Page 11 of Protecting Josie
Her mouth had moved with the word, but no sound escaped her throat.
“Okay,” he replied, as if she’d spoken out loud.
Then he stretched out his bound hands toward her. Resting them on the concrete floor, inches from the bars. He closed his eyes, attempting to recover from the torture he’d just endured enough so he’d be ready for whatever his friends were going to do to get them out.
Josie stared at his fingers. A couple looked like they were bent at a funny angle, and his fingernails were just as dirty as hers now. It was that, more than anything, that gave her the courage to reach between the bars once more. She placed her hand over one of his. His skin was warm, while hers felt cold. His fingers twitched but he didn’t grab at her. Didn’t move much at all. Except for his lips. They turned up in a small smile as he lay on the floor of his prison cell.
Now that she’d worked up the courage to touch him, Josie didn’t want to let go. She lowered herself to the floor and kept her hand where it was. Covering his, trying to let him know without words how much his being there meant to her.
CHAPTER FIVE
Blink hurt. Everywhere. But it was the feeling of drowning that had him unable to sleep. Waterboarding sucked. There was no getting around it. Intellectually he knew he wasn’t drowning, but the soaking-wet towel on his face was enough to give him the feeling of not being able to breathe, of being underwater. He’d had extensive training in the torture technique, but that didn’t mean it still didn’t suck.
Now, he was lying in an extremely uncomfortable position, but it was the small, cold fingers wrapped around his hand that kept him as still as possible on the floor. He wouldn’t move unless he had to. Touching him was ahugestep for this woman, and they both knew it.
And it was all the proof he needed that he’d made the right decision yesterday.
Flash and the rest of the team probably could’ve come up with a new plan on the fly, but the odds of succeeding would’ve been drastically reduced. It was better that theyregrouped and came back ready for two POWs instead of one. He’d go through ten more waterboarding sessions if it meant they both escaped.
The thought of her experiencing two seconds of what he’d been trained to withstand made Blink want to fucking kill the asshole who’d threatened her with his bare hands. He’d do whatever was necessary to keep her safe.
Suddenly, she jerked her hand off his, hitting it on the bars hard enough that Blink winced. She stared at him with wide eyes, reaching up to her ear.
“Ah, they’re here?” he asked.
She nodded, a much more aggressive nod than he’d gotten from her ever before. Instead of opening his hand for the receiver, Blink moved closer to the bars and tilted his head in her direction. “Can you put it in my ear? That asshole fucked my arm up with one of his kicks.”
It wasn’t exactly a lie. Somethingwaswrong with his arm, but Blink wanted to feel her touch again, strengthen that small bit of trust she’d shown him.
She hesitated, then she reached toward him.
Her fingers brushed against his earlobe, and goose bumps broke out on the back of Blink’s neck. She didn’t hesitate, didn’t dally, just gently placed the earbud inside his ear then backed up.
“…in ten. You copy, Blink?”
“Sorry, no. Repeat,” he told Preacher.
“Plan is to quietly and carefully take out a few of the cinder blocks in your current abode. We’ll take you out that way, put them back, so it’ll look like you disappeared into thin air. Gonna get to you in ten.”
“And my friend?” he asked.
“We’ll get to her the same way, at the same time,” Preacher said.
“You’ll only need to remove half the bricks to get to her,” Blink said.
“Know that. We all saw her. We’ve got burkas for the two of you. It’s not ideal, I realize, but neither of you can walk around in what you’ve got on without drawing the wrong kind of attention. Things are still extremely hot out here. No one’s happy about what went down.”
Blink thought that was an understatement. He and the SEAL team he’d been with had taken out two very high-ranking men in the area. Men who were longtime terrorist leaders. But he couldn’t think about that right now. “Shoes?”
“Sandals. Had to guess at her size.”
Blink nodded. He felt the woman’s gaze on him and looked up. “We’ll be ready,” he told Preacher.
“Roger. Out.”
Blink took a breath, then quickly said, “It’s time. My team is going to take out some cinder blocks in our cells. We’ll go out that way. They have burkas for us to put on. Then we’ll simply walk away.”
He saw her swallow, then nod. This woman had more courage in her little finger than many men he’d worked with in his SEAL career.
