Full Throttle (Black Knights Inc. #7)(12)
Which made her realize her ears were back online, too. She could hear herself hacking, gasping above the noisy chatter of raised voices and the steady droning of…what was that? The sound was vaguely familiar, reminding her of the time she’d been snowed in during a family ski trip to Colorado.
Generators, maybe? Which would explain the hint of exhaust adding to the bouquet of stomach-churning scents.
Blech! Smells like Chewbacca’s burned butt hair. Where the hell am I?
When she opened her eyes, it was to find a world of chaos and color. She appeared to be floating like a lost balloon through an alley that backed up to one of Kuala Lumpur’s many night markets. The back sides of multi-hued, tightly spaced booths—which she knew were overloaded with everything from produce, meat, and spices to trinkets and textiles—drifted by on her left. On her right was a labyrinth of alcoves and alleyways filled with the empty carts of the night market’s hawkers. And when she glanced up, it was to see the hardened jaws of two men. Tendons and veins bulged in their necks as they struggled under her weight. Okay, so she wasn’t floating, she was being carried.
Memories assaulted her…
The pinch of the needle. The body that refused to respond to her commands. Her security detail’s perplexing absence and the presence of a handful of strange men. The apathy that soon followed…
Well, she could only wish for a drop of that apathy now. Because the stark terror was back in full effect, causing her heart to race so fast she was dizzy. Or maybe that was thanks to the remnants of the drug in her system.
“Help me,” she croaked, reaching out to a wide-eyed Malaysian woman standing next to an empty cart. Or at least she tried to reach out. Her stupid arm weighed in at a cool thousand pounds and didn’t do much more than twitch as it dangled from her shoulder socket. And her voice? Heaven help her, it was nothing but an airy whisper.
Still, she’d moved enough, made enough noise, that one of the men glanced down at her. His dark, close-set eyes were fierce, and even in her narco-hazy state she had no trouble reading the cold calculation in them. He looked away to say something to her second abductor. She couldn’t understand his words but noted they picked up the pace, breaking into a bumpy, bone-jostling jog. Her head bounced around so much she thought it was a wonder it didn’t snap off the end of her neck. Just crack! And there it’d go, rolling down the alley.
Although, come to think of it, that particular scenario didn’t sound all that bad. At least then she’d be free of this terrible paralysis and the mind-numbing terror it evoked.
A few more agonizing seconds passed before they reached their destination—the back of a faded red stall. Her kidnappers parted a slit in the fabric and ducked inside, unceremoniously dumping her into a molded plastic chair. Her arms fell listlessly to the sides, her legs crookedly stretched out in front of her. She couldn’t raise her head—like everything else, the muscles in her neck refused to work—but from the corner of her eye, she saw one of the men pull a handful of silk scarves over the front opening of the booth, effectively shutting the three of them inside.
Good God! What now?
And then she wished she hadn’t asked. Because one of her kidnappers bent to quickly undo the buttons on her blouse while the other squatted at her feet to attack the laces on the kitten-heel boots she’d purchased specifically for the New Frontiers in Horticulture Convention.
And how ridiculous that all seemed now, her desire to look just so—professional yet stylish—while she gave her speech. How stupid to have worried about her appearance, about how the president of the United States’ daughter would be perceived in this predominantly Muslim country, when there were so many real concerns that should’ve occupied her mind.
Real concerns like abduction. Like something terrible happening to the tough, loyal people in her protection detail. Like Carlos Soto suddenly reappearing in her life all big and dark and rough, everything she’d ever wanted in a man but couldn’t have. Like…rape…
The ugly word whispered through her head, causing her heart to crash against her breastbone. It made it hard to breath, hard to hear anything above the whooshing roar of blood between her ears.
“No,” she managed to murmur, though her tongue felt like it had swollen to fill her mouth. She wanted to punch. She wanted to kick. She wanted to bite and scratch and scream. But she could do none of that. She could do nothing but sit there, a prisoner inside her own useless body, while these vile men defiled her.
A sob of fear and fury built inside her chest as a thousand horrific images flipped through her mind.
Urgent, ungentle hands…flip!
Sweaty, thrusting male bodies…flip!
Greedy, wet mouths…flip!
The depravity and obscenity of it all caused saliva to pool at the back of her tongue. When she swallowed, it was thick and sticky. But, amazingly, the action enabled her to put some volume behind her next words. “Ssstop it! You b-bastards!” she slurred.
The thrill of succeeding in that one small rebellion was short lived, because the man pulling her blouse from her shoulders slapped her face. Hard. White-hot pain burned over the expanse of her cheek and detonated like an atom bomb behind her right eye. Her head whipped to the side where it remained, lolling against her left shoulder.
“Quiet!” he hissed, staring at her with such…hatred. She had never seen such hatred on the face of a man. Burning tears seeped from the corners of her eyes to trickle across the bridge of her nose and run over her temple.