Movement shifted in the van. Boots scraped across metal flooring, coming closer. Rachel forced herself to stay still, forced her breathing to stay even despite her heart slamming against her ribs hard enough that she could feel it in her throat.
"Bet she's scared." The voice was close now, almost directly above her. Male, mid-thirties from the timbre, with an edge of cruelty that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. "Not so tough now, huh, sweetheart?"
The kick came without warning.
His boot connected with her ribs just below her breast, a precise strike that drove what little air she'd managed to recover straightout of her lungs. Pain tore through her torso, sharp and immediate. Rachel's body wanted to curl inward, wanted to protect itself, but the zip ties at her wrists kept her from moving.
She didn't make a sound. Wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
Another nudge, gentler this time but still deliberately cruel, rolled her onto her back. The plastic zip ties dug into the steel floor beneath her, supporting her full weight. The edges cut into her wrists, slicing deeper. The angle wrenched both shoulders backward. Fire shot up her arms. Behind the blindfold, her eyes watered involuntarily.
Don't react. Don't give them anything.
"She fought hard back there," the voice continued, conversational now. Discussing her like she wasn't even there. "Saw her file before we moved. Always poking around where she doesn't belong. Think she'll still have some fight left when we hand her over?"
Someone laughed, short and mean. "She won't get a choice."
Rachel's pulse kicked against her throat. She could feel it throbbing there, rapid and uneven. Her mind spun through everything she knew, everything she'd uncovered in those files. Arms deals. Corruption networks. Names of officers who should be in prison.
They knew who she was. Knew what she did. Which meant they knew she'd found something worth killing for.
The van jerked right again and Rachel's forehead cracked against what felt like a metal bracket mounted to the wall. The impact was immediate and sickening. Her vision went white behind the blindfold, then gray, then started to tilt even though she was lying down. Nausea surged in her stomach, bile rising in her throat.
Concussion. Possible. Stay conscious. Have to stay conscious.
She blinked hard behind the blindfold, fighting the dizziness, fighting the urge to throw up because with the tape over her mouth she'd choke on her own vomit.
Don't think about that. Don't think about drowning in your own,
The van's movement changed. Deceleration. They were slowing down.
The engine dropped to an idle, rough and diesel, vibrating through the floor beneath her, then cut completely.
Rachel went still. Forced herself to breathe slowly, quietly through her nose. Outside, doors slammed. Voices picked up, muffled through the van's walls but urgent now. Moving with purpose.
Footsteps approached the rear doors.
The doors groaned open on rusty hinges and cooler air rushed in. It hit her sweat-dampened skin with enough contrast that goosebumps rose on her arms immediately. Late afternoon. The air smelled different, less city, more industrial. Oil and rust and something chemical she couldn't place.
They'd been driving for... twenty minutes? Thirty? Her sense of time had fractured somewhere between the beatings.
Before she could brace herself, hands grabbed her ankles and pulled.
Rachel’s body slid across the van floor, her zip-tied wrists scraping against the ribbed metal. Every ridge caught the plastic, ground it deeper into already torn skin, then she was falling, gravity taking over for a split second before her knees hit gravel.
The impact was immediate and brutal. Sharp rocks bit into her kneecaps through her shorts. She felt the skin split, felt the warm wetness that meant she was bleeding, felt gravel embedding itself in the torn flesh.
Fingers clamped around her upper arm, hard enough to bruise, hard enough that she felt each individual digit pressing into muscle, and hauled her upright.
The world spun. Her knees barely held her weight. Blood ran down both shins, warm and sticky.
"Move." The word was punctuated by a shove between her shoulder blades.
Rachel stumbled forward, blind and disoriented. Her feet scraped across what felt like dirt and gravel mixed together. No street noise. No traffic sounds. No voices except her captors. No birds. No wind through trees.
Wherever they were, it was isolated.
The boot caught her in the ribs before she registered movement, a solid strike just below her ribcage that folded her in half. Air ripped from her lungs. She tried to cry out but the duct tape turned it into a muffled sound that was worse than silence. Pathetic. Weak.
