Page 66 of Caged

I couldn’t begin to imagine how horrific that must have been. At least we weren’t chained up and had room to walk if we wanted to.

“Though we didn’t eat much. We didn’t dare to. On the plus, side it meant we didn’t shit much either.” He ran both hands through his hair. “The fucking lights and noise made it impossible to sleep.”

Five days, chained to a wall, with little to no food or water, subjected to psychological torture and random beatings. A cold chill swept over my body that had nothing to do with the temperature of the hard floor I sat on.

I squinted at Jaden, trying to read his expression. His voice sounded flat, but there was no way the experience hadn’t left a lasting impact.

He lifted his head off the wall and said, “We needed two months to recover enough for them to let us operate again, but we both made it back.”

Chapter 26

Jay

Ididn’t like talking about it. Didn’t like thinking about it. Henderson, that girlfriend stealing jerkoff, and I spent a week with metal shackles around our wrists, and after trying to kick anyone who came too close, our ankles.

I shivered, the cold in the basement reminding me of the cold in the ‘resort’ as we’d come to call it. We’d been on patrol when the enemy ambushed us, separating us from the rest of the team. We fought for as long as we could, but in the end they surrounded us. We were so focused on the firefight in front of us, we didn’t hear them sneak up behind us.

But the muzzle of a gun, as it pressed into the back of my neck, got my attention.

My hand twitched in the dark basement at the memory of taking my finger off the trigger before turning to see if Henderson was still with me. He was, and he had company too.

Our only option was to surrender and hope our team found us before it was too late.

“Jaden?” Maxwell’s voice pulled me back to the present.

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Want to talk about it?”

I didn’t. Talking about it would prolong the memory, and I didn’t want to scare Maxwell with tales of thirst, and hunger so intense it made eating rats sound tempting, or the daily beatings, which included old school battery shock torture.

It might be old school, but it’s effective at wearing a person down.

We endured it all without giving up a single piece of information beyond our names, ranks, and serial numbers.

“What level SERE training did you have?” I deflected the question to a relevant one of my own. Maxwell would need everything she learned in the Marine’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape training if she wanted to get through this with her mind in tact. As an officer, she may have had level B if she was stationed near the front lines.

I’d been through it twice. Level A, which all Marine’s are required to take, and Level C, which all Raiders are required to take.

The first was a cakewalk. The second kicked my ass.

That training is the reason I’m still alive and of sound mind.

“Level A.”

I was afraid she’d say that.

The strobe cut out, leaving us in the pitch black. The only speck of light was from the bottom of the door at the top of the stairs.

“The alarm will probably come on again,” I warned.

“Thank-” the alarm cut her off. We did our best to block the noise by stuffing our fingers in our ears.

I recited the Marine Raider creed to keep my mind occupied.

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