn over if she were.