Taken: The MISTAKEN Series Complete Third Season (26 page)

“
A
t least tell
me what you want. Tell me why in the hell I’m being held against my will.” I yanked again on my bound hands, rattling the chair.

He only lifted a brow, not saying anything.

We sat there like that, staring at each other, for what seemed like an eternity. I’m sure I could have guessed what he wanted—what information they wanted to get from me. But this was the strangest interrogation that I had ever been a part of. It made no sense—he hadn’t asked me any questions. No demands had been made. It was almost like I wasn’t being interrogated at all. Other than the photos, there had been nothing. Just the pistol whipping and the clicking gun. It was bullshit—if they really knew how to interrogate people, they would have
done
something. At least told me what they wanted to know.

Maybe the guy was just a sadistic prick—someone who loved to torture for no reason. Not that anything he had done so far was actually
torture
. I could imagine a hell of a lot worse things than being teased with a gun at the back of my head. And that was what this was like—a tease. Not torture in the truest sense. Just … something else.

I let out another sigh. It was almost one of boredom—sitting in a room, staring at someone too stupid to know how to get information from me. “So. Are we just going to sit here looking at each other? It’s not like I don’t have other shit to do. I’m sure you do, too. So—“

There was an almost imperceptible nod of his head. It was so slight that I might not have even thought it was real if the door behind him hadn’t opened at that moment. His head turned only slightly at the noise of the door opening, but it was enough to let me see that he had something in his ear. It was tiny, but it was definitely some kind of communication device. Someone was telling him what to do. He wasn’t too stupid to know how to torture me after all. He had just been following orders.

I’m not sure what it was about that knowledge that made my heart race so fast it felt like it might explode in my chest. Other than my hands clenching the bars of the chair behind me so tightly that I was sure my knuckles had turned white, I was completely frozen.

Beads of sweat formed on my forehead when the three men entered the room. One was another suit—similar to the guy sitting in front of me. One of the official men, though I still had no idea who they were or where they were from. It was the other two guys who made my legs stiffen, ready to run if I’d had any opportunity.

Military. The other two—the non-suits—there was something about them that screamed military.

I clenched my jaw again, trying like hell to cover up my quivering chin. They couldn’t just
torture
me. Not without trying to crack me first. They wouldn’t just start with the hardcore
torture
. No one had even asked me to talk. No one had asked me a goddamned thing.

The two military guys lifted my chair with me in it in one fluid, coordinated motion—like it was nothing. Like I didn’t weigh anything at all.

I didn’t want to kick my legs like a little girl, and it wasn’t like I could have even if I had wanted to. The way they picked me up, chair and all—each had a hand clamped over my ankle, strapping me to the chair.

I hadn’t noticed anything behind me. I hadn’t been able to look behind where I was sitting—not with the gun clicking over and over against the back of my head. But I somehow knew what was back there. Something inside me knew
exactly
what was about to happen to me.

The new suit walked over to supervise as the two guys expertly unclamped my legs from their hold against the chair. Before they could do anything else, I arched my back, pulling myself out of their grasp. I fell to the floor, the chair landing on my chest, twisting my arms awkwardly to the side.

It was like everything happened in slow motion—one of the men picked up the chair and shoved it so hard into my chest that it knocked the wind out of me. Then he did it again in the same spot. And again. It was only a moment before I was rendered incapacitated—I was just lying there, unable to suck in a breath.

They lifted me again, strapping my ankles to a narrow board and somehow maneuvering the rest of my body onto it. They released one wrist from my cuffs before strapping it to a shackle and then doing the same to my other arm before strapping my chest down as well. If I’d had any amount of fight left in me, I would have tried to take a swing at them before they could chain me down. But every ounce of energy I had was going into trying to get a single breath. It was an impossible struggle. I knew I had already lost before I had really even begun.

Flat on my back, I knew what was coming. I knew they were going to tip me upside down—I knew there was some kind of vat of water below me. They were waterboarding me, and they still hadn’t asked me to
talk
.

But I was prepared for this. I could handle it. I
had
handled it—days of it, if not weeks. I could barely remember it now, but I
did
remember it. It wasn’t like you could ever
forget
something like that. But I had been trained to tolerate it. To block it out—to not give in no matter what it was they asked me or who in my life they threatened to hurt if I didn’t.

But of all the tortures I had been trained to endure, waterboarding was the worst of them. The caning had sucked, too, and I was still surprised that it hadn’t left marks on my back. Maybe that had been on purpose—I’d had to sleep with women as part of my job, and it would be difficult to explain caning scars. What could you tell someone to explain something like that?

