Metal clinked and jingled seconds before the lid of the box opened. Harsh sunlight flooded his torture chamber. Early on, he’d learned to keep his eyes shut tight or be blinded for a solid five minutes.
Five minutes of increased vulnerability was a dangerous thing.
Rough hands grasped his shoulders and yanked him from the box. Splintered wood from the box’s rim scraped down his raw spine, drawing a grunt of pain from him. He’d have fucking screamed if he had the air.
He scrambled to get to his legs beneath him, or at least it felt like he moved fast, but his brain and body weren’t on the same wavelength anymore, and he sagged in his captor’s hold as his knees gave out.
After blinking a half dozen times, he forced his eyelids to remain open. Bright sunlight seared straight through his eye sockets to his brain. Everything appeared fuzzy, from the tan sand to the armed men dressed in sandals and robes. They yelled what he recognized as slurs in Arabic as his body was dragged past them.
Moments later, he crumbled to the ground in the hut he’d become all too familiar with since being captured. He lay in the heap they tossed him in, waiting for the throbbing to pass.
“Scott?” Deke’s frail voice had him lifting his head despite excruciating pain in his neck.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he whispered when he saw his friend.
Deke let out a barely audible chuckle. “I look that sexy, huh?”
Scott swallowed a burning trail of bile. “Deke…” His friend looked like a rotting corpse. There was no nicer way to describe it. The cuts their captors had inflicted all over his skin oozed with thick green puss. Both his eyes were blackened, his lips were split, and his hair was matted with blood. He’d lost an alarming amount of weight for such a short time. He sat, slumped on the ground with his left leg bent at an unnatural angle. A dislocated knee maybe from when their interrogator had taken the butt of his rifle to it yesterday.
This is how it had been for the past five days. Twice a day, their captors dragged Scott into this hovel for interrogation after a dozen hours in that fucking box. They wanted to know what intel the US had on them. They demanded he film a video denouncing his military and his country. Instead of using physical coercion to get his compliance, they did something worse.
They tortured Deke while forcing him to watch.
The number of times he’d almost caved hit into the thousands. But he’d kept his mouth sealed shut, honoring his country, and destroying his friend. In the process, the guilt thrashed his soul beyond repair.
“Scott?”
He closed his eyes as now-familiar despair washed over him. “Don’t make me say it, Deke. Please don’t make me say it.” From experience, he knew they had about five minutes before the sadistic fuck they called an interrogator came to play.
“I’m sorry, brother. I have no choice.”
“Yes, you fucking do,” he snapped. Guilt slammed into him. He was such an asshole, sniping at the man who’d been tortured for days because of him. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
Deke snorted. “Like we’ve never lost our shit on each other before. You don’t scare me.”
Scott’s laugh was full of sorrow. Nothing would scare either of them after this. They’d stared into the face of the devil and lived. So far. Or hell, maybe everything would scare him moving forward. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to leave his house—if he ever made it home—too afraid of the evil lurking behind every smile he came across.
“Scott, I’m going to die soon.”
The words terrified him more than the thought of returning to the box. “No! You’re not. No fucking way. You’re too strong for that shit.” Deke couldn’t die. He wouldn’t allow it. Who would cruise the bars with him? Who’d roll their eyes at the ridiculously lavish life Deke’s estranged father lived with his millions of dollars and narrow-minded beliefs? Who’d suffer through trainings and miserable missions with him? They both could’ve retired from the military last year but decided to stick it out for a few more. Grab a little extra pension. There was some irony in there somewhere, but he couldn’t muster the strength to figure it out.
“Scott, please. You know it’s true. No one can survive this indefinitely. Not even a perfect specimen like me.”
Christ. Deke was the one suffering unimaginable torture, but he still managed to joke while Scott was acting like a little whiny bitch. His shoulders slumped. He’d give his brother whatever the fuck he wanted in his last hours. Even lie to his face. “Go ahead. I’ll say it.” Deke forced this little ritual on him after the first time their captors made Scott watch them slice into his brother’s skin.
“This is not my fault,” Deke said in a weakened version of his voice.