The Hardest Thing
Prologue
~*~*~*~*~
Blindfolded, the only thing he
could hear was the steady dripping of water somewhere in the room. His hands were tied tightly behind him
around the cold metal chair he’d been shoved into. Both of his ankles were tied just as tightly to the legs of the
chairs. The thin material of his black
t-shirt did nothing to protect his body from the cold in the damp room. Within minutes, he was trembling from
it. Or was it from the fear?
Fighting to calm his rapid
breathing, he tried to clear his head enough to think about how he had gotten
here in the first place. The last thing
he remembered was seeing a man in the field ahead of him, running towards that
man, and suddenly his legs were out from under him and he was face down on the
ground. A second later, something hard
and heavy hit him from behind and everything went black. Now, he could feel the welt on the back of
his neck where he’d been hit and the headache was a vivid reminder. He had no idea how long he’d been
unconscious.
The door opened on his right
and he jerked his head towards it, trying valiantly not to wince at the pain in
his head. He couldn’t see anything, but
he heard the sounds of maybe three people entering the room. Their steps echoing off the walls
loudly. He heard a foreign language he
didn’t know, but it sounded a lot like Spanish. Maybe Portuguese? He
struggled to pay attention to their tone, wondering what they wanted from
him. One man, with a deep voice, spoke
to the other two. It sounded as if he
was giving them orders, so he was probably the leader of the group.
A couple seconds passed in
silence and then a hand grabbed his shoulder roughly. He winced as he felt the strong fingers go into his pressure
point. A bright spot appeared in front
of his eyes and he had to fight to stay conscious again.
“Where is she?” the deep voice
demanded in a heavy accent.
The man’s face must have been
only inches from his. He could feel the
hot breath on his cheek. “Who?” he
replied, playing dumb.
“The girl. Where is she?” deep-voice repeated. His fingers gripped his shoulder harder,
making the bright spot grow brighter.
Shaking his head to clear it
and also in denial, he repeated, “Who?”
He wasn’t prepared for the
back handed slap that stung the right side of his face in a second. The pain exploded in his head, but he
refused to show weakness. He tasted the
blood from his lip with the tip of his tongue.
Waiting a few seconds for his bearings to return, he sat up again and
held his head straight. He was almost
glad he couldn’t see anything because he was sure, if he could, everything
would be swimming crazily in front of him anyway. He closed his eyes and waited.
The three men had been
conferring for a minute at the side of the room. One of them sounded anxious.
The other two just sounded determined.
Two sets of footsteps shuffled closer.
“One more time,” the deep voice said.
“Where is the woman? We know you
know her. She was with you.”
Gritting his teeth because he
thought he knew what would be next, he answered, “I don’t know,” and braced
himself. But nothing came. Only silence. He could hear the three men breathing heavily, even in the cool
air. If it was possible, it had grown
colder in the last few minutes.
“He doesn’t know?” one of the
other two men asked after a couple minutes had passed. His English was worse than the first
guy’s. He could barely understand him.
“He knows,” the deep voice
insisted. “He will tell us.”
The threat lingered in the air
for another few minutes as he tried to control his breathing. The trembling had gotten worse and now he
was sure it was from fear and not cold.
He had no idea what they were about to do to him. They wanted information he couldn’t give
them. He truly did not know the answer
to their question. He knew very little
about what was going on at all.
Everything was still a jumble so far.
He didn’t even know if she was still alive.
The man was back with his hand
on his shoulder again. It was hard to
keep his back straight when all he wanted to do was give in to the pressure,
but he fought it with everything he had.
“You will tell us where she is,” the man commanded again.
“Or what?” he said through
clenched teeth. They weren’t going to
let him go and he had to protect what little information he knew. Instead, he was now trying to see just how
brave he could be. He had once said he
would do anything for her, now was his chance to prove that.
His sarcasm was not met
well. Instead of another back hand,
though, one of the men hit him in the stomach with what felt like the butt of a
rifle. The wind was instantly knocked
out him and he gasped desperately for air, doubled over as far as his strained
arms would allow. He kept his head
down, coughing as he fought to breathe.
At least he had his answer as to what they were going to do him. Seconds passed slowly while his lungs
burned. When he could draw a deep
breath again, he raised his head and faced straight ahead again.
“You are a very stubborn man,”
the deep voice chided him in a patronizing tone. “We can wait all day for your answer. We have nothing better to do here. I am sure my men would like the chance to take out their
frustrations some more.” His taunts
were echoed with laughter from the other two men.
He grimaced slightly at the
thoughts that entered his mind with the man’s words. He still couldn’t see them and the blindfold was only
disorienting him more now that his head was spinning. “Take off the blindfold,” he said coolly, hoping his voice didn’t
waver with fear.
