Asher (In the Company of Snipers #27)

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

More noise. Louder. Nearer. What now? How much pain could she endure? Marlowe screamed, even as fear of what lay ahead slammed her lungs shut, suffocating her. Was the cave collapsing? Was that what the loud cracks and booms were? God, she wished. Was the support timber overhead cracking? Because of her? Was she too heavy for that spindly branch? Please, yes. Let it be me who brings this evil hole in the wall down. I’m ready to die. The sooner, the better.

Freezing wind whistled through the narrow crack she’d been dragged through days, maybe weeks ago, adding a sharp sting to her out-of-control hysteria. “Just kill me now,” she hissed, fighting for air. She’d done what she could. She’d done her best. Whatever happened next, she welcomed it. If this was the end… “Let me die, you fucking creeps!”

More shrieking screams. Louder blasts. Wicked echoes vibrated through the air and around her, battering her already bruised body. Were those explosions? Gunfire? Sharper. Closer. It was hard to tell the difference when your skull might be cracked and even the smallest noises echoed. Rough hands grabbed her poor bloody head, twisting her entire body around on those inhumane straps she’d been hung on.

“Shit, it’s a woman,” the bobble-headed giant with his hands on her yelled. “She’s barely alive. Beau!”

So loud. Marlowe winced at the volume bellowing out of his big mouth. “American?” she asked weakly, daring to hope. Or was this a different type of torture? A ruse? A nasty trick? Mental torture to make her believe she was saved when she wasn’t?

Marlowe reverted to survival. “Don’t touch me!” She meant to scream but ended up whimpering. Her vocal cords were exhausted. She had no fight left. This tricky bastard’s three friends had already beaten the shit out of her.

Don’t you dare trust him, her instincts screamed. He’s just another asshole, a friend of the jerks who cornered you in the village. Shoved a rag in your mouth. Put a bag over your head. Knocked you out. Stole your beanie. You can’t trust anybody!

How well she knew.

A laser-bright light stabbed her remaining eye. Ouch. She’d lost sight in the other, hours, maybe days ago.

All at once, this new monster trapped her in the circle of his massive arms and pulled her head down to his chest. She wanted to scream. She would’ve punched him, but there was no way to get away from the LED beam shooting out of his forehead. She couldn’t see where to strike. No way to lift a hand to protect herself even if she could. It was impossible to make out this bastard’s evil silhouette beyond the intense glare. But she saw enough to know this new guy wasn’t like the others. He was worse. Bigger. Wider. The others had been brutal. She had no idea where they went, but they’d be back soon. Then what? A threesome?

“No more,” she whined, twisting to get away from this new threat.

He didn’t answer, just wrapped his other ginormous arm around her waist and lifted a gloved hand over her head.

Unholy fear bleated out of her. “Don’t hurt me. Please. No more. Let me go!”

Instead of releasing her, he sliced the leather straps binding her, and Marlowe had no choice but to sag like a helpless child against his chest. Not good. Not good at all.

“What do you assholes want from me?” she whimpered. “I wasn’t hurting anyone. I have w-w-work to d-do.”

There were no more explosions. Why not? Why couldn’t he just lay her down and let her die? She should already be dead. Would’ve been if he hadn’t joined the party. What more could he do to her that his friends hadn’t?

The big guy growled, then made his first mistake. Yes, she was weak, but she wasn’t dead. The instant he settled her bloody, bare feet to the ground, Marlowe summoned what meager strength she had left, brought her knee up as hard and fast as she could, and nailed this son of a bitch where she could do the most damage. Who needed hands when they had two sharp knees?

He dropped like a rock, holding his family jewels with both hands, his ugly face in the dirt.

“Go to hell!” she bellowed down at him. Still hoarse. Still bloodied and shaking, too damned weak to sound as pissed-off as she felt. But angry. So, so angry. And standing—finally. Striking back and dizzy, yes. On her way to the dirt next to him, sure. But kicking someone else’s ass felt good for a change.

“Motherfucker! Don’t ever touch me again!” Would’ve helped if she’d mustered more than a drawn-out squeak when she’d hissed at him. But this bastard was down, and he wasn’t moving. “There,” she whined, shaking hard, but not from fear. Not anymore. She was in control now. “How do you like it, huh?”

