Part 5 (2/2)

The Pirates fulfilled her craving. Between each interrogation, she endured a long bout of hanging from the ceiling hook followed by a beating made more severe whenever she sacrificed her wrists and shoulders for an opportunity to kick a Pirate.

There were plenty of opportunities and Jamie took every one of them.

* 51 *

Chapter six.

Fear up harsh Yep. This is it. The glare on the other side of her eyelids, the throbbing pangs of fretting flesh and muscle and joints meant just one thing. This is awake. Jamie knew she'd have to open her eyes.

Any minute now. f.u.c.king A.

Awake had taken a while, amalgamating slowly from a jumble of sensations that approached, then receded, then approached again until they connected up into dreams maybe, or memories. Of people pulling on her arms, lifting her by her arms, but her legs wouldn't stay beneath her and she couldn't raise her lolling head and around her sounded voices and clanging metal.

Jamie realized she lay on her back, her arms stretched above her head. More than anything, she wanted to curl into a tight little ball and- G.o.dd.a.m.n. Shackles on her wrists and ankles immobilized her.

G.o.dd.a.m.n.

She had to move something, anything-had to move now. This was what made her eyes open at last, made them squint into the glare that wouldn't go away and see a single, bare light bulb in a wire-meshed cavity in the ceiling. She would have looked around to confirm the sense she had of being engulfed by concrete walls, but before she could do anything, the light bulb started to spin.

Suddenly her head filled with a rush of white noise. She closed her eyes against the dazzle, against a tide of nausea rising from her belly into her throat. Maybe a few seconds later, maybe hours, the noise in her head abated. That's when she noticed the other sound. Could it really be that someone was snoring?

* 52 *

Ha! Not just anyone. Arnoldt snored distinctively. Jamie had always hated Arnoldt's snoring-until this moment. Gingerly, she turned her head and slivered open her eyes once more.

She saw Moss first. He was closer, between her and Arnoldt, and all three of them were handcuffed naked to bare metal bed frames. In a cell. Moss's eyes were shut.

”Yo,” said Jamie. ”Yo, Moss.”

He didn't move, but Arnoldt burbled an especially long, loud snore.

”Fear up harsh.”

The whisper, a woman's, came from Jamie's left. She turned too fast toward it, and for a half-second her eyes refused to focus. Then she saw Martina Rhys.

”How you doing?” Jamie whispered back, squinching her eyes to make sure what they saw was real. Rhys, too, lay naked and cuffed.

Jamie's c.l.i.t punched a double flip, and for a time-stretched heartbeat, then two, she let the churning surprise of Rhys's robust tawniness, Rhys's exquisite bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s, eclipse everything.

”Got waterboarded today,” Rhys said wearily. ”Moss took the worst of it. Light for Arnoldt and me.” Beneath velvet-smooth skin, Rhys's abs tightened and rippled as she strained against the cuffs to turn toward Jamie. ”What the h.e.l.l happened to you? You look like my mother's mincemeat.”

”Yeah. Well. It's what I get for playing with boys.” Jamie yanked hard on the single pair of cuffs that shackled her hands above her head to the bed frame, twisting to get a better view of the thick wire netting on which she lay. The bed frame groaned metallic protest.

”Don't do that.” Rhys's dark eyes flitted toward the cell door and the dank hallway beyond the bars. ”Noise attracts them. Not a good idea.”

”How long've you been in here?” asked Jamie, s.h.i.+fting leftward again, determined to keep her eyes from leaving Rhys's face.

”Couple days. This'll be the third night. I think. Hard to tell exactly.

They never turn off the lights. Put hoods on us when they take us outta here to be interrogated. Tough really knowing what time it is.”

”They come around a lot?”

”It'll be a while now, a.s.suming the pattern holds. They're done with us for the day. You just missed the swill they call chow and the * 53 *

second trip to the head, so you'll need to hold it 'til the end of the next watch, which I figure means it's morning. You'll hear 'em playing poker any minute now, after their chow, which we get to smell just to make us a little more crazy. Last night, Arnoldt swore he could smell beer. They won't check us again 'til right after the next watch starts.”

”When?”

Rhys shrugged in her cuffs. Her eyes-dejected eyes, Jamie thought-seemed to be pulled unwillingly to the ceiling light. ”I'm guessing maybe four hours. Dunno. Hard to tell exactly.”

”You get a look around? You know-layout, gates, guard movement?”

”Yeah.” Rhys said it slowly, a question-Didn't you?-and turned her head to look at Jamie, who encouraged her with a quick, tell-me-more nod. ”Uh,” Rhys continued, nodding back, ”when they had us digging holes and moving rocks all day.”

”When'd they grab you?”

”Same time as your squad.” Rhys sounded glum. ”I was bringing a message to Fontana, since we were under commo silence. It's been nine G.o.d-awful days by my count. I think. Which means they should've let us outta here last night. But when Arnoldt said something about it, they just laughed and gut-punched him. So much for the rules of engagement.”

Jeezus. Nine days. The Pirates would have to release them by the end of day ten no matter what. So just one more day of the c.o.c.k.

No matter what. s.h.i.+t. One more day. Inside Jamie's head, way inside, someone started screaming.

”Cameras and microphones?” Jamie hoped she sounded calm.

Rhys shook her head. ”Maybe in the light bulb. Or a pinhole setup in the fixture or the walls somewhere. Couldn't find anything obvious from here.”

Jamie squinted again at the ceiling light. If they're playing poker, they're probably not doing surveillance, so what if- Not likely to work, but even the thought of it eased the screaming in her head. She stretched herself out, pus.h.i.+ng with her feet, pulling with her fingers, trying to give her shackled hands more reach as she strained to touch the edge of the bed frame, which creaked and clanked.

”Shh!” Rhys's expression s.h.i.+fted from disapproving frown to * 54 *

confused dismay when she saw Jamie's fingers continue their scramble along the top edge of the bed's wire netting. ”What're you doing?”

”Sorry.” Jamie eased her movement, which ended the bed's complaint, but she didn't stop stretching, didn't stop reaching. Because maybe, just maybe... Yeah, yeah, feels like baling wire.

”What the h.e.l.l're you doing?”

I'm trying , dammit! But Jamie decided not to say it aloud, decided not to look back at Rhys. Instead, she sent her fingers back and forth, back and forth along the top of the bed frame, which now emitted tiny irregular squeaks.

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