Page 76 of Dark Rebel's Mystery

No matter how often she blinked, she couldn't peel away the floating spots or the thick fog of sedatives. She wasn't sure how long she'd been under. Minutes? Hours?

Possibly more than a day.

Thoughts floated up in no particular order of the cruel smile on the doctor's too-handsome face, the echoes of a far-off scream, the memory of fear as she'd crouched in the corridor, waiting for him and his entourage to depart, her scarf being ripped away.

She shuddered involuntarily, the chain rattling in response. If he'd come back to see her, she had no recollection of it. The cell's stale air pressed down on her, still reeking of cleaning solution,old sweat, and a faint whiff of burnt metal from the overhead lamp.

Who cleaned these cells?

She had never been allowed in, and neither were the other staff members. Who brought in food? Did they starve the prisoners?

Oh, that's right. The soldiers did that. They brought in the food and took the prisoners to the bathroom and back. Kyra had already investigated all that when she'd planned to switch places with Twelve.

Her mind wasn't working properly, like right now it was registering the sounds of gunfire. They didn't do target practice inside the compound. So, what was the deal with those sounds?

Was she imagining them?

The sharp crack of shots sounded authentic, but the stone walls and the thick door muffled it.

She strained to lift her head, blinking rapidly. If this was a hallucination, it was a damn good one. Still, she kept listening, and then it started again—a rattling burst followed by men shouting and then more gunfire.

One part of her believed she was imagining it or perhaps remembering old battles, but the sounds were too consistent and insistent to originate in her compromised mind.

A scream, sounding closer this time. Another wail answered, more distant but no less agonized. Kyra swallowed what little saliva she could muster.

They hadn't given her anything to drink or eat since she'd been captured. Perhaps it hadn't been that long ago, or maybe she was just too drugged to remember.

Her throat felt dry and scratchy.

Could it be her people?

Had Soran and Zara gathered enough fighters to attempt a rescue? Surely, they weren't stupid enough to attempt this with the small force at their command.

She'd never wanted them to risk this and told them so. She refused to let them sacrifice themselves for her. But maybe they had ignored her wishes and decided she was worth saving.

She had to help them.

She'd escaped similar confinement before and could do it again if only she could clear her foggy mind.

Pain was the answer.

Pain could cut through the fog, and she might gather enough strength to break the chains.

Kyra grunted with effort and lifted her head a few inches from the mattress. Her vision swam, the drugs hammering at her skull and stealing her strength just as effectively as the restraints.

"Come on," she muttered to herself, throat convulsing. "Move." The words came out hoarse, cracking mid-syllable. She tried flexing her biceps, forcing the chain to yield.

Nothing.

The steel cut into her skin, and the bed frame rattled but refused to budge.

Another round of gunfire echoed, this time closer. She heard frantic footsteps overhead—boots clattering on the floor above. Her senses were all scrambled. She tried to count how many different footsteps there were, but everything blurred.

Her team didn't have enough manpower to wage a loud, drawn-out assault in broad daylight, or was it night? She wasn't even sure of that.

Had they secured cooperation with another resistance cell?

No, there hadn't been enough time to organize that. Her sense of time might be all screwed up, but she couldn't have been in this cell for more than a day or even a few hours. They would have been forced to take her to the bathroom, and she would have remembered that.

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