TWENTY-SIX

THE BACKYARD HELD green grass and four flower gardens. Yet in dire contrast to this lush beauty stood two warriors. Each held a bow and arrow, notched, aimed, and drawn. Both let fly. The first, belonging to the girl, struck the target dead center. The second flew off to the side, ricocheting off a stone and striking the wooden fence that enclosed the yard. “Nice shot, Siggy.”

“Kiss my ass, Jules,” the young man countered.

At sixteen Jack Sigler spent more time on a skateboard than anything else. School had long since become unimportant, and family . . . well, they were family. But when his sister asked if he’d like to shoot some arrows in the backyard, he couldn’t pass it up, even if it meant spending time with his dork of a sister.

A bookworm to the core, Julie had a secret side she let out only when their parents were away. Bows and arrows, throwing knives, library books on the military. He figured she was working on some kind of paper, but she’d been doing it for a while. Not that he cared enough to figure out what she was up to. He just wanted to shoot some arrows. He knew their parents would put the kibosh on the activity if they ever found out, so he kept his mouth shut. In fact, he guessed the invitation to shoot with Julie was more of a bribe than an attempt at brother-sister bonding.

“Just keep your left arm straight and look down the shaft.”

Jack took aim again and let the arrow fly. This time Julie just watched. The arrow skimmed off the top of the target and buried into the fence.

“Hold your breath before you shoot again.”

“You got it, Master Yoda.”

“I don’t care if you’re a crappy shot,” Julie said with a smile. “I just don’t want Dad to find the fence chewed to shreds.”

Jack took aim again. He found the target with his eyes and be-grudgingly held his breath. Adjusting slightly, he felt a sense of peace for a moment. Just a moment. And in that fraction of time, he enjoyed being with his sister. He let go of the wire and felt it slap against his bare arm. “Son of a bitch!”

Jack dropped the bow and held his arm. He expected to see a deep gash when he lifted his hand away but found only a wide red mark where the wire had hit his skin and slid across his arm. Insignificant compared to many of his skateboarding injuries, the red welt embarrassed him more than it stung. He stormed toward the house.

“Jack,” Julie called, her voice full of humor.

“Leave me alone,” he shouted back.

“But look!”

It wasn’t the reply he expected. He looked over his shoulder and paused. His arrow sat in the center of the target, next to his sister’s.

“You see,” Julie said. “Big sisters are good for something.”

The faintest of smiles crept onto Jack’s hardened face. “Yeah, guess so.”

He rejoined her on the improvised archery range, and for the rest of the week while his parents were on vacation, he and Julie forged a temporary truce. By the end of the week his aim was keen. Things went back to normal with the return of their parents, but it had been one of the first times in his life he appreciated his sister. He remembered her with fondness.

She gave him strength.

He needed it now.

The memory faded, replaced by seizing pain. Trained to reduce the agony of torture by escaping from the body and entering the often parodied “happy place,” King turned to his sister for help.

It didn’t work.

King’s involuntary scream ripped through the tent’s thin green fabric and met a wall of trees and foliage that muffled the noise and sent the sound waves back to the earth where they were absorbed and silenced. No one outside of the small VPLA camp would hear his anguish. Bound tight, hands over head, to a tall stake stretching toward the tent’s ceiling, King could do nothing to ease the pain. Not much could.

Eight hundred thousand volts of electricity coursing into a human body tended to have that effect. That the general was placing the stun gun against King’s temple increased the agony tenfold. A three- to five-second charge could bring a man to his knees, causing loss of muscle control and disorientation. King had received eight separate jolts in the past three minutes . . . to the side of his head, his chest, and the back of his neck. All from a handheld, battery-operated stun gun any jerk could pick up on eBay for minimal cash. Cheap, affordable torture.

With deep breaths, King fought to regain control of his spasming muscles. Hot sweat poured down his shirtless chest and back. They’d stripped him from the waist up and confiscated his outbreak meter before binding him to the stake. The carved muscles beneath his skin bounced to an unheard rhythm, slowing after a few seconds. The port-wine stain reaching up his back glistened deep purple. After his muscles stopped twitching madly, the tight pain subsided. But it would be ten minutes before full control returned. And Trung would be back before then. He fell forward. With his hands bound above his head, his weight pulled his arms back at a painful angle. Having no strength left he could do nothing to right himself.