“Tell me where the girl is and
I will take off the blindfold,” the man countered.
As if to make him think his
word was good, he felt a hand at the back of his head holding onto the black
cloth covering his eyes. Shaking his
head slowly, he repeated, “Take off the blindfold and I’ll tell you where she
is.”
A short silence fell between
them as if the men were silently debating what they should do. Suddenly, the cloth was jerked from his head
in a quick, rough motion. He didn’t
open his eyes until he was able to stabilize his head again. Slowly, he looked around the tiny room he
was in. There were no windows to let in
light. The only source of dim light
came from a single, covered bulb in the center of the room, under which his
chair was positioned. He could see a
heavy metal door directly in front of him with two of the men standing in front
of it, guarding it like he could run at any moment. As he’d suspected, both of the men carried rifles, along with a
variety of other weapons strapped to their bodies. One man was taller than the other. They were dressed similarly in black fatigue pants and tight
black t-shirts. The shorter of the two
wore a black bandana covering his head.
Both were very well muscled and looked very capable of stopping him
should he be able to get up and run.
Even the shorter of the two men looked like he would be taller than his
own six-foot, two-inch frame.
Turning his head to locate the
third man, he didn’t have to look far.
A shorter, balding man was standing at his shoulder, looking at him
expectantly. He, too, was dressed in
black fatigue pants, but his shirt was the other half of the uniform, the
button-down army shirt. None of the men
had the markings of actually belonging to an army, though, he noticed. Most likely either a militia group or a
private captor with great interest in their presence in his country.
“Now, you tell me where she
is,” the apparent leader of the group demanded loudly.
He faced forward again,
watching the other two guards steadily.
He closed his eyes for a brief moment and then reopened them, staring
straight ahead. “I don’t know where she
is,” he answered for the third time. He
tried not to flinch as the leader’s hand came centimeters from his face while the
man tried to scare a real answer from him.
“You fool!” the man
shouted. He walked into full view of
his prisoner and shook his head slowly from side to side. “You tried to play me?” He didn’t wait for a response before
delivering a vicious blow that snapped his prisoner’s head to the left.
Dazed and trying to remain
conscious as thousands of tiny lights burst in front of his eyes, he kept his
head down, knowing better than to look up and defy them again. The two guards apparently took his silence as
insolence and they stepped forward to help their leader make his point. They were stopped when the leader held up
his hand, turning to glance at them before he looked down at his captive again.
“I want him conscious. He has to answer our questions,” the leader
commanded, his lips curling in a snide smile as he stepped aside and let the
other two men advance.
~*~*~*~*~
It seemed like hours had
passed since he had last seen his three captors. In reality, he knew they had only left him maybe forty-five
minutes earlier. He pulled himself
slowly and gingerly into a sitting position against the concrete wall. They had finally untied him, leaving him
laying on the floor while they continued to ask their questions.
He snaked one hand across his
ribs, careful not to touch the bruises he could feel growing there. He kept his left leg out in front of him
when he found that bending it at the knee was just too painful as a result of a
kick from the steel toe of the taller guards boots. They had been relentless with their questions, though they had
finally moved on from asking where the girl was. His answer had always been that he didn’t know, since it was the
complete truth at the moment, and they had finally figured out they weren’t
getting an answer from him about that.
He struggled to remember the
other questions they had asked him.
What does the girl want? Who
does she work for? Why are you here
with her? Who is her partner? There had been others, he was sure, but he
thought he remembered blacking out for a few minutes at one point. They were questions he didn’t know the
answers to and if he had, his answer still would have been a stoic ‘I don’t
know.’ He wasn’t giving them an inch
and when they realized that, they had taken out their frustrations on him.
Gently, he felt the corner of
his right eye, wincing in pain and shuddering when his fingertips came away
covered with blood. He wondered how
long it would be before they were back to ask more questions. He knew he was doing the right thing in keeping
the information from them. He only
wished he knew why he was still protecting her. She had lied to him for five years and now he was chasing after
her in this foreign country to find answers.
He hoped she knew what was happening to him right now. Maybe she would feel guilty for once,
knowing that he was still protecting her at all costs.
The concrete wall was cold to
touch and felt good against his aching head when he leaned against it. He closed his eyes and hoped they were
coming to rescue him. Surely they knew
who had him and why. They had to know
what was happening to him. Maybe she
was trying to rescue him right now. He
hoped they would get there before the guards came back to ask their questions
again. He didn’t know if he could
withstand it another time.
Sighing and then wincing with
the pain in his ribs, he wondered again why he was doing all this to protect
the woman who had lied to him for five years.
Because you still love her, his mind nagged at him. He shut his eyes tightly to try and quiet
that voice.