One soldier removed her handcuffs while the other tossed her purse to the officer, along with her passport.
The officer studied the I.D. and gave her a clinical once-over. “Remove your clothes.”
“What?” Her stomach collapsed, and she clutched the neckline of her t-shirt, holding it tight. “Why?”
“Rápido!”
His explosive roar stopped her heart. She couldn’t make her hands move, every part of her frozen in fear.
Did they intend to strip search her? Where were the female soldiers? She didn’t remember the law well enough to understand her rights.
A fist slammed into the side of her head, and she collided with the nearby wall. Her skull throbbed. Her eyes ached with tears, and that was when she truly understood.
There was no law here. No justice. No defense for the innocent.
This was military corruption.
“I’ll give you one chance.” The officer clasped his hands behind his back. “It’s up to you if you want to live or die.”
There were no options. If she didn’t cooperate, they would kill her.
She closed her eyes and swallowed her modesty. Then she removed her sneakers, jeans, and t-shirt. When she met his heartless eyes, she wore only her bra and panties.
The impulse to wrap her arms around herself made her twitch. But she felt the need to make a stand. No one else would be fighting for her here.
Holding her hands at her sides, she pushed her shoulders back, despite the ungodly terror twisting up her insides.
“Where is Hernandez?” He paced a circle around her. “Garcia?”
“I…I don’t know—”
He gripped her jaw and yanked it upward at a painful angle, putting his bearded face in hers. “Where’s Cortez?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about! I live in Arizona. I’m just a schoolteacher. I don’t know anyone by those names!”
“Okay.” He released her and stepped back.
Did he think she was Vera? How deeply had her sister entangled herself with the cartel? Deep enough to fall into the sights of the Mexican military?
If this was a case of mistaken identity, Tula couldn’t point that out and send them after Vera. She’d come to Mexico to protect her sister, not get her arrested.
There had to be another way.
“I gave you a chance, and you didn’t take it.” He nodded at the soldiers behind her.
“Wait! Let me call someone.”
Who? Who the hell would she call? Her boss? A fellow teacher at work? She didn’t have friends or family. No one could bail her out of this.
She was on her own.
The two uniforms grabbed her arms and aggressively wrestled her to the table, bending her over the surface with her chest pressed against the cold metal.
In the next breath, her panties were ripped away, leaving behind an ice-cold quake of horror.
This wasn’t a strip search. It was sexual assault.
“I want to call a lawyer!” She bucked against their hold, terrified and exposed with her bare butt in the air. “I have the right to an attorney!”
Hands slammed her face down as the other man shackled her arms to the table legs.
Behind her, it sounded like two pieces of metal were being tapped together. Whatever that was shot violent tremors down her legs.
She craned her neck and glimpsed a metal rod in the officer’s hand. A wire dangled from it, and she followed the end to where it plugged into the wall.
Ungodly terror crashed down upon her, sitting over her mouth and nose and crushing her chest. A trickle of air slipped through, just enough to keep her organs functioning, but it was crippling, suffocating.
Boots kicked her feet farther apart. Handcuffs tethered her arms to the table. Then she felt fingers, frigid bony digits separating her butt cheeks and the tender tissues around her vagina.
Before she could scream her objections, the metal rod penetrated her rectum in one brutal shove.
A sharp, ripping burn incinerated her anus. The sound of buzzing electricity warped the air as a jarring, horrendous jolt electrocuted her backside.
The pain was so excruciating her bladder released, spilling urine down her legs. Vomit burst past her lips, and her eyeballs felt like they were exploding out of their sockets. As if every drop of life was trying to find a way to escape her body.
She screamed until her vocal cords bled, until she couldn’t draw air into her lungs. Snot bubbled from her nose, and tears soaked her face, sticking her hair to her cheeks and mouth.
The torture was never-ending, striking flames through her anal cavity, over and over. Fifteen to twenty jolts. Five seconds each.
He removed the rod, stabbed it into her vagina, and started again. Back and forth he went, reaming that metal device in and out and frying her insides with punishing bolts of lightning.
She cried for him to stop and tried to jerk away from the source of her pain. The pain… It howled through her body and blurred her vision. She couldn’t move, couldn’t swallow or gasp beneath the agony.