But the water—it had always been my Achilles’ heel. Hell, it would have been just as effective for them to threaten to drop me in a lake. They didn’t need to tip me upside down into a bucket to get the same effect. And if they had known who I was, they
would
know that. Hell, even Jen knew that…

And that was when it hit me.
Jen
.

It all suddenly made sense. Why they hadn’t asked me anything. Why the asshole suit had just clicked the gun against my head over and over without saying anything else. Why no one had asked me
anything
.

They weren’t torturing
me.
Well, they obviously
were
torturing me. But they were only doing it by proxy. They didn’t care about what I had to say at all.

There was only one explanation for this—they had Jen. They were making her watch. The only person on earth who would give a shit about me being tortured was Jen. And I knew someone had to be forcing her to watch this bullshit through one of those mirrored windows.

And then I felt her. It was only then that I was one hundred percent sure that she wasn’t dead. And not only that, that she was under the same roof—behind one of the mirrors. I couldn’t see her—not with my eyes. But at that moment, I definitely
could
feel her. Behind the nearest window.

And I stared at it, absolutely sure she couldn’t hear me. But I knew she could see me—I knew she would know that I was aware of her presence. I had been an idiot—I should have known the second that I woke up in that room what was going on. I had just been waiting for the good cop-bad cop routine to start. I had been waiting for them to ask me something—to demand some sort of information from me.

I didn’t know how to telegraph to her that I was fine. I was scared shitless—mostly because of the fucking water—but I knew I was going to be fine. But there was no way she could know that. I had promised to tell her everything, but how I could I have told her about this? How could I have told her that I was a highly trained … hell, I didn’t even know what I was. Operative might have been the right term. I was a highly trained, skilled operative. I did what had to be done, nothing more and nothing less. Being in love with Jen didn’t fit in with that line of work, but none of that mattered now.

The only thing that mattered at that moment was that they were making her watch. They were making her believe that they were going to kill me if she didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear. But she didn’t know anything—she didn’t have any information that they could have wanted. She wouldn’t be able to help them further their cause, whatever it was. And even if she did know something—even if there was some piece of information that only Jen knew, I knew I could get myself through this. I would do it for her. Just knowing at that moment that she was alive was enough to get me through anything.

I found the ability to breathe again, knowing I had to tell her not to talk to them. “Don’t tell them anything, Jen.” I wasn’t sure she could hear me through the double-sided windows, even though I shouted it as loudly as I could. “Don’t say a word.”

They shoved something in my mouth then, just like I knew they would. It wasn’t only to shut me up though I was sure that was a bonus for them. No, they put that cloth in my mouth so I couldn’t breathe—so I would feel like I was drowning when they put my head in the water. Not that I wouldn’t actually be drowning—I knew I could die from this. Shit like that happened all the time, especially if the guys who were carrying out the torture didn’t know what the hell they were doing. I just had to hope that they did. It made my stomach turn wishing that—that these guys were so skilled in the art of torture that they wouldn’t fuck it up on me and actually
kill
me.

As they blindfolded me and I felt myself tipping backward, I did everything I could to send her a message telepathically. Not that I believed that I really could, but it gave me something to hold onto. I just didn’t want her to be afraid for me. I wanted her to know that I could handle it, no matter how much I might have been terrified of feeling that water cover my head.

But before I felt the first splash of water—before I could even feel wet at all—I heard it. It made my blindfold damp with tears before a drop of water from the pool below me had even had a chance to touch me. It was the same sound I’d heard during the nightmare I’d had before waking up in this room.

I heard Jen scream.

“
H
e can’t hear you
. And the only way you can help him is to tell us what you know.”

I clamped my hand over my mouth, stifling the scream that had somehow escaped it despite my best efforts to remain silent.

My stomach was as hard as stone, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from what seemed like a horrible spy movie unfolding on the other side of the window in front of me. I didn’t want to watch, but I couldn’t bear not to. They hadn’t even said anything to him—they hadn’t told him what was going on.

I couldn’t hear through the glass. And they kept telling me that he couldn’t hear me either. But the way he looked at me before they put that blindfold on him—before they tipped his head into the water the first time. He
had to
have seen me. It felt like he had stared right into my soul. And I couldn’t make out what he was shouting, but I definitely saw him yelling something. He absolutely said my name. He knew I was here. I’m not sure how he knew—not exactly, but I could see that he
knew
.

And I had no clue what these guys in their gray suits wanted. They had shown me pictures. Demanded to know who the people in the photos were—and they had held a gun to Brandon’s head while they were talking to me. Interrogating me. But I didn’t know any of them. I had never seen any of them before in my life.

