as they went, leaving her to die in continuous, seemingly endless, agony.
It was the most effective gag she could have imagined—if she had ever bothered to imagine such things. But, astonishingly, it also gave her hope. It might mean that there were rescuers nearby her captors didn’t want to hear her.
Even as she thought that, they both heard a sound. They both looked over to see one of Awar’s shrouded men in the cavern opening. His obscured face was another thing that gave Nichols hope. The fact that they did not want the underling recognized announced the chance she might be asked to describe him some day.
The man said something in Arabic, which Awar reacted to with barely concealed concern. He thought for a moment, looking away from his prisoner, then nodded slightly before standing. He looked down at Nichols with an expression that mixed certainty and mercilessness.
“When I return, you will tell me what I want to know. I leave you to consider the means we will use.”
Then he grabbed her uniform and left, along with his underling, leaving her alone in the small cavern. If Awar expected her to sob, quake, or despair, he had captured the wrong soldier. As her family had constantly told her, she could have been anything: a ballerina, a gymnast, a nurse, a cheerleader. She chose to be a marine, and had worked damn hard to attain it, dealing with obstacles at every turn. Obstacles like Morty Daniels, who made leeringly clear that she had no business serving in combat units. She still wasn’t sure what she liked least, Sergeant Daniels continually ignoring her, or his bromance buddy, Corporal Key, continually looking out for her.
At least Key was yet another hope to cling to. He had come looking for her. That meant he wasn’t dead or captured, like so many others. If he had come looking, he’d still be looking, and others would to.
Nichols forced her eyes to stay dry. She forced her mouth to stay open. But she couldn’t avoid her hands turning into tight fists as the memory of what had happened threatened to engulf her again.
The emergency orders had been clear: clean a village. That meant make sure that the first and second battalions would not be surprised by the sudden appearance of insurgents who might be occupying the town. No problem; they had trained for this. Marine transport had brought them close, then the drone crew took over. The images that came back were both reassuring and disturbing.
The town was already “clean,” in that not a creature was stirring. In fact, the village of Shabhut looked like it had hit by tanks running side-by-side. It was not only seemingly uninhabited, it was flattened. The lieutenant had ordered them in anyway to make certain, and her unit responded with their usual skill and proficiency—until an ambush was sprung on them midway through town.
It was the worst firefight she had ever experienced. Suddenly her comrades had started twitching as if being shot by needles, and, once they hit the ground, started writhing as if the dirt was electrified. She had taken a step, crouching to aid them, then the blasts started.
They were blinding, deafening, and seemingly everywhere. She had staggered away, bringing her M4 Carbine to bear, but there was nothing to shoot. Every target was already contorting, even bursting, before her eyes—her vision already being obscured by a chaotic assault of smoke, dust, and blood.
She spun to find cover, then something hard and heavy hit the back of her skull. When she awoke she was in a cage in this network of caves. Some cowled underlings had taken her to this small cavern, stripped her, then gagged and bound her to the chair. Then Awar had appeared and the “interrogation” had begun.
The memories were just a flash in her brain as she looked in every direction. When she found herself a prisoner, she immediately acted as dumb and numb, while tightening her muscles as subtly, as possible. She wanted them to think she was just a little, terrified, girl. She didn’t want them to know what she was capable of.
Sure enough, the underlings judged her book by its cover. As she relaxed her wrist muscles, she felt a little give in the cords. When they wrenched her ankles and arms up, she let her tightened muscles give the impression that this was as high as they could go. Nichols inwardly scoffed.
Yeah, she could have been a gymnast, remember?
When she saw there was another exit opposite where Awar had gone, she worked quickly and efficiently. Her fingers and palm curled into the shape of an empanada at the same second her arms rose up her back into a yoga reverse prayer position. Her arms were free of the choking sling within moments. Despite their numbness, they fell silently upon her ankles on either side of the seat, already scratching at the knots. Her bare feet hit the dirt seconds after that.
Only then did her fingers find the edges of the duct tape on her chest and face. Her Marine training co-eds use to have contests to see how long they could keep uncooked eggs, among other things, intact in their mouths. Political correctness and equality be damned, being female was far from a detriment if you knew how to work it. She was standing, holding the sodden light bulb by its screw-base in front of her, within a minute.
Nichols was not embarrassed or ashamed by her nudity, so she moved silently away from Awar’s exit and hazarded a quick look out. The cavern continued down a winding tunnel, illuminated by strung bulbs—much like the one they had put in her mouth—hanging on nails hammered into the rock walls. Incredibly, from this exit to a turn in the cavern, it was empty, with no sounds giving hint of a meeting or eating area beyond.
What, didn’t they have LED lights in this godforsaken sandpit? At least if they tried to catch her again, she could do with them, to them, what they wanted to do to her mouth and intestines. If it came to that, she had to admit it would feel great to tear open their flesh that way.
But, as Key had repeatedly told her, first things first. Nichols moved into the low, narrow, rock hallway, intent on being ready for anything. Anything, except for what happened.
Once she had reached the curve in the stone hall, she heard a grinding sound behind her. She whirled to see the opening she had left from being filled by a huge, circular slab—which she had seen, but thought was part of the cavern wall. Apparently, as soon as she left, Awar’s people had snuck in and quietly pushed it into position so she was cut off.
What the fuck? Do they want to…
Nichols stopped her recoiling brain. Trying to decide whether they were going to gas, drown, starve, or simply imprison her somewhere else was a waste of time. The lights were still on, and she had yet to turn the corner of the cavern. There was only one thing for sure; they didn’t want her to go back, and she was damned if she was going to just stand there.
Nichols started to step forward when a glint in the corner of the cave top caught her eye.
Yeah. They might not have LED lights strung along here, but they definitely had recessed camera lenses stuck deep into the rock.
The whole thing was some sort of insane set-up. But no matter how she racked her prodigious brain, she couldn’t figure out why. If they wanted her to go down this hall, why not just throw, or drag, her? And why the hell did they strip her?
Nichols looked at the dim glow at the curve of the cave, feeling something she hadn’t felt since joining the Marines, even since waking up in this cave.
Dread.
Even so, she looked up at the camera lens with defiance. “Okay, sicko,” she said. “You want a show? You’ll get a show.”
In the cavern that served as his control room, Usa Awar smiled back at Nichol’s determined face on the monitor
