Page 11 of Fighting for Scarlett

12:35 P.M.

Her confidence that rescue was just on the horizon was starting to wane.

Scarlett shivered as a wave of pain rolled over her.

Lying on the cold, hard, unforgiving stone floor of her cell was not the place to be when you were littered with cuts and bruises.

At least she didn't have to worry about infection. Yay. Raul was keeping her pumped full of antibiotics. He didn't want her getting sick and dying on him before he got what he wanted out of her.

Not that she was giving it to him.

Whatever he dished out she, would have to take. Honestly, there was no other option because she wasn’t going to betray her team and Prey and hand over a drug that had the potential to save millions of lives.

But Prey better hurry up and find her because she wasn’t sure how long she could last.

So far, she’d been roughed over, nothing too serious, for now, but she got the feeling that Raul was trying to feel her out, find out the best method of getting her to talk. Scarlett had taken harder hits in the gym when she was working out, so she’d managed to keep her mouth shut and taken the punches, walking away with a litany of bruises but nothing broken.

Next, Raul had upped his game, he’d had her stripped naked and strung up from the ceiling and whipped until she could feel her blood running down her skin. Again, she knew he hadn't pushed as hard as he could have. While her back felt like it had been ripped open, she knew it definitely wasn’t as bad as it could have been, not that it was at all pleasant.

None of this was pleasant.

Not even close.

Actually, it was as close to hell as she had ever been.

And she had no idea how she was going to handle whatever came next.

Problem was, she had no experience in withstanding torture. Her parents and grandparents were mean, they didn't love her or her brother, and they’d definitely mistreated them and pushed too hard too many times to count, but they weren't psychopaths.

As children, she and Zander had lived on a strict diet. There were no fun snacks, no chips or pretzels or popcorn. No candy or chocolate or cake. Not even a birthday cake. They also worked a strict exercise routine, a workout early before school and one when they got home. Then there were drills to run, and lessons in shooting, and martial arts training. Plus, all the chores and her parents and grandparents expected her and her brother to remain honor roll students in every subject.

Life hadn't been fun, but she had never feared for her physical safety, and she had no idea how to do this.

Why hadn’t Prey come for her?

They had to be looking, she trusted her team and her colleagues implicitly. Prey was more of a family to her than her own had ever been, and she knew they wouldn’t leave her hung out to dry.

When she heard footsteps approaching, Scarlett instinctively curled herself into a ball, making herself as small a target as possible. It was stupid, and it wasn’t going to achieve anything.

Wishing she knew what she was doing, that she could handle this, that being tortured for information with no end in sight was something she was capable of surviving wasn’t going to make it true.

This wasn’t something she could do for much longer.

What happened when she reached the end of her rope?

Giving over the information on the drug was not an option which meant her only option was … taking herself out of the equation.

Was she strong enough to end her own life if it came down to it?

From the tears trailing down her cheeks and the way her body shook like it had been encased in a block of ice, Scarlett feared that she wasn’t.

All these years spent believing she was strong for not being forced into becoming who her parents wanted her to be, for forging her own path in life had evaporated. She wasn’t strong, she was every bit as weak as they had always believed her to be.

There wasn’t enough strength left in her at the moment to get up onto her feet, so she simply stayed where she was. The guards didn't speak as they came to her and grabbed her roughly, of course making sure to grab her around the gunshot wound. Just because infection wasn’t going to become an issue didn't mean the wound didn't throb along with the rest of her aches and pains.

A small cry escaped despite her attempts to smother it, and she hated the grins on the guards’ faces, their satisfaction in causing her to show her pain.

Once again, she was taken back down to the room that, in her mind, was called the torture chamber and shoved again into the chair in the center of the room. Another small cry of pain fell from her lips as the metal cuffs were secured around her wrists and ankles. The skin there was torn and bloody from rubbing against the rusty metal as she strained and struggled against the bonds.

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