Had Voodoo healed her?
Partially at least?
Whatever he’d done didn't seem to have had a huge impact on the infection and fever wracking her body, but it did seem to have worked on her leg.
Keeping a hand on the wall of the cave, Indigo limped toward the opening. It was dark out, but she wasn't sure how much time had passed since she’d been rescued.
Did it count as being rescued if you were still in just as precarious a position as you’d been in before?
Glancing out into the forest, everything was so still. So quiet.
Was Voodoo out there somewhere?
There was food in his pack, she knew because there were hazy memories of him asking her to try eating something, but she didn't know how much. Didn't know how much water he had with him either, but she knew that most of the fuzzy memories she did have of the last several hours were of him constantly urging her to drink water.
Just as she was about to call out his name, a blur of movement suddenly came rushing toward her.
Unprepared for it as she was, Indigo went to move backward, getaway from whoever was running at her, and stumbled, her bad leg giving out. She went down hard, pain stabbing through her wrists as they took the brunt of her fall, but like always, it passed quickly.
Lack of pain didn't equal strength, though.
And then a man was suddenly on her, a hand around her neck, pressing her down into the hard, unforgiving ground. Automatically, her own hands wrapped around the wrist of the man trying to strangle her, attempting to dislodge him, but of course that was ridiculous. No way was she wriggling out of this man’s hold. The only way she was getting free was if he let her.
That wasn't happening.
“Well, well, well, lookie what we have here,” the man said, a slight chuckle in his voice that set her nerves on edge.
It was a voice she recognized, he was one of the guards who worked in the lab. Since she’d been there for months at least, she knew there were four rotations of guards. They worked approximately twelve-hour shifts from what she could tell, twelve hours on, thirty-six hours off. The guards on shift when Voodoo’s team broke in were all dead, and she assumed some of the others were as well, since she knew Voodoo had killed men on their trek through the forest.
What she didn't know was how many more of the guards were out there.
Or where Voodoo was.
“Thought you had gotten away, did you?” he sneered.
Indigo didn't know his name, didn't know any of the guards’ names, they were all one and the same as far as she was concerned.
All threats.
All dangerous.
“Boss man wants you back. The Doc won't let you go that easily,” he said, his hand loosening a little as he shifted his position so that he was kneeling over her, a knee on either side of her hips, effectively pinning her in place. Even if she wasn't sick and weak, she wouldn't be able to buck him off her.
What was she supposed to do besides pray that Voodoo hadn't left her and would return in time? She had no weapon to use and no way to escape.
Helpless.
Again.
“Always thought you were a pretty little thing,” he told her, and he let the fingertips of his free hand trail down her cheek then brush across her lips.
Clamping her lips together to hold in a whimper, Indigo wondered how it was that she’d been getting beaten on since she was a small child, and yet at twenty-nine, she still had no idea how to fight off an attacker.
If she survived, maybe Voodoo could teach her.
“Bet you're real sick of them hurting you by now, huh, pretty one?” the man asked, his fingers prying their way between her lips, sticking them down her throat, and making her gag. “Love it when they gag,” he told her, and she could feel his hardening length press against her belly.
It was a good thing she didn't need a vivid imagination to figure out what he was getting at, because she’d never had a good imagination. Never had time to foster one because she was too busy trying to survive.
