Die Trying

don’t.”
    Reacher didn’t get up. He just shrugged through the gloom.
    “That’s a loss I can just about survive,” he said.
    Nobody replied to that. They just strolled back out. Pushed the heavy wooden doors shut. Dropped the crossbeam into place and chained it up. Reacher listened to their footsteps fade away and turned to Holly.
    “What is it?” he asked.
    She shrugged across the distance at him.
    “Some sort of a thin stew,” she said. “Or a thick soup, I guess. One or the other. You want some?”
    “They give you a fork?” he asked.
    “No, a spoon,” she said.
    “Shit,” he said. “Can’t do anything with a damn spoon.”
    “You want some?” she asked again.
    “Can you reach?” he said.
    She spent some time eating, then she stretched out. One arm tight against the chain, the other pushing the messtin across the floor. Then she swiveled and used her good foot to slide the tin farther across the stone. Reacher slid forward, feet first, as far as his chain would let him go. He figured if he could stretch far enough, he could hook his foot around the tin and drag it in toward him. But it was hopeless. He was six five, and his arms were about the longest the Army tailors had ever seen, but even so he came up four feet short. He and Holly were stretched out in a perfect straight line, as near together as their chains would let them get, but the messtin was still way out of his reach.
    “Forget it,” he said. “Get it back while you can.”
    She hooked her own foot around the tin and pulled it back.
    “Sorry,” she said. “You’re going to be hungry.”
    “I’ll survive,” he said. “Probably awful, anyway.”
    “Right,” she said. “It’s shit. Tastes like dog food.”
    Reacher stared through the dark at her. He was suddenly worried.

    HOLLY LAY DOWN apologetically on her mattress and calmly went to sleep, but Reacher stayed awake. Not because of the stone floor. It was cold and damp, and hard. The cobblestones were wickedly lumpy. But that was not the reason. He was waiting for something. He was ticking off the minutes in his head, and he was waiting. His guess was it would be about three hours, maybe four. Way into the small hours, when resistance is low and patience runs out.
    A long wait. The thirteen-thousand-seven-hundred-and-sixty-first night of his life, way down there in the bottom third of the scale, lying awake and waiting for something to happen. Something bad. Something he maybe had no chance of preventing. It was coming. He was certain of that. He’d seen the signs. He lay and waited for it, ticking off the minutes. Three hours, maybe four.

    IT HAPPENED AFTER three hours and thirty-four minutes. The nameless driver came back into the barn. Wide awake and alone. Reacher heard his soft footsteps on the track outside. He heard the rattle of the padlock and the chain. He heard him lift the heavy crossbar out of its brackets. The barn door opened. A bar of bright moonlight fell across the floor. The driver stepped through it. Reacher saw a flash of his pink pig’s face. The guy hurried down the aisle. No weapon in his hand.
    “I’m watching you,” Reacher said, quietly. “You back off, or you’re a dead man.”
    The guy stopped opposite. He wasn’t a complete moron. He stayed well out of range. His bright eyes traveled up from the handcuff on Reacher’s wrist, along the chain, and rested on the iron ring in the wall. Then he smiled.
    “You watch if you want to,” he said. “I don’t mind an audience. And you might learn something.”
    Holly stirred and woke up. Raised her head and glanced around, blinking in the dark.
    “What’s going on?” she said.
    The driver turned to her. Reacher couldn’t see his face. It was turned away. But he could see Holly’s.
    “We’re going to have us a little fun, bitch,” the driver said. “Just you and me, with your asshole friend here, watching and learning.”
    He put his hands down to his waist and unbuckled his belt. Holly stared at him. Started to sit up.
    “Got to be joking,” she said. “You come near me, I’ll kill you.”
    “You wouldn’t do that,” the driver said. “Now would you? After I gave you a mattress and all? Just so we could be comfortable while we’re doing it?”
    Reacher stood up in his stall. His chain clanked loudly in the silent night.
    “I’ll kill you,” he called. “You touch her, you’re a dead man.”
    He said it once, and then he said it again. But it was like the guy