Page 80 of Lethal Torture

I lurch up, unsure what to do. Luke glares at me, his eyes so fierce that I crouch back down again.

Then he spins out from behind the container, so fast I barely make sense of his movements.

He takes the first man with a knife across the throat, then uses the man’s gun to shoot the next one. The next three go down in a mass of movement I can’t quite make out. By the time Luke is running silently back to me, they’re nothing but bodies on the ground. He bends down, checking Niamh again, then crosses the yard to the container.

“Ana and Maria, go. Get the vans started.” He takes up position behind the open door of the container, from which the bewildered girls are emerging, sobbing with fear. “That way,” he orders Sally in a low voice, nodding at a dark part of the yard that leads back to the fence. “I’ve got people at the van to cover you if you hit any trouble. Hurry.”

As the girls start stumbling across the ground, two more men come at Luke, firing, and the girls scream. Luke runs at them, then spins and somehow hits both of them hard enough to send them flying as if they were rag dolls. He takes both of their guns. “Hurry!” he calls in a low voice to Sally as the sirens get closer.

The last girl is barely out of the container when he runs back over to me.

By that time, it’s too late for us to follow them. The flashing lights are already visible, the sirens so close they’re screaming.

“Go,” Niamh says feebly from the ground. “They can’t find you here, Zin, or we’re all finished.”

Luke pulls me upright. “Do exactly as I say.” Taking my hand, he leads me into the dark labyrinth of containers.

We run silently through the rows, heading away from the fence where the vans are.

I don’t question him.

Whoever this Luke is, I clearly have no idea what he’s capable of.

Nor am I too sure he wouldn’t just knock me out cold and throw me over his shoulder if I started to question him.

We run until we’re at the final row at the edge of the storage yard. These are old, rusted containers, piled three high, and have clearly been here for some time. Luke stops and looks around, then crouches down in front of me. “On my shoulders.”

I stare at his back, frowning.

He glares at me over his shoulder. “Fucking do it, Zin.”

He puts his hands over his head, and I take them to brace myself as I climb onto his shoulders.

“There’s a pull-down ladder on the outside of the second container,” he says. “Use it to climb up to the third one. The door will be open.” The grim expression on his face doesn’t invite discussion any more than his rough tone, so I just do as he says. I hear him climb the ladder behind me then pull it up.A moment later, he hauls himself into the container, closing the door behind him.

“Strip,” he growls.

“What?” My heart is thudding. I can hear the shouts and sirens of the police and ambulance nearby. The container is completely dark except for three small round holes about an inch wide that have clearly been drilled into it recently, but given that it’s dark outside, they don’t provide much light. I can take a good guess at who made the holes. Going by the duffel bag on the floor, which Luke is rummaging around in, and the plastic water bottles nearby, he was in here for a while tonight before I arrived.

“You heard me.” Luke pulls off his camo gear and opens a bottle of water, which he uses to wash the blood off his face and body. “Strip. Then wash the blood off your face. There’s a change of clothes in the bag.” He throws the bottle of water to me. Given the barely controlled fury in his face, I judge it wiser not to argue.

I pull off my clothes, then splash water over my head and shoulders. I’m shaking so much I drop the water bottle. It hits the floor with a dull thunk that echoes with horrible clarity.

“Over there!” someone yells, and the sound of running footsteps start coming toward us.

Luke’s hand on my shoulder makes me freeze. I look up. In the dim light, he puts a finger over his lips. The footsteps are coming closer.

Clad in nothing but tight black boxers, Luke presses his face to the small holes in the wall, then slowly rolls away from it. Pulling me close to him, he puts his mouth against my ear.

“Port Authority,” he breathes. “Don’t move unless I tell you to, and for Chrissakes, don’t speak.” He turns around to face the entrance and slips me behind him, against the wall, then picks up his knife from the floor.

I stand completely still as the voices come closer. Luke is in front of me, his huge body completely dwarfing mine, knife balanced lightly in his hand. I can sense, rather than see, the tension in his body, the hard edge of danger he’s poised upon.

“It was that crazy Melikov bitch again.” One of the voices drifts up to us. “She took all the girls in that second container. Although that might not be a bad thing, now that the cops are here.”

“What about that agent?” another man says. “We need to send someone to the hospital to take care of her, before she talks.”

Niamh?I tense.Fuck.