The one-eyed monster on his knees tilted his head up at her, and—

Oh, shit. He was wearing a black helmet with the visor down. That was where the light came from. Just over that visor. Not the middle of his flesh-and-bone forehead. Yikes. He couldn’t be Taliban. Must be a soldier. And she’d kicked him. Hard. But not hard enough. He was still alive.

Her will to fight ebbed as quickly as it surged. Marlowe swallowed hard. He’d brought a friend. She saw him now, the big, burly man in the shadows. He wore the same kind of helmet, his with the visor up, showing his ugly whiskered face. The cave was dark, but the weak light coming through the crack in the stone wall behind him was enough. He was coming for her.

“Bring it on,” she hissed, lifting her bloodied hands as high as her worthless arms allowed, ready to fight to the end. Ready to die.

Slowly, the guy she’d kneed removed the helmet that made him look like a giant fly with a glowing spotlight for a brain. He was definitely white unless he was just extra-pale because she’d nailed his cojones. And bearded, like all big, tough bullies in this part of the world.

“Ma’am,” he croaked, lifting slowly to one knee, and then rising to his feet. Peeling those despicable, black gloves off, he let them fall, then extended both palms forward. White palms. Clean white palms. Like a peace gesture? Ha! He expected her to go quietly to her death? Guess again.

“We’re Americans, ma’am, both former military and by the sounds of it, you’re American, too. We’d like to take you home. I’ve got water in my CamelBak if you need a drink.”

Of course, she needed a drink. She’d been in hell for—

Marlowe had no idea how long she’d been hanging here. But he thought she was dumb enough to fall for that lie? There were no American soldiers in Afghanistan. Not anymore. Everyone knew it. They’d all gone home. And like the cowards they were, they’d left Afghan nationals and their families, the brave men and women who’d sacrificed everything for them and their war, behind.

“Liar!” Man, how she wished she sounded as lethal as she felt. She’d show these two jerks what burning hatred felt like.

“We don’t have time for this,” his burly friend growled. “Knock her out and be done with it, Ash. We gotta go.”

“Then go! Get out of here!” She tried so hard to scream. “Run like the chicken shits you soldiers all are. You left, damn you. You betrayed your friends, and you ran.”

Instead of striking back, the bastard she’d kicked extended a hand to her. “I’m Asher Downey, ma’am. This here’s Beau Villanueva. It’d sure be nice to know your name.”

Man, he was stupid. Didn’t he get it? She wasn’t going anywhere, not with him or his evil twin.

“Why?” she spat. Cursing took energy Marlowe no longer had. Simply talking was excruciatingly difficult. Screaming was a whole other pain. Just whispering felt like she’d swallowed glass. The last of her energy was fading, along with it the adrenaline that fueled her panic. Dizziness swarmed every last one of her good intentions to fight until she died.

“Because you need our help, honey, and we’re not leaving without you.”

Honey? Had he just called her honey?

That Beau guy growled.

Marlowe wished she could. What difference would it make if she gave them her name? That Downey guy couldn’t keep calling her honey, could he? Not that she liked him calling her that. She didn’t. Didn’t like it at all. Not. One. Stinking. Bit.

“Fine. Marlowe Rich,” she replied, but just for the hell of moving things along. Not because of anything else. “Now get the fuck out of here and let me die in peace.”

Before she could knee him again, the monster Asher Downey was on her. Just like before, he was too fast, and she was too weak. There wasn’t time to whisper, “No,” before he had her trapped like a mummy inside a big, warm blanket. Carefully, he lifted her across his shoulders in a fireman’s hold and said, “Sorry, Marlowe Rich, but we don’t leave anyone behind.”

“Liar,” she mumbled, shocked at the gentle touch of the heavy hand on the backs of her thighs, his other hand just as heavy, pressing her cheek to his shoulder. Arching her poor battered spine for all she was worth, and despite the pain in her skull, Marlowe twisted and bucked, not going down easy. Not giving up. But the blanket didn’t allow movement. There was no way to fight back. He’d wrapped her too tightly. She couldn’t nail him again. Frustration mounted until Marlowe realized that maybe…

Just maybe…

This Asher Downey guy was telling the truth. Maybe he and his friend were taking her away from this cave of hell and the brutal jerks who’d acted more like deranged pigs than humans. Brutal, ugly, smelly pigs.

