"I don't understand." I could hear the confusion in Graham's voice.
"I'm the reason you won't be seeing your son this weekend. I got us captured. Why aren't you madder at me right now?"
He could be ranting and raving at me, but instead he had been nothing but helpful since the moment I woke up in the ocean.
"I don't have an answer for that."
There was no further discussion after that. We sat in silence for what felt like hours before sleep finally claimed me. I went to bed with my head resting back against the wall but that wasn't how I woke up.
CHAPTER FIVE
Graham
My eyes had long ago adjusted to the darkness and I could make out the outline of Sarah as she rested her head against the dirty wooden walls of our hole.
She had fallen asleep about twenty minutes ago after hours of silence. I hadn't known how to answer her question other than that she was different. Since I couldn't say that, I had chosen to say nothing at all.
I thought hard about our situation, what our captors could possibly want since they had yet to make demands.
Opportunity was all I could come up with. They had seen the plane crash and went out looking for survivors. It was the only thing that made sense.
I was about to fall asleep myself when the creak of the heavy door hinge grabbed my attention. My entire body went on full alert. I was prepared to fight our way out, but before I could make any plans, a gun was shoved in my face.
"Out," the man holding the gun demanded. "One wrong move and I blow her head off." He swung the gun in Sarah's direction.
I did as he asked and was rewarded with a swift kick straight to the kidney. I went down on one knee and inwardly groaned, not wanting to give the man the satisfaction of knowing he’d hurt me.
Two other men appeared on either side of me and wretched my arms behind my back. The urge to fight them off was strong but out of the corner of my eye I could see that the gun was still pointed in Sarah's direction. If for no other reason, I needed to cooperate to save her life.
Scratchy rope scraped my skin as my wrists were bound behind my back. I was helped to my feet by one of the goons who secured my hands and pushed in a direction away from the hole Sarah peacefully slept in.
I was more worried about her waking up alone than where they were taking me. I could handle being tortured. It wouldn't be the first time in my life, and considering I survived that, I felt I could survive anything.
I wasn't taken far. A storage room about twenty feet away that was surprisingly empty except for a few discarded cans strewn about.
The man who had a firm hold on my bicep attempted to throw me to the ground but I was ready and barely stumbled forward a few feet. I wasn't lucky enough to stay on my feet for long though. One swift shot to my knee and I crumbled like a house built of sticks.
After that I was fair game. I was forced to endure repeated kicks to the stomach, back, and legs. Thankfully, they left my head alone. I guess they wanted to make sure I stayed alive, but the rest of me was fair game. Either that, or these three men were advised to rough me up, but not do any permanentdamage. With my hands tied behind my back, I couldn’t even protect myself except to try and curl into a ball. Not an easy feat, but I managed to cover my most vital organs.
None of this made sense. They weren't torturing me for information. They weren't demanding money I didn't have. They weren't talking at all; except for the sounds of exertion, all was quiet.
This was nothing like the last time I was captured and I didn't know what to make of it.
I'm not sure how long the beating lasted. It felt like forever, but I'm sure it was nothing more than a few minutes, before I was being grabbed under the arms, a man on either side of me, and dragged back to the hole where Sarah was hopefully blissfully asleep.
With any luck, she would sleep through things and not have to know what happened to me.
CHAPTER SIX
Sarah
I was startled awake by what, I had no idea.
"Graham?"
I was met with silence.
"Graham?" This time there was no mistaking the panic in my voice.
