The vehicle slowed, then stopped.
Jenna rose up and turned in her seat, and an arm emerged from her burqa, something gripped in her closed fist. “He is losing blood.”
Their gazes met for just a moment through the mesh of her burqa, and Derek saw in those green eyes the fear and worry she was trying so hard to hide.
“They’ll come,” he whispered.
“I know.” Without warning, she jabbed something into his thigh.
Morphine.
God, he loved her.
The drug rushed through him like warm honey, blunting his pain, making him high as a fucking kite.
It’s not going to be like this when they get to where they’re going. They’re going to rough you up. They might even kill you if Cobra can’t move in fast enough.
He knew it was true, but right now he didn’t seem to care.
Perooz grabbed Jenna by her shoulders, shook her. “What did you do to him? What did you say?”
Bastard.
“I gave him pain medicine so that he won’t suffer. I told him to sleep.”
The last thing Derek saw as he drifted into unconsciousness was a distant flash of silver high in the blue sky above.
* * *
Jenna huddled inside her burqa,cold to the bone and hungry, the shackle on her ankle biting into her skin. They had taken her cell phone, searched her for weapons, and staked her like an animal in the corner of a house with dirt floors, the coal fire in the center of the room doing nothing to keep her warm.
But Derek was suffering much worse.
“What did you say to The Lion about me?” Qassim had been asking Derek questions for the past hour, beating him, Derek’s suffering unbearable to her.
Still, Derek was a smart ass. “I told him you fuck little boys.”
The dull thud of a fist striking flesh, another grunt of pain.
Tears streamed down Jenna’s cheeks.
“You think you are a tough guy, I know. I think you are not so tough. That looks like a bad wound in your shoulder. How does it feel now?”
Derek cried out, a terrible, agonized sound, like a scream through gritted teeth.
What were they doing to him? Where was Cobra? Where was Javier?
If they didn’t come soon, it might be too late. But without her phone, how would Javier find them to mount a rescue?
Jenna was used to the sound of suffering, the cries of women in labor. Their pain tugged at her heart, but this was different. Qassim was doing his best tohurtDerek, to break him. He might even kill him.
The cry ended.
“Go to hell!” Derek shouted.
Another blow. Another grunt.
“What did you tell The Lion?”