Page 23 of The Outpost (Jamison Valley 4)
Anton was standing at my side, an arm thrown around my shoulders. The smile on my face would look genuine to all those that didn’t know me well. Anton’s handsome face was split
wide, laughing at the photographer, his brother Ivan.
The photo was unsettling but it was the caption that sent ice prickling down my spine.
Please help me find my beautiful girlfriend, Sabrina. We’re desperate to bring her back home.
I couldn’t breathe. Pain radiated in hot, sharp pulses from my ribs throughout my entire body. My fingernails clawed at the carpet as I tried to roll into the fetal position but my hips were pinned. Anton loomed above me, his legs straddling my hips and trapping me on the floor.
“You’re fucking dead,” he sneered. “I’ll make you pay for playing me. Did you think I wouldn’t find out that you’re a reporter? That you’ve been digging around my office at night?”
“Anton—” But before I could plead for my life, his fist connected with my already-throbbing cheek. My vision turned white. My mouth hung open but the pain was too much for me to even scream.
“You’re nothing but a whore. I’ll show you how I treat whores.”
“No!” The word screamed in my head but nothing came out of my mouth. Anton’s hand had clamped around my throat again, rendering me mute and panicked for air. Things started to blur, his face, the ceiling above him, the couch at my side. But just before the world faded to black, he let me go. My lungs burned as I gulped for air. My voice started to work again and I let out a raspy plea for help.
He stopped my scream with a sharp backhand to my jaw before standing to unbuckle his belt.
Two strong hands shook me awake. “Sabrina, wake up.”
My eyes snapped open. Beau loomed above me, his eyes full of concern. I pushed up off my cot and swiped sticky hair off my forehead. My heart was pounding and my chest heaved with panicked breaths.
Another nightmare.
I’d been having them all week, ever since the afternoon I’d looked up Anton’s social-media accounts and seen my picture with its phony caption. Any time I tried to sleep, I fell back into the same dream.
“Sorry,” I panted, breathing deeply to slow my racing heart.
“Don’t be sorry. Same nightmare?”
I nodded.
After my third night of waking up shouting and drenched with sweat, Beau had refused to let me brush it off as just a bad dream. He’d sat with me on my cot and demanded I spill.
And spill I had. He’d gotten it all, more than I’d confessed even to Felicity. It wasn’t that I’d purposefully kept pieces from her, but I remembered more now than when I’d first arrived in Montana. The nightmares brought it all back in vivid detail. Every hit. Every slap. Every one of Anton’s words. Beau heard it all.
When I’d told him about Anton’s plan to rape me, he’d gotten so mad that he’d had to go outside in the dark and chop wood until well after sunrise.
“I think I’m going to take a shower.” It was still dark but sleep after my nightmare was impossible.
“Okay.” Beau stood first and helped me to my feet.
I shuffled to the bathroom and cranked up the water to scalding. When it turned cold, I stepped out and tossed on a fresh pair of pajama shorts and a thin camisole. I wouldn’t be going back to bed but at least it was comfortable.
My arms felt heavy as I combed out my hair. Exhaustion had settled into my bones and I was basically a zombie, too scared to drift off, so I’d been forcing myself to stay awake. The instant coffee that should have lasted Beau and I a month was now almost gone.
With my hair hanging damp down my back, I stepped out of the bathroom on tiptoe, hoping that Beau had been able to go back to sleep. My feet froze at what had happened to the living area while I’d been in the shower. My sleeping bag was no longer on my cot but instead spread out full on the floor. Beau’s had been unzipped and then reconnected to mine, making one large bed.
“What’s going on?”
Beau held out a hand. “Come here.”
I took a hesitant step and laid my hand in his. Beau was only wearing a pair of dark gray boxer briefs and a T-shirt, his normal bedtime attire, but his expression said this wasn’t about sex. His eyes were full of worry and there wasn’t a flicker of lust in sight.
He led me to the bed and kneeled down, tugging me to the floor. Then settling on his back, he patted the spot next to him.
“Beau, I’m not going to be able to sleep.”