It had to be mistaken identity—them thinking I knew something I didn’t. My life seemed so … small. I couldn’t even think of ten people I knew well enough to identify in a photograph, let alone these people that they were telling me I
did
know. And they didn’t believe me. But they weren’t torturing
me
—not my body, anyway. But they were definitely fucking with my head. Making me watch Brandon take the abuse that I was sure they would have been more than happy to inflict upon me if I hadn’t demanded special treatment from them when I had arrived there. I knew it would be me on that board, being tipped into the water over and over if I hadn’t used my station in life to get out of the torture I definitely deserved more than Brandon.

Don’t you know who I
am
? Don’t you know who my father is?

Christ, I hadn’t pulled that shit since junior high. I had been so eager to run from it before today—to stay as far away from that life as I could. But it had seemed like a good idea when I had said those things, however many hours ago it had been now. When I used my father’s influence to get them to leave me alone.

And they had backed right off, as though I had said something almost magical. The magic words that had caused Brandon to be pulled into the room and be beaten to a near-unconscious state. My haughty comeback to them had made this happen—if I had just kept my mouth shut he wouldn’t having his head dropped into the water I knew he was terrified of even looking at.

I dropped my hand from my mouth, shaking my head but unable to move my gaze from the scene before me. “I swear I don’t know those people.” My eyes filled with tears as I watched Brandon’s hands clench as he was about to be tipped into the water again, his knuckles as white as snow. “If I knew, I would tell you. I promise you.”

The one I had come to think of as Good Cop touched my shoulder. “If you help us, we can tell them to stop in there. We need you to tell us, Jenna.”

I shook my head, unable to tear my gaze away from the horrors going on in the room on the other side of the window.

It should be me in there. They should be torturing
me
.

I didn’t really believe that either Brandon or I deserved to be tortured. But the men in the room on this side of the window seemed sure that I knew something I didn’t.

“Think back, Jenna. When you first got to Waterville.” Good Cop touched my shoulder again. “It wasn’t that long ago.”

“I didn’t know anyone there. I’m telling you the truth.”

The voice of the other man was gruff, almost unfeeling. “Keep going.” I could hear Bad Cop behind me, talking into the microphone again—telling the people who were with Brandon to continue their torture of him.

It was so much worse than going through it myself—that was why they were doing this. Making me watch Brandon nearly die with every tip of that stupid board. I cringed, a cold chill running through my body as his head hit the water again. They held him under for what seemed like an eternity before finally allowing him the shortest breath through his nose. I couldn’t even imagine how horrible it was for him.

“I swear—“

The gruff voice spoke before I could even finish my sentence. “Again.” Bad Cop interrupted me and the board tipped down again before Brandon had even had a second to get a breath.

“Stop. Just … please.” I tried to spin in my chair to look at Bad Cop, but Good Cop had hold of the back, forcing me to watch. “Let me see the pictures again.”

Good Cop nodded, touching my forearm before allowing the chair to turn so that I didn’t have to see what they were doing to Brandon. He scooted his chair closer to mine, straddling it before pushing the photos on the table closer to me. “Take your time.”

I’m sure my eyes were even more pleading than my voice. “Give Brandon a minute, then.”

Good Cop nodded, motioning at Bad Cop.

Bad Cop nodded in return. He spoke into the microphone, his gaze averting mine. “Hold.”

Tears welled behind my eyelids, a sudden lightness settling in my chest. Just knowing he wasn’t going to be tipped into that water again for a minute was more of a relief than I had ever felt.

I searched the photos again, but none of the subjects was even vaguely familiar to me. Except one. Maybe. And I wasn’t beyond lying at that point—if only to spare Brandon from being tortured for even a moment longer.

My throat was thick with guilt—not only because I wasn’t positive I actually
did
recognize the man in that photo, but also because I had seen what these men were capable of doing. It should have been an easy choice. It should have been easy for me to send a man I didn’t know to face an uncertain future. It would have meant I didn’t have to continue to watch Brandon be tortured. And even though it
should have
been easy, for some reason, it was anything but. I just wanted them to stop this ridiculous line of questioning. I didn’t know anything and it wasn’t fair that Brandon was the one being punished for my lack of knowledge.

My chin dipped to my chest and I slumped into my chair. I pointed at the man I thought might have been familiar. “Him. I think he worked at the tavern. I’m just not sure.”

Good Cop nodded. “Okay. But we need to know if he met with your father. Or any of his operatives. Dates and times would be beneficial, too, particularly for your boyfriend in there.”

Shit
. How in the hell was I supposed to know that? I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m just not sure.”

Bad Cop had spoken before I had even glanced up from the photo of the man. “Again.”

I had to force myself not to let any tears fall. I still wasn’t sure how I had even come to be here at all. Daniel didn’t want to come into the city with me—too many cameras. It had all happened so fast—the driver of the car had pulled up to the curