“Noah, wake up.”
It was like he couldn’t hear her. And it was getting worse. His growls were getting louder. The pain—Jesus, it just leached out of him.
His head flew back and for a moment, it looked like he wasn’t breathing. “Noah, you need to—”
“No!” The shout was loud and fierce, and in a split second he was standing and grasping her arms in such a tight grip that her muscles burned.
Pain pulsedbeneath Noah’s skin, relentless and hot.
He hurt. Everything fucking hurt. His wrists from the chains breaking his skin. His cracked ribs from the boots pounding into him. And his head…Jesus, it pounded. A mixture of beatings and dehydration and exhaustion.
He tried to peel his eyes open, but one was so swollen it wouldn’t budge.
The darkness…fuck, it was everywhere. It was all he’d seen for days. He could just make out the concrete walls. Then there was the cold, but he’d kind of gotten used to that. Hell, he almost welcomed it because it eased the burning heat of his injuries.
It was the smell that really fucking hit him. The mixture of blood and sweat and this stagnant air that made him want to be sick.
Dizziness spun the world around him, and he lowered his head to his chest, but the chains connecting him to the wall refused to let his hands drop.
He was in the depths of hell and his captors knew it. Had designed this place tobehell.
The assholes had tried to break him. They hadn’t. And they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t get a single piece of intel from him about his unit or their allied forces.
He just had to survive until the rescue team came. Because theywouldcome. And if he cracked before then, he was as good as dead anyway.
He sucked in a lungful of air, which made the ache in his ribs cascade through his body.
His mind flicked to Jay, and the pain suddenly turned to rage.
Dead. Jay was dead. Killed in the ambush. It still didn’t feel real. But that bullet that hit Jay in the skull had played over in Noah’s mind again and again. Even though they’d been in the middle of a fucking ambush, time had felt like it stopped. Noah had felt paralyzed. It was only Boone pulling him into the irrigation shed that had saved him from the same fate.
But that hadn’t been the salvation either of them had hoped for.
A new wave of fury rolled through him at the memory of the stun grenade. At waking up here in the depths of hell.
He tugged at the binds around his wrists, not caring that his skin was red and raw.
Where was Boone? What had they done with him? No one would tell him.
Another wave of dizziness swamped him, almost dragging him back under, but he forced his eyes to remain open.
Survive. That was his goal.
The creak of the door opening had his head shooting up.
Then the already dark world blackened further.
Boone.
He looked like he’d already gone through the same torture yet was still fighting the assholes who stood on either side of him. The second he looked up at Noah, they both knew what was about to happen…they were going to be pitted against each other. But only one of them would make it out alive.
Make it Boone. He wanted to die so that Boone could live.
A man came to stand between them. He was the only one in this godforsaken place who spoke English. The fucker who’d been trying to get information from Noah before he lost consciousness.
The asshole looked at him. “It’s time for you to speak, soldier.”
No. They’d chosen to try to crack Noah…which meant Boone was the one who wouldn’t make it.
