Deadly Hunt (Deadly #1) (15 page)

“Ok babe, go back to sleep, I’m here if you need me.” Damn, he’s so sweet.

“Goodnight Nathan. I love you.” He kisses my forehead; I melt on the inside. I love those kisses; they’re the ones that make you swoon.

“Night babe, I love you too.”

My lungs burn with every breath I have to take. Every time he poured the water over me he waited longer and longer to pull me up. The form of torture is bad, but I can survive being water boarded.

“Ah you’re a strong woman, do not worry, I will break you yet.” I hate that fucking accent. He leaves the room. I can’t help it, my eyes drift straight to Smithy, and he is still laying there, his eyes still open, still blank.

“Soph, are you okay?” Sam is the first one to speak, I cough, it hurts like a bitch

“Just dandy.” Comes my smart reply. I can’t help it, when things are rough I turn to sarcasm.

“Seriously Soph, Are you okay?” that’s Doc,

“Yeah, my vision is blurry from my head smacking off the floor when we were dumped in here, my lungs hurt from holding my breath for so long. Other than that I’m okay, I just wish we could close Smithy’s eyes.”

“Ok Soph, it sounds as though you have a concussion, no sleep. And your lungs will get better just keep taking deep breaths.” Doc says.

“Sure thing Doc, It’s not like we’re going to be able to sleep here anyway.”

I was given a week’s reprieve. My lungs aren’t fully healed but they are okay, my vision is perfect, but my head feels tender.

“Time to break you Sophia.” How does that fucker know my name? This time there are four other men that enter behind him. They lift me to my feet and carry me over to the middle of the room. I’m wondering what they are about to do, when I’m lifted clean off my feet. I’m turned upside down. They lift me up, my feet almost touching the beam that’s hanging from the ceiling. They tie my feet to the beam and leave me hanging upside down. They all leave the room.

“Son of a motherfucking bitch. Soph, can you hear me?” Funny, Sarge, sounds worried, that man doesn’t show emotion.

“I’m fine Sarge, just hanging around.” I hear Sam’s strangled chuckle.

“Soph, you seriously are the best.” Awww, isn’t he sweet.

“Aww why thank you Sammy.” The guys talk to me, trying to keep my mind off of the fact I’m hanging from my feet upside down, I feel the blood rushing to my head, I feel numbness in my legs which is slowly working its way up my body. My fingers go numb and my face must be a serious shade of red by now. I don’t know how long I’ve been here for, but they come back and release me. I feel the blood draining from my face. I feel sick. They pull me to my chair tie me to it and leave me there. I feel the room spin, I pass out.

I wake up and see the guys looking over at me “How long have I been out?” Sam speaks first.

“Well lookie here, Sleeping Beauty is awake; you’ve been out about two days Soph.” Two days. Damn.

“Are you all okay?” I’ve been out of it for two days, that fucker could have started torturing one of them.

“Yeah Soph, they haven’t been back yet.” Thank god. He doesn’t return for a while, I’m not sure how long, everything is just blurring together. I want to go home but they have tied my hands so tight, there is no way I can get free.

“I tense when I hear them entering the room. I’m dragged by my hair; my hands are still tied in front of me. My feet are spread so I’m standing with my feet wide apart. Then I hear it and I close my eyes, praying that it isn’t what I’m thinking. It is. I fall to the floor, the pain is horrendous, I can’t stay standing. The whip feels as though it has sliced my skin open. I’m dragged back up.

“Every time you fall to the ground; you will get twenty more lashes.” The asshole tells me and I just glare at him.

The whip lashes out again and the sound of the crack as it hits my back is so loud, I want to flinch but I don’t. I don’t make a sound or make a movement. I won’t give them bastards the satisfaction.

My back is bleeding, I can feel the blood seeping down my back, I try my hardest to block out the pain. I look around the room and my eyes focus in on Smithy. He is just lying in the corner as if he is asleep.

They finished with the whippings and I know for sure that my back is fucking destroyed. I want to scream out but I don’t. The fuckers leave and when I hear the door shut I collapse onto the floor. I have to take deep breaths and focus on breathing rather than the pain.