King had been trained in withstanding torture. To keep his mouth shut under duress. To die if need be. And he knew he would. The problem with his training was that it didn’t cover this scenario, because he wasn’t being asked any questions. Trung was like a kid with a magnifying glass over a hill of ants. The smile on his face confirmed it. He was enjoying himself.

“You got a hard-on yet?” Queen noticed, too. She was strapped to a stake next to King’s, also shirtless, her breasts exposed, her six-pack abs even more impressive than King’s. Like King, her outbreak meter had been taken, no doubt being inspected in another tent. Her chin and clavicle were stained red from blood. But it was not her own. The man who’d removed her clothing attempted to fondle her breasts. She nearly took his nose clean off with her teeth.

Trung had the undisciplined man shot for his actions. Their torture began shortly after.

Not a word had been spoken since.

Other than King’s screams the only sound in the tent was Sara’s weeping. She’d been tied to a chair. Her clothes remained on. Her body untouched. As King used what little energy that remained to look up and meet Sara’s trembling eyes, he realized the torture was not meant to loosen his or Queen’s tongues. Intimidation was the goal, and it was directed at Sara.

After finishing with King and Queen they would turn their attention to her. She would tell them anything they needed to save herself . . . and if not that, then to spare King and Queen any more pain. King’s cheeks twitched.

It would work.

Trung walked around Queen with the stun gun, flicking it off and on. A blue arc of electricity pulsed across two metal prongs, buzzing like a giant angry wasp.

Hardly intimidated, Queen flashed him a smile, her lips still encrusted with the dried blood of Trung’s dead man. She’d been shocked, the same as King, but had not screamed. With nothing more than a grunt, she’d endured the electric torture. He’d shocked her head, her breasts, her armpits and stomach. But she didn’t give in.

All her life, her expression of pain had always been delayed . . . and violent, like her father’s. If she stubbed a toe, she remained silent until the pain dissipated. Then she put her fist through the wall. If that hurt, she did it again, and again, until she couldn’t feel the pain anymore. She stored pain like a battery and only unleashed it when ready. Trung’s stun gun had filled her battery long ago. She just needed an outlet to free the charge.

The glare in Trung’s eyes said he wouldn’t give up. He clicked the stun gun off and dropped it onto a table that had been tied together from tree branches. He turned to the guard at the door and spoke briefly. The man nodded and exited quickly.

Trung paced, a grin ever-present on his face.

Things were going to go from bad to worse.

Sara’s shaky voice broke the silence of the waiting torturer and the tortured. “S-sir. If you need my help. I’ll do whatever you need. You don’t need to—”

“You would have done whatever I needed you to long ago,” Trung said without breaking stride. “But I am not finished here.” He glanced at Queen.

She met his eyes, fearless.

Trung grinned. “You are too eager for pain. It is not fitting for a woman of your . . .” He looked her up and down. “. . . form. Of course, beauty fades. Or can be remade. Perhaps you will lose your fight after you’ve lost your allure?”

The guard returned holding a long metal rod and a torch. The tip of the rod was hidden inside the flame. Trung undid his shirt and opened it up over his chest, revealing a brand in the shape of a star. A skull grinned evilly at its core. The symbol of the VPLA Death Volunteers.

“We all have them,” Trung said. “Only yours will be much more visible.”

Trung reached out and took the brand from the guard. King lifted his head. Sara gasped. Queen’s eyes twitched with rage. But she didn’t shrink back.

The glowing yellow star-and-skull brand rose up in front of Trung’s face. He inched forward holding it out straight. “Try not to move,” he said. “We want it to look nice.”

Outside the tent, men flinched at the sound of a bestial growl that emerged from the tent. It rose in volume and then turned into a roar, louder than any they’d heard before and more horrible than the ones they’d been hearing in the nighttime jungle. Like the ocean being forced through a three-inch hole, a volume of rage had been unleashed through Queen’s open mouth. The thick canopy, endless trees, and distance of miles could not hold it back.

Every living thing in the area heard the primal cry.

But Queen did not move. Her eyes remained fixed on Trung’s while the brand singed her skin, scorching a symbol that would never fade. When Trung removed the brand and stepped back, fear filled his eyes. He’d never met such a warrior. Like a tiger, she was to be respected . . . and feared. And now she bore the Death Volunteer symbol where everyone would see it. She could have been a goddess. He bowed to her, then exited, giving his men orders to shoot her when morning arrived.