Page 10 of Mission Shift

The guard twisted the knob slightly, and pain shot through my hand. Just when I thought he would break a bone, he stopped and laughed—a harsh sound that echoed in the room. He released my hand, and I yanked it back, cradling it against my chest.

“Think about truth,” he sneered. “Maybe next time, no laugh.”

The guards exchanged a few words before the scarred sadist jerked me to my feet and shoved me toward the door. As he dragged me back to the cell, my legs were heavy, each step taking me further into hell.

“No food, no water until you talk,” he spat.

Once I was inside the cell, the door slammed shut, and the guard left, his footsteps fading down the hallway. I sat on the filthy mattress that passed for a bed. My hand throbbed, and my stomach roiled with hunger and fear.

I leaned forward to stare at the cracks in the floor, resting my elbows on my knees and jamming my fingers in my hair.

Letting out a slow breath, I tried to quiet my racing thoughts. They didn’t believe me. No matter what I said, they wouldn’t. And if they found out about Nik…

No. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to find a way out of this, somehow.

I stretched out on the rack, staring at the shadows on the ceiling. My body hurt all over. The metal bars beneath the mattress dug into my back as darkness claimed the cell.

Sleep was impossible. Every sound—boots marching down the hallway, doors slamming, muffled voices conversing in Russian—sent fresh adrenaline coursing through my system.

I was so fucked.

I clenched my fists, ignoring the pain in my bruised hand, determined not to break. Not yet. Not here.

Chapter five

The room I was assigned to stay in was exactly what I’d expected—bare-bones and bleak. The cot sagged in the middle, its mattress so thin it might as well have been a towel stretched over springs. A metal nightstand missing its drawer sat beside it. The air carried a musty scent. At least there was a bathroom—or what passed for one. It was just a tiny, separate area that housed a shower stall, a sink, and a toilet. Typical visitor’s quarters in a makeshift Russian prison near the Ukrainian border.

I dropped my backpack onto the cot and stretched my neck, tension twining through my shoulders. My thoughts immediately went to the American, whom I’d just witnessed being dragged down the hallway somewhere. The guards here were bored, bitter men with nothing better to do thantorment detainees. To them, torture wasn’t a tool for extracting information; it was a sport.

I couldn’t leave him in their hands for long, regardless of what my orders to Taranov had been. I didn’t trust him or his men.

Sitting down on the edge of the cot, I unzipped my pack and pulled out his bag—a bulky, American-style backpack. I had stuffed it inside of mine after driving off from that godforsaken house. His fate was tied to mine now, no question about it. Leaving him here wasn’t an option. Putin would see him as a prize, a bargaining chip with which to extort the US, all the while subjecting him to unspeakable horrors.

The risk of saving him was immense. If they even suspected what I was doing…

No. I couldn’t think about that now.

Unzipping his pack, I rifled through its contents quickly. The first thing I pulled out was his passport. My Boy Scout’s name was Braxton Wyatt Thorin. In the picture, he was clean-cut, and his mouth curved into the kind of smile Americans seemed to specialize in—movie-star perfection. Hmm, he was from Tacoma, Washington—a no-fuss, salt-of-the-earth kind of place. It suited him: solid, reliable, all-American.

Setting the passport aside, I dug out his wallet and flipped it open. Its leather was soft and worn from use. His paramedic license and NREMT card were front and center, both official and neatly laminated, along with his Global Food Outreach Volunteer ID. It was all there, staring me in the face, proof that everything he’d told me in that house was true. I scanned his driver’s license—full name, address, date of birth…

October 7.

My breath hitched.

That was my mother’s birthday.

I sat there, staring at the numbers. It was such a strange coincidence. A sign? I didn’t believe in signs. Signs were for people who believed in fate and fairy tales. But still…

I pushed past the thought and continued searching his wallet.

It held nothing sentimental—no photos, no notes, nothing personal beyond the essentials. Odd for an American. They had a habit of being nostalgic.

Flipping through the rest of his things, I found insurance cards, a mix of cash in dollars and hryvnia, and a couple of receipts. Nothing unexpected, just the mundane stuff of a man who had lived a life in a country that was mostly safe and not always on the edge of a war. This was the kind of man who carried all his identification and personal effects in one place because he’d never had to worry about getting pickpocketed or mugged. For someone like me, raised to trust no one, to guard everything, it was almost laughable. But with him, it wasn’t naivete—it was a quiet faith in humanity.

I picked up his phone next. The screen came to life immediately—shit. It was still on. Stupid. I should have checked this on the drive over here. Carrying around a live phone in hostile territory was practically begging to be tracked. I squeezed the buttons on either side, and before swiping to power it down, I made sure his GPS was turned off. Then I tossed it back into the bag.

This guy was so out of his element it hurt. What kind of person carried all their identification and personal effects in a single bag near a war zone? Yet, here he was, alive. He had enough grit to have survived until now. I wasn’t sure if I admired him or felt sorry for him.

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