“Sophia, talk to me! Dammit Sophia, open your fucking eyes.” Sammy is screaming at me. I open my eyes and I see the rage in Sam’s eyes, he is so angry. I don’t blame him. He is sitting in that chair, his hands and feet tied so he can’t escape and he is watching everything they do to me. They all are.

“I’m okay Sam, I’m alive. They won’t beat me.”

Three days I endure being whipped and every day I think the pain and the whippings couldn’t get any worse but they do.

They’re here again and I know that I won’t survive much more.

“Sophia, it’s time, today is the day, today is the day I ruin you.” The four other men come in the room, they once again drag me off the chair, and two other men come in bringing with them a cross.

“This is the thing that breaks everyone.” Mullah says, they drag me to the cross, they tie my middle to it and untie my hands, I know where this is going. They pull my arms to the sides, straighten them out and tie my wrists to the cross. Mullah gathers the nails and hammer as the men leave. Mullah walks towards me. I’m about to be crucified.

I wake up covered in sweat. I leap out of the bed into the bathroom, I land harshly on my knees, thankful I made it in time as I throw up yet again. I feel a cold wash cloth hit my forehead, Nathan’s here, I need a shower. I need to clean the memory off me. I step into the shower and let the water hit me. I stand under the flowing water for a few minutes when I break, I cry, huge body wracking sobs, it hurts.

I feel arms around me and know it’s Nathan, He pulls me to him and we stand under the water together. My sobs have quieted down to little sniffs.

“Tell me baby, I know you’re wounded, I see it in your eyes. Every time you smile it doesn’t reach your eyes, I need all of you. Baby tell me, I can heal you. You have got to let me heal you.” My heart melts. I love him so fucking much.

I tell him everything, from how Smithy died to me going to be crucified.

“You know that spot on my back you constantly rub?” I ask him and he nods.

“I had a skin graft. I was whipped as part of the torture. They destroyed my back. I’m going to get it covered with a tattoo when it’s healed enough and Leo says it’s safe enough.” As I tell him, his eyes widen and I see fury in them.

“What the fuck? Tell me babe.” He says and I sigh and relive the worst pain of my life. I tell him about the mental and physical torture those bastards put me through. I tell him about them bringing the cross in and how they were preparing to crucify me.

“I was waiting for the pain to come, I was looking at him but couldn’t see him, my mind was on a reel, I was relieving all my happy moments. The pain didn’t come. I thought it was another part of his torture, making me wait. I looked up and saw the smirk on his face, out the corner of my eye I saw the Sarge move, he ran and took him down fast. He hit him and didn’t stop, he landed blow after blow. Doc and Sam were running towards me, they untied me and helped me down, Skye was gathering up all his weapons.”

I take a breather; he’s still holding me. “Go on baby, continue, you’re almost finished.” I take a deep breath.

“Once I was standing Sarge gave him one last kick to the face, we made a run for it, it was hard, I was bleeding badly. We had no idea where we were. We made it outside of the room when I realized we had left Smithy behind. Doc and Sam went back for him; they were a while. We thought something had happened to them, turns out that the Taliban knew we were gone. They shot Sam in the leg. To this day I don’t know how he managed to carry Smithy’s body with a gunshot wound.

We ran, and we made it out into the open, away from the building. We could hear a helicopter, we had been hearing it for the last couple of hours, it was like it was circling. We ran for that direction, the Taliban were chasing after us, I looked ahead and saw Skye had somehow managed to get the attention of the pilot, and they started lowering the helicopter. I took 3 bullets and ended up in a coma, I don’t remember getting on to the helicopter. I remember running towards it and the feeling of the bullet impact into my stomach but I carried on running. It wasn’t until the bullet in my leg that I stumbled. Then I remember feeling unbelievable pain in my side and the next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital here in the States. Apparently once they got me stable they flew me home. I was transferred to Keller Army Community. They were amazing; they took great care of me.” He holds me.

