My lips were cracked and dry. The corners oozed blood.
Sometimes, I’d open my eyes and see the doctor. He would slather salve onto my wounds, patch me up, and give me just enough morphine to dull my pain. He mended me so Dante could torture me again and again.
Dante chopped my hair with pruning shears. My wheat blonde locks fell to the floor in a rippling cascade of beauty and femininity.
And when I soiled myself because Dante wouldn’t untie me, he sprayed me down with the hose again like a rabid animal.
My head hung with exhaustion. My soul wept. My eyes were devoid of tears. I had nothing left inside of me to give.
Only then did Dante command the doctor to untie me. I fell to the floor as my weak muscles quivered.
“Women,” Dante spat. “Useless. You almost take the fun out of breaking you.Almost.”
I opened my eyelids. Night had fallen while I’d been tied to the wooden beams.
The doctor cradled me in his arms.
Dante crouched down on the ground next to the metal toolbox and extracted a scalpel.
Like the ones I used during surgery.
“You want her alive, don’t you?” the doctor asked Dante in Spanish.
I feigned ignorance about my understanding of the language, hoping one of them would say something of true value. I remained limp, inactive.
“Si,” Dante snapped. “I want her alive.”
“If you want her to make it back to Waco, then forget the knife play. You’ve heard of the sayingdon’t kill the messenger, right? You’ve had your fun. Send her on her way.”
“Fine,” Dante snapped, throwing the scalpel back into the metal toolbox and shutting the lid. He rose from his crouched position on the ground and pulled out his cell phone. “Bandage her up as best you can. I’m calling Juan to come with the van.”
Dante stalked from the jail cell and a moment later, I heard the creak of the rickety wooden door, followed by a loud bang as it slammed shut.
The doctor looked down at me, his brown eyes softening. “Valley of Hearts,” he whispered in English. “That’s where we are.”
I moved my lips, but no sound came out.Why? I mouthed.
“You remind me of my daughter,” he replied. “The one Dante took from me.”
He lowered me to the soiled ground, but only so that he could administer a syringe into the meaty part of my thigh.
“You’ll sleep the whole way home. Good luck to you.”
Chapter 30
“Oh my fucking God!”
I opened my eyes and winced at the bright morning sunlight beating down on me to stare up into Mia Weston’s concerned gaze.
She crouched down as her gaze raked over me. “Linden? Is that you?”
What did she see?
Shorn hair.
Almost nude.
The bloody bandages.