“You can’t be sure.”
Ryker presses his lips together for a long moment, then lowers himself down to the back porch steps with a quiet groan. “Arthritis,” he says when I sit next to him and ask if he’s all right. “Too many beatings, broken bones, and months spent in caves where the temps weren’t much warmer than down in The Crypt. I tune it out most of the time. Bury it so deep I don’t feel it.”
I nod, understanding all too well. My pain isn’t physical, but it’s buried all the same. “Kind of surprised you’d show it to me.”
He makes that same hoarse sound from earlier, and now, I recognize it as a chuckle. “You’re not the only one.”
“How can you be sure Trev’s down…there?”
Ry rubs his bald head, his fingers tracing the scars from more torture than I think one man could ever survive. “Because Ochoa knows who Trevor is. What he did. What he wants to do. And how well Trevor was trained to do it.”
The realization hits me hard, and I drop my head into my hands. “Because of Gil.”
“Yeah. Or…” He sighs, and I think I know what he’s going to say.
“Luis.”
I can’t…I need to run. But there’s no time and nowhere that’s safe for me to go. “We can’t leave him down there until tomorrow. Please, Ryker—Ry. Isn’t there some way we can get him out tonight?”
“No.” His growled answer makes me flinch, and he softens his tone. “Wren’s almost done faking your travel arrangements. After that, things are going to move fast. Too fast for any of us.” He pauses, then adds, “Except Trevor.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” I don’t cry. I won’t. Not until Trevor’s out of that place and safe. Back with me. But I sniffle once and swallow hard. “What if he isn’t…”
“The same?” Austin joins us, taking a seat on my other side and nudging his shoulder against mine. “He won’t be, squirt. You won’t be either. But Trev was trained for this. To survive. To send his mind somewhere nothing can hurt him. He’ll come back to you.”
For a few minutes, no one says a word. We just sit quietly, staring at the cloudless sky, breathing free air, and praying for a miracle.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Trevor
Nothing givesme reprieve from the bright lights and the endless cold. The soldiers brought out the belly chain and connected wrist cuffs when they dragged me back here, and now, I can’t raise my hands high enough to cover my eyes. I’ve stopped trying to roll over and curl into a ball, but I still force myself to my hands and knees every few hours.
Conserving my strength and ability to move are both equally important now. It’ll be another half a day or more—probably—before Ochoa sends for me again. He’ll wait until I’m delirious from lack of sleep, then try to trick me into giving up the names he wants.
But he doesn’t know how well I’ve been trained. Not truly. Every other time the guards leave, I let myself fall asleep. Fifteen minutes isn’t near enough time. Deep, restorative sleep only happens when you can manage a solid hour. But these micro-naps should keep me from going insane. For a time.
The heavy footsteps come again, followed by the slamming of the Billy clubs against the bars.“¿Quién quiere cenar?”
Dinner. It’s probably nothing but cornmeal cakes again, but anything’s better than this endless twisting and cramping in my stomach. Cell by cell, they slide the water cups through the bars, and I count. Six, each taunted in Spanish about their crime or their family or their smell. Until the soldiers stand in front of my cell and shove two cakes and a plastic cup inside. “The American does not look so good,” one of them says, then laughs.
I squint up at them. “You’re no GQ model either, shithead.”
“You will not be joking much longer,” the other soldier warns. “General Ochoa wants you to know how useful you have been.”
What the fuck is he talking about? I haven’t given them anything. Unless… No. God, no. Not Dani. “El general es estúpido,” I manage. “Never going to help him.”
“The woman is on her way. You and thesalvador de la resistenciawill both give up your secrets when the general locks her down here.”
With that final threat, the soldiers retreat, and an all-consuming, burning pain starts deep in my heart. She can’t give herself up. Not for me. Not for anyone. She’s the toughest woman I know, but she hasn’t been trained. There’s no way she’ll last more than a couple of days down here, and then…her death will be on me.
The door to this level bangs shut, the lock engages, and then, it’s eerily quiet. Everyone who can still move at all is eating, but I don’t have the strength.
The enemy of survival? Despair. I can’t save her. Not from here. When they first threw me in here, I felt all around the bars, hoping to find a weak spot. There isn’t one. My two trips upstairs? They’ve told me nothing I can use.
The urge to give up presses down on me, but only for a moment, because then...
“Trevor.” The hoarse whisper cuts through the silence, and I freeze.
