Drake Sisters 07 - Hidden Currents

slowly to his feet, his face a mask of blood. He swore, grabbing Jackson by the feet and began to drag him across the stone floor to the door. He stopped and viciously planted a boot in Jackson’s ribs before screaming at the other guard to help him.
    Blood and spit ran down his face and he kicked again at Jackson’s head before once more yanking on his feet. Jackson was dragged outside and through a courtyard to the back of an old beat-up car. His mouth went dry. He’d seen a body come back after they’d dragged him through the pitted, rock-fil ed, sandy road. There hadn’t been any skin on the body, it had looked like raw meat on a hook.
    The guard lashed Jackson’s arms to the bumper and signaled to the other man to get into the driver’s seat. They argued for a couple of minutes and then the sadistic guard drew his weapon. The other man got into the car and turned the engine over. Not bothering to wipe off the blood, his captor spat on Jackson’s face and then threw himself into the car. Jackson heard the door slam.
    Leave me now. She couldn’t be in his head when he died, not like this, dragged behind a car like a dead carcass. Thanks for everything. You have no idea what you’ve meant to me.
    I’m not leaving you. I won’t.
    If there had been a heart left in his body, her emotion would have broken it, but at last, everything in him was gone. He felt the rumbling of the car, the blast of the exhaust, a terrible jerk on his arms as if they were being pul ed from their sockets and then he was being dragged through the rocks and sand.
    He had thought he knew pain, but he was unprepared for the excruciating agony rushing through him. He nearly lost consciousness as the rocks and sand ground away his clothes and then his skin. His head was positioned higher, so the sand thrown up acted like a grinder on one side of his face, burning until he thought there was nothing left but bone.
    A car came fishtailing up beside them, honking wildly, the driver waving his arms and final y pul ing sideways in front of them, forcing the guard to comply. The car slid to a halt, the spinning wheels throwing sand al over the open wounds in his face and the entire left side of his body. The sand had shredded the few clothes he’d been wearing, leaving him raw and bloody, pitted from head to toe with sand.
    Jackson lay there, the sand burning through muscle to bone, but he didn’t have the strength to even lift his head to see what was happening. His arms felt as if they’d been jerked from their sockets and he was fairly certain something bad had happened to his left shoulder. The pain made him nauseous and the world around him spun, until his focus was off and everything tilted insanely.
    The car door slammed and the driver came around to the back of his car, his legs in his line of vision. The sadistic guard rushed from the other side, roaring with anger. The driver of the other car got out much more slowly and came around to straddle Jackson’s body. He kicked sand in his face, but Jackson didn’t think the man even realized he’d done so. Jackson, as a human being, was of so little concern, they barely glanced at him.
    An argument broke out, with the sadistic guard screaming that he would kil Jackson, that he’d do whatever he wanted. The driver of the other car, a stranger to Jackson, didn’t raise his voice, but insisted that he was valuable and not to be kil ed. The man drew a knife, grabbed the rope binding Jackson to the bumper of the car and wrenched his arms up to pul the rope taut. It hurt like hel . For a moment little stars danced on a black background and Jackson was certain he would pass out.
    No! Her voice was sharp. They aren’t paying any attention to you. There’s only three of them. You noticed the gun in his belt. When he shoves the knife back into the scabbard, that’s your chance, Jackson. There’s a car, water, and weapons and no one around. You have to do this. I’ll give you everything I can, but you have to do this.
    She was right. It was now or never. It didn’t matter how weak he was, how exhausted or hurt, if he didn’t take this one chance, another might never come along. Her resolve became his. He strengthened it with his hatred of his captors. He had learned to pray, and he had learned to hate. He never prayed for anything but the strength to