Keep Me(87)

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.

To my relief, it doesn’t seem like they touched me much in other ways. At least, if they did anything more than cop a feel while I was unconscious, I feel no evidence of it. There is no soreness or stickiness between my legs, no pain of any kind. My skin is crawling at the knowledge that they had me naked, but it could’ve easily been much worse. When I woke up, I was already wearing someone’s shirt and my own Ugg boots. They must be saving all the drama for when I’m in front of Julian.

This was the part of my plan that Peter found most risky: that time from my capture until my arrival at their hideout.

“You know that they can search every inch of you and find all three of the tracking devices Julian placed on you,” he told me before we left the estate. “And then you’ll both be lost to us. You do understand what they will do to you to make Julian talk, right?”

“Yes, I do, Peter.” I gave him a grim smile. “I understand perfectly. There is no other choice, though, and the trackers are tiny, the insertion wounds nearly invisible at this point. They may find one or two, but I doubt they’ll find all three—and if they do, by the time they do, you may have a fix on their location.”

“Maybe,” he said, his eyes speaking volumes about his opinion on my sanity, “or maybe not. There are a hundred things that can go wrong between the time you get taken and when they bring you to Julian.”

“It’s a risk I’ll have to take,” I told him, bringing the discussion to an end. I knew how dangerous it would be for me to act as a human tracking device to locate the terrorists, but I couldn’t see any other way to get to Julian in time—and judging by his current state, I was nearly too late as is.

I see Julian attempting to compose himself, to hide his visceral reaction to my presence, but he’s not entirely successful. After the initial shock passes, his jaw tightens, and his undamaged eye begins to glitter with violent rage as he takes in my semi-dressed state. His powerful muscles bunch, straining against the restraints. He looks like he wants to rip apart everyone in the room, and I know that the ropes tying him to the chair are the only thing preventing him from launching a suicidal attack on our captors. The other terrorists must be thinking the same thing, because two of them step closer to Julian, clutching their weapons just in case.

Looking delighted with this turn of events, Majid laughs and drags me to the middle of the room, his grip on my arm excruciatingly tight. “You know, your dumb little whore all but fell into my lap,” he says conversationally, fisting his hand in my hair and forcing me down to my knees. “We found her shopping in your absence, like all those greedy American bitches. Figured we’d bring her here, so you can see her pretty little face before I carve it up . . . Unless you want to start talking?”

Julian remains silent, glaring at Majid with murderous hatred, while I take small, shallow breaths to cope with my terror. My eyes are watering from the pain in my scalp, and the fear pulsing through me feels almost like a living thing. With my hands restrained behind my back, there’s nothing I can do to prevent Majid from hurting me. I have no idea how long it’s going to take Peter to arrive, but there’s every chance he might not make it in time. I can see the rust-colored stains on the blade hanging loosely from Majid’s belt, and nausea rises in my throat as I realize that it’s Julian’s blood.