Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“Honest combat is man-to-man, you fucking coward,” I choked out.
Fang flicked the hose back again, then beat at my bruised ribs. I couldn’t contain my howl of pain when he smashed already bruised skin, or again when Fang punched me in my overly tenderized face. My spirit was willing, but my flesh was done. When he hit me again with the hose, I could feel my brain spinning, taking me to the brink of blacking out. Once more and I succumbed to the darkness.
THIRTEEN
When I came to, I opened my eyes to find that my vision had darkened at the edges. I had nearly zero peripheral sight. All the blows to my head were taking their toll.
I tried to move but couldn’t, and my heart started pounding in fear. I was terrified I might be paralyzed. Quickly, I took in my surroundings and realized I was in a sitting position, strapped to a five-foot-long plank with a vertical backrest. Ropes bound my chest, thighs, and legs. My arms were tied behind the backrest.
I tested the ropes that secured my hands, but they’d been tightened nearly to the bone. It was impossible to move a muscle from my chest downward. I cried out as I tried to move—the side of my chest where my ribs were bruised was on fire.
“I would advise against struggling, Colonel.”
At the sound of Suwan’s voice, I tried to suppress the sharp pain in my side. If the man in charge was here, that meant they were done playing.
“It will do you no good,” he continued. “Those knots tighten against tension. You will find the chair unpleasant enough without the strangulation of your limbs.”
My gaze didn’t move from him. I knew what the chair was and what they were going to do to me.
Bricks would be placed underneath my ankles, elevating my lower legs. They would continue adding bricks to cause hypertension in my knees as they unnaturally forced my legs to bend backward until either they snapped, or my bindings did. There was little chance of the latter happening.
“I once saw a man tolerate five bricks before his legs broke,” Suwan informed me. “Most beg for death after three. I wonder what you have in you, Colonel?”
I said nothing, remaining impassive. Glancing around, I saw a man in another corner recording on his phone.
“Ready?”
As if he’d stop if I said I wasn’t.
Suwan gave a nod. The man beside him placed the first brick under my ankles.
A bolt of pain jolted into my knees. That fast, it was terrifying. Brick placed, instantaneous pain.
My teeth ground together to keep me from screaming, and I could hear my blood beating furiously in my ears as sweat dripped off me.
“Again,” Suwan ordered, the sneer on his face making my skin crawl.
Another brick. The sound as the clay blocks scraped against each other was a sound I knew I’d remember for the rest of my life.
Immediately, the pain nearly blinded me. I could feel the tendons starting to stretch and closed my eyes and took a deep breath, forcing myself to ignore the pain that screamed through my legs, made more painful by my bruised ribs and the welts on my back and sides that the ropes scraped as I squirmed against my restraints.
“Another,” Suwan commanded.
It was agony, easily the most pain I’d ever been in, and the animal scream that tore out of me was expected. I almost blacked out.
“One more brick and your legs will break, Colonel,” Suwan declared, his tone placating. “Beg me for death and I will give it to you.”
He wouldn’t. Suwan was not the kind of man to show mercy, and he certainly didn’t have any for me. “Fuck…you…” I managed to choke out.
“Colonel, I should warn you that—”
The door flew open, and my old buddy Fang came in, looking, I was pleased to note, slightly distressed. His taped-up nose was also nice to see. I myself was on the edge of consciousness, but I could make out what I thought was the sound of rain.
That didn’t make any sense. How could I hear rain inside a bunker with no windows?
Fang was talking to Suwan in a stream of sound, and around the stops and starts, after moments, I recognized it for what it was—the dull rattle of gunfire.
Finally.
Even immobilized in the chair, I was relieved. “Sounds like you’ve got company.”
“No matter,” Suwan snarled. “It arrives too late to save you, Colonel.”
And he looked pretty confident until there was more gunfire. Louder. Closer.
Suwan’s fortress was under heavy attack.
Fang bolted from the room, and I scoffed despite being in pain, because it looked like Suwan’s badass enforcer beat it out of there at the first sign of trouble.
“Loyalty is a rare commodity,” I said as all the other men turned and ran, leaving Suwan and me alone in the room. “Don’t you think?”