Page 22 of Enemy of the Heart

“I’m moving ashore.”

After meticulously surveying the beach again, I grab the dry bags and remove my fins. I hastily make my way up the beach toward the thick area of vegetation where I hid out before realizing it was Honey Eyes and Sean waiting with the boat.

Covered by the shrubbery, I crouch, unzip the bag, and remove five bricks of C-4, placing four strategically around this wooded area. I move as stealthily as possible. Since I don’t know the patrol schedule nor if anyone is near this beach, every second I linger is another moment I risk being caught. If I’m caught, the backup plan is far messier. All-out war is certain to complicate things.

Ensuring the remote detonation is activated, I strap the dry bag to my back. That’s when I hear the unmistakable sound of a twig snapping. I freeze in place. Hunched over, I lean into the tropical shrubbery until I’m sure it conceals me entirely. I strain my ears but don’t hear another sound. After mentally counting to sixty, I gamble with my life and peer around the leafy blind. Sure enough, there’s a soldier about one hundred yards away. A rifle is strapped to his back, and he’s striding away from the direction of the beach, his gait unhurried.

Allowing the adrenaline to fuel me, my pulse pounds as I race back to drop the remaining explosive into the dinghy before rushing into the water.

I clutch my fins tightly and pray the repetitive roar of the waves crashing veil any of my splashing. As soon as the choppy waves can swallow me, I allow them to whisk me farther out to sea. My heart is still hammering as my head bobs above the waves as I place my fins onto my feet.

The silvery glow of the moon illuminates the beach like a spotlight on a stage as I wait for the soldier to return and spot the boat jouncing. Is he lazy, or does his patrol never take him in the direction of the beach?

With one eye on the beach and still no sign of my enemy, I continue to swim away from the island. I peer up at the bright, full moon overhead and offer a prayer to Mielikki, the charitable goddess of the hunt.

As I bask under the starlight, I indulge in one final breath. I slip beneath the cresting water. Once I put enough distance between me and the dinghy, I pop my head up and speak into the comms unit that I’m grateful is waterproof, “Light it up.”

I turn, treading water with a gleeful grin on my face as the bricks of Composition-C explode like overzealous Americans on their Independence Day. If you ask me, today is cause for an even bigger and better celebration.

The boat still bobs in the choppy water, waiting to be discovered, but it’ll be fish food before they figure out who’s responsible for leaving it here.

Diving beneath the waves once more, I swim the remaining three and a half kilometers. I’m glad I remained in shape while imprisoned here; otherwise, I don’t know how I’d manage this trek, loaded down with a bag this heavy.

But there’s nothing that could keep me from reaching Sean now.

Not the ocean. Not gunpowder. Not even death.

Sean

I pull at the restraints that chain me to the concrete wall, spreadeagle, the metal clinking as I fight to break free. Blood trickles down my forearm from where the iron cuffs have sliced into my wrists. I scream into the cloth gag stuffed into my mouth as I’m forced to watch my best friend be tortured in front of me.

They’ve jacked with the thermostat again. This time, the room is freezing as the air conditioning blasts us with icy air, but I hardly notice as I focus all my energy on the impossible feat of escaping my binds. I could handle this, could tolerate the agonizing torture, but the last twenty-four hours have pushed me to the precipice of my breaking point.

Jace has been beaten to unconsciousness several times, and scarlet tears stream from his abused body. His blood is now a permanent stain in my mind’s eye as I was conscripted to watch the once-gray cement turn the shade of red wine. I’ll hear his shrill, piercing screams when Jennings threatened his mother’s life until the day I take my last breath, which at this point, is seeming sooner than later.

Over the last day, I’ve been required to stay awake and forced to watch every moment of his turmoil. If I closed my eyes or looked away, they’d pelt me with ice cubes or beat me, then make things worse for Jace. He got punches to the gut because I refused to watch him continue to be assaulted after he’d begun to bleed.

“I wonder,” Thompson sneers, “how many buckets it takes for your balls to shrivel up and disappear?”

Jace is hooded now with a black bag over his head, and he thrashes in the metal chair, tossing his head back and forth, unintelligible words falling from his throat.

He wails as the bucket of icy water is dumped into his lap, the cubes of ice clattering to the floor sounding like gunshots. It’s already sub-arctic in here, and I yank on my chains so hard that I wonder if I’ve broken my wrist.

They dump another bucket onto his exposed genitals, and I watch as his body visibly shakes from repeated exposure to the freezing temperature. Fuck, this is bad.

I don’t know how much more of this either of us can take. The only thing keeping us alive is the sick enjoyment and twisted sadism of Jennings and Thompson. If I’d known how utterly deranged Jennings was, I might’ve moved him to the unit that worked directly with me. Would things have gone differently with Borman, Jones, and Davis if I had?

No use dwelling on that, though. He’s clearly where he belongs now.

By no means am I a good person. I’m fucked up, and I recognize that. I like inflicting pain on others. Shit, hurting Louhi gets me harder than the wall I’m chained to. I’m not necessarily proud of that fact, but I’m coming around to accepting it, especially after seeing the way Lou owns every dark corner of herself.

While I want to deny it, I understand how they’re able to do this. If the roles were reversed, I’d have no problem torturing either of these men. I’d even enjoy it.

But the roles aren’t reversed, and I refuse to let Jace die because he wouldn’t kill me. I knew that was a test, but his loyalty and friendship came first, and he wasn’t going to take that risk. I would’ve done the same thing if I’d been in his position.

They dump three more buckets of water with cubes of ice on his crotch in quick succession. I imagine that it’d be like being punched in the nuts repeatedly with a frozen fist. He screams, and my insides curl as I silently plead with Louhi to get here soon. Where are you, baby?

“Should we switch to dry ice? I bet we can make your balls fall off, but they’ll get nice and blistered and burned first.”