“Baby, I’m so damn proud of you, I’m so grateful for your team. What you guys do, it’s fucking amazing, you protect your country. Thank you so much for your service.” We stay holding each other for a bit, then we get washed and leave the shower, we get dried. I hear movement downstairs, I know Sam is awake.

“Go back to bed Nathan, I’m going to run downstairs get a glass of water. I won’t be long.” He’s shaking his head

“You’re out of your mind if you think I can go back to sleep. Babe, I’ve just seen you gasping for air as you relived being water boarded, I also saw you struggling, I’m guessing so you wouldn’t be tied up. So no baby, I’m not going back to bed.”

We head downstairs and Sam is up and making coffee, it’s 5am “Morning Soph, and I didn’t catch your name after you stormed in here last night and ran straight upstairs.” He has a smirk on his face the bastard.

“Nathan Slade meet Samuel Mitchell. Sam, this is Nathan.” They shake hands; I go get a glass of water.

“You okay Soph?” I look at him.

“Yeah, just a nightmare.” I try to pass it off but knowing that bastard is in the states, that he is watching me, it has me set on edge. I hope to God I don’t have any more nightmares. Sam looks like he wants to say something but doesn’t.

“Are we heading to the office today?” I ask Sam, Nathan may know about what happened in Afghanistan, but he doesn’t know Mullah Al Mohammed is my torturer and is currently in the U.S looking for me. Sam’s phone dings alerting him to a new message.

“Yeah, we are meeting at 7, apparently we weren’t the only ones not able to sleep.” He looks to me, yeah, I know why they didn’t sleep, seems Mullah showing his face is making everyone relive that three weeks in the Taliban cell.

Nathan made us breakfast, me and Sam started going through applicants for the reception job. We need someone who can keep their mouth shut. It’s a lot different than how Nathan’s business works, our business is based on Intelligence whereas Nathan’s is a P.I based business. Yeah, Nathan needs confidentiality, but we are dealing with government secrets. If these secrets were to be leaked, it would be a matter of National security.

So we need to find someone who we can trust, Oscar vetted them thoroughly, he tore apart their lives. See, we need someone who won’t be tempted to sell these secrets, so the hundreds of applicants have been whittled down to six. We are going over their lives in case Oscar missed anything.

“What about Susan? She seems good, has secretarial skills, has been in the business for about twelve years, married and has three kids.” Sam asks.

“Nope, she can only work 9 to 5.” We need someone who can work anytime we need them. We’re not slave drivers, we will make sure they rest and have days off, but we may need them at 11 at night.

“What about Mary? She is 45. Her children are fully grown, with her youngest being 20, seems her 3 boys followed father’s footsteps and joined the Marines. She could be a great addition?” Sam is nodding, we need to find another one, a backup so to speak, just in case Mary doesn’t accept or work out.

“Hailey Mayer, 23, has one sister, no other family” I stop him “I know all about Hailey and her background. She is my best friend’s little sister, again Hailey would be a great addition. The only thing is I’m not sure she could withstand Maddie telling her to get a safer job.”

After breakfast I run upstairs and get ready for the day, Nathan got dressed before breakfast. As I make my way downstairs, Sam calls out to me.

“We have our two candidates; the rest of them wouldn’t have been suitable for the job. I have told Oscar and Sarge, they will be calling Mary now, hopefully she will take it, she seems to be the perfect fit.” I’m nodding, I agree with him, you have to meet a certain criterion, and the other four didn’t meet it.

“Ok so that is sorted, I’m going to run, get changed and meet you at the office, okay?” Sam says and bless him, he’s making sure I’ll be okay.

“Perfect, I’ll meet you at the office. I’ll drop Nathan on my way as he grabbed a cab here last night. I’ll see you later on.” I tell him and just as he’s getting up his phone rings, all he says is “uh-huh.” He has a smile on his face when he comes off the phone.

“So that was the Sergeant, he rang Mary, woke her up and explained things to her, she accepted, and will be at the office at 7.” Sam tells me. Holy fuck that was quick, I’m glad we have that sorted; it’s one less thing to worry about.

“Damn, you guys work fast.” Nathan says, I turn to face him, he looks in shock. Sam laughs.