Keep Me

Glaring at my lack of reaction, Majid presses the knife deeper into my skin. “Last fucking chance, Esguerra. Do you want to keep your eye or not?”

I don’t respond, and he drags the knife higher, causing my eyelids to squeeze shut reflexively.

“All right then,” he whispers, enjoying my body’s involuntarily panic as I try to jerk out of his reach . . . and then I feel a nauseating explosion of pain as the blade punctures through my eyelid and penetrates deep into my eye.

* * *

I must’ve lost consciousness again because there’s more cold water being thrown at me. I’m shivering, my body going into shock from the excruciating agony. I can’t see anything out of my left eye—all I feel there is a burning, leaking emptiness. My stomach roils with bile, and it takes all of my effort not to vomit all over myself.

“How about the second eye, Esguerra, hmm?” Majid smiles at me, his bloodied knife held tightly in his fist. “Would you like to be blind while we take your dick off, or would you rather see it all? Of course, it’s not too late to stop all this . . . Just tell us what we want to know, and we might even let you live—since you’re so brave and all.”

He’s lying. I can hear it in the gloating tone of his voice. He thinks he’s got me nearly broken, so desperate to stop the pain that I will believe anything he says.

“Fuck you,” I whisper with my remaining strength. You don’t back down. You never back down. “Fuck you and your pathetic little threats.”

His eyes narrow with rage, and the knife flashes toward my face. I squeeze my remaining eye shut, preparing for the agony . . . but it never comes.

Surprised, I peel open my uninjured eyelid and see that Majid got distracted by one of his minions. The man seems excited, pointing toward me as he chatters in rapid Arabic. I strain to make out some of the words I know, but he’s speaking too fast. Judging by the smile spreading across Majid’s face, however, whatever he’s saying is good news for Majid—which means it’s probably bad news for me.

My supposition is confirmed when Majid turns toward me and says with a cruel smirk, “Your other eye is safe for now, Esguerra. There is something I really want you to see in a few hours.”

I glare at him, unable to hide my hatred. I don’t know what he’s talking about, but the pit of my stomach tightens as the terrorists file out of the windowless room. There’s only one thing that would persuade me to give in—and she is safe and sound in my compound. They can’t possibly be talking about Nora, not with all the security I have around her. It’s some new mind game they’re playing with me, trying to make me think they have something worse in store for me than what I’ve already suffered. It’s a delay tactic, a way to prolong my suffering—nothing more.

I have no intention of falling for their trick, but as I wait there, bound and in the worst pain of my life, I’m not strong enough to stop the anxiety from creeping up on me. I should be grateful for this respite from torture, but I’m not.

I would gladly let Majid cut off every one of my limbs if only I could be certain that Nora is safe.

I don’t know how much time passes while I wait in torment, but finally I hear voices outside. The door opens, and Majid drags in a small figure dressed in a pair of Uggs and a man’s shirt that hangs down to her knees. Her hands are bound behind her back, and there is a bloody stain on the underside of her left arm.

My stomach drops and cold horror spreads through my veins as Nora’s dark eyes lock on my face.

My worst fear has come to pass.

They have the only person who matters to me in the whole fucking world.

They have my Nora—and this time, I can’t rescue her.

Chapter 28

Nora

Trembling from head to toe, I stare at Julian, my chest squeezing with agony at the sight. There is a rough, dirty-looking bandage on his shoulder, with blood seeping out of it, and his naked body is a mass of cuts, bruises, and scrapes. His face is even worse. Below the old bandage on his forehead, there isn’t a spot left that isn’t discolored or swollen. The most horrifying thing of all, however, is the huge bleeding gash running through his left cheek and all the way up into his eyebrow—a mess of ragged flesh where his eye used to be.

Where his eye used to be.

They cut out his eye.

I can’t even begin to process that at the moment, so I don’t try. For now, Julian is alive, and that’s all that matters.

He’s tied to a metal chair, his legs bound apart and his arms restrained behind his back. I can see the shock and horror on his bloodied face as he takes in my presence, and I want to tell him that everything will be all right—that this time I am saving him—but I can’t. Not yet.

Not until Peter has a chance to get here with the reinforcements.

My bruised cheekbone is throbbing where they hit me, and the underside of my left arm is burning with pain from the open wound there. They stripped off my clothes and cut out my birth control implant while I was knocked out, probably fearing that it was a tracker of some kind. I hadn’t expected that—I figured, if anything, they would find one of the real trackers—but it worked out even better than I’d hoped. After cutting out the implant and seeing that it was nothing more than a simple plastic rod, they must’ve dismissed me as a threat, thinking that I am exactly what I was pretending to be: a naïve girl who went to see her parents, oblivious of any remaining danger. It makes me glad that I had the foresight to leave the bracelet tracker at the estate, so as not to arouse their suspicions.