“Assholes,” she whimpered into the guy’s jacket or shirt or—whatever. Blood poured from her nose again, leaking all over this—this man. This gentle man.

Willing her panic to cease long enough to think, Marlowe let go of her rage and reconsidered what was happening now. Right now. Not what she’d lived through, but what was going on here, in this narrow window of time. She was out of the cave and her new captor was running uphill, into the cold winter wind pouring over the mountain top, with her. Rage and panic hadn’t gotten her anywhere. Yes, this guy scared the crap out of her. Most men did. But he hadn’t slapped or punched her, not even when his buddy urged him to knock her out. Not even after she’d kicked him. And he hadn’t left her behind. Her, an ugly, worthless sinner. A nothing.

Marlowe took a deep, cleansing breath and reconsidered. Yes, she wasn’t worth saving, but the rugged male body sweating like a beast beneath her was saving her anyway. Asher Downey was now in full warrior mode, running all out. His heart pounded like a beast beneath her battered head. A fucking beast.

Her tension ebbed. Whoever this guy truly really was, he had strength and endurance she didn’t. He was literally doing all the work, and he was doing it for her. With every giant step uphill, his powerful shoulders bunched beneath her. His gentle grip never slipped, and he was warm. Nice and warm. Warmer than she had been for hours, maybe days. The blanket helped, sure, but the heat radiating up from his overworked body was another kind of heat altogether. It was excess heat thrown off by an intense, powerful male who refused to take no for an answer. Whose heart sounded like it might burst, he was running so hard. Who called her ‘honey’.

Could he be her savior? Had he been sent for her? That foolish thought felt too good to be true. But whoever Asher Downey really was, he was running hard, and he was doing it for her.

Salty, stinging tears dripped from her good eye, matting her eyelashes, making it hard to see, so Marlowe closed it. Her other eye was swollen shut, and the fluid leaking from it was probably blood. The assholes in that cave had been brutal. Two of them used their fists and the flats of their hands to slap and punch her face, and pretty much everywhere else on her upper body. Anything to hear her cry. The other male, a bigger, darker, older, bearded creep had focused on the small of her back and her butt. He’d used a belt, a wicked three-inch wide piece of thick leather lined with metal grommets down its center, and a brass buckle on one end. He got off on her screams, and he knew where to hit to get the most satisfaction. He was the one who’d bellowed ‘Infidel! Whore! American slut!’ over and over again.

Marlowe was sure the warm trickle down the inside of her thigh was more blood, probably from severe kidney damage because of that belt. It was hard to know anything for certain. Every inch of her body hurt, stung, or ached with each harried step her savior ran. Her lower back hurt the worst, even more than the ringing in her skull.

Damn it, she wasn’t wearing her beanie. Like looking decent, not gorgeous or beautiful—just decent—mattered? Not anymore. For the first time since this nightmare began, Marlowe worried about brain damage and dying. Yes, she’d prayed for death in that cave, but now? Out here in the wild Afghanistan weather? On the shoulders of the courageous man who was saving her despite her attacking him?

A quiet truth dawned inside her poor cracked skull. The men who’d kidnapped her from that village were dead. She hadn’t seen their bodies. Hadn’t needed to see them to realize now what those loud booms in the cave were. The guy and his friend had killed them to save her.

Okay then. Sucking in a deep breath, she let most of her angst go. She, Marlowe Rich, was still alive and breathing and, by hell, she would live to fight another day. But the men who’d kidnapped and beaten her, who would’ve tortured her to death—weren’t. The man gently cupping the back of her head, so it didn’t bump his shoulder any harder than it was, had killed them to rescue her.

Marlowe sent a silent, heartfelt prayer to the heavens above. Was it wrong to thank God that those creeps were dead? That this man killed for her? She didn’t care. God would understand.

But, she’d kicked this brave male in the balls. Ow. For the first time in days, maybe weeks, Marlowe chose to trust him. Just him. Not his buddy. No one else.

She let her body go limp. There was no way to know where he was taking her, but she chose to believe what he’d said. He was American. He was former military. He had come to take her home. But mostly, because of a stranger, Marlowe Rich was going to live.