Chapter Three
Outside of Jalalabad, Afghanistan
Echoes reverberated off the grungy walls—the stomach-turning crunch of bone, shots fired, and low, injured moans.
Once more, Justice dangled from his wrists. He hung in the air like a flag on a pole. Justice feared they might snap in two from the strain of his own body weight. Sweat rolled down his back and blood trickled down his face from the head wound, making it hard to see.
They’d been captured. Justice couldn’t remember how long his unit had been held in the abandoned building. Hours? Days? Years? He hadn’t seen the sun in forever and couldn’t keep track of time.
He had no way of knowing how far away from civilization they’d been taken. After being caught by the Taliban, they’d been blindfolded and marched away from the scene.
Justice figured they were in the hollowed out remains of a jail. The country had sustained massive damage, and a lot of places had been reduced to rubble. The jail was falling apart, too. Debris littered the hallway, the brick walls surrounding them were crumbling.
Every day, the terrorists came to their cells, dragging one of them out at machine gun point to threaten and interrogate.
All he’d ever given the bastards was his name, rank, and serial number. He’d tacked on a “fuck you” to the end of the sentence, which had earned him a beat down, the first of many. These sons of bitches wouldn’t get to him to cooperate, no matter what they did.
The soles of his feet ached from where they’d whacked them with a small rod called a bastinado. His body was black and blue. He was covered in dried blood, vomit, and piss. When they’d hooked the car battery to his genitals, he’d even lost control of his bowels.
And still, he didn’t give up, refused to give in.
Whenever the Taliban fed them, which wasn’t often, the men only got a few scraps of bread. But he’d long ago stopped feeling hungry. His body had cannibalized his muscle and the small fat stores he had.
Hope kept him alive.
He knew another SEAL team had already been tasked with freeing them. It was standard procedure in these situations, and when the cavalry got here, there’d be hell to pay.
Behind him, he heard the snap of a whip. The guard was back, and his respite was over. He’d already been lashed so many times, his back was ripped apart. Justice hadn’t even healed from the last round.
The length of leather landed across his shoulder blades. Justice stifled a groan. They wouldn’t break him. No matter what they did.
He was going to make it out of this place—one day, he’d be free again. And then he planned on killing every last one of these dicks.
***
Etta couldn’t sleep.
She laid in bed, wide-eyed, staring at the ceiling, willing herself to drift off, but it was no use.
Etta had a windowless bedroom. She guessed it had once been a bathroom, judging by the tile in the closet. It had been a selling point when she rented the place. Etta slept better in total darkness, except for tonight.
Somewhere, another shoe hovered, ready to drop right on her head.
Over the years, she’d had hundreds of nightmares about her former husband, pictured him holding her down, kicking her once more. If he got out, she knew he’d try to hurt her again.
Before she’d gone to bed, Etta had pulled out the handgun she’d tucked away on the top shelf of her closet, and placed it in her nightstand drawer. This time would be different. She wouldn’t give him the chance to even get near her.
A muffled shout from the other room startled her.
Justice. He’s having a nightmare.
Etta recognized the signs of post-traumatic stress syndrome all too well. She’d had her own share of terrible dreams haunting her sleep.
She raced into the living room and found Justice spread-eagled on the couch. He’d stripped off his jeans, T-shirt, and Four Horsemen vest. It lay across the back of a chair. She idly traced the horse symbol.
The sofa was too small for his frame, and his legs were thrown over the side. She could barely see him in the ghostly moonlight filtering in through the curtains, but his eyes moved beneath his eyelids.
He shouted again.
“Justice?” What had happened to him in Afghanistan? Why did he refuse to discuss it?
He flung his head back and forth, struggling in his sleep. His arms flailed as though trying to block a would-be assailant. Etta knew all about fending off an attacker. Watching him tussle with his own demons, brought it all rushing back.
Etta had to stop this.
“Justice.” She shook him awake.
He grasped her hand, and for a moment his eyes were wild, sightless. His breathing was labored, and he clung to her like a drowning man to a raft.
“Etta?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
Justice expelled a breath, and his body relaxed.
“Trouble sleepin’?”
He nodded.
“Wanna do a relaxation exercise or two?”
Back in the heyday of her own PTSD symptoms, the therapist had taught her a few methods to ease her ricocheting emotions. For Etta, the main issue had been hypervigilance. She hadn’t felt safe anywhere, and the slightest noise startled her. So she’d worked on visualizations to control the fear and panic. It had worked, too. After a few months’ time, her symptoms had gone away.
“No, I’m fine.”
“What were you dreamin’ about?” Clearly, he wasn’t “fine,” so she kept pushing.
For a long moment, he stared at her, blinking, as though the words hadn’t gotten through.
He shook his head. “Uh, the past.”
His answer was something of a cop-out. She’d gotten limited details out of him. He’d told her most of it was classified, but just because he wasn’t at liberty to discuss a mission with her, didn’t mean he couldn’t tell her what had happened to him personally.
“Afghanistan?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
She had the sneaking suspicion he’d been tortured.
Etta knew what it was like to be hurt by someone, in horrifically intimate ways. The pain and degradation hit a person where she lived and left marks beyond the physical. Grady had forever changed her.
“Tell me about it.”
“Don’t you got enough on your plate without my tale of woe addin’ to your burdens?”
“Nope. Trust me, talkin’ helps.”
The cushions were warm from his body heat. Heat rolled off him in waves, too. It was like sitting beside a blast furnace. Sweat trickled from his temples, and it had dampened his sideburns.
He sighed. “I can’t.”
“Sooner or later, you have to. Trust me. I’ve tried the ‘face it on my own’ approach, and it doesn’t work.”
“I’ve made it through all by my lonesome so far.”
“Have you?”
The question hung in the air between them.
Justice didn’t reply.
From her perspective, he had a long ways to go, and maybe Etta had further to go then she’d realized.
Funny.
Both she and Justice were running from their pasts, burying themselves in distractions, so they didn’t think about what they’d gone through.
“Fine, have it your way.” Etta got back to her feet. If he wasn’t going to open up, she might as well head back to bed. She had an early morning and lots of clients to see. She padded back into her bedroom, leaving Justice alone with his thoughts.
“Why should I talk about it?” he called from the other room.
“Because the past always comes back to bite you on the ass. Trust me.”
Etta should know. Hers was coming back with a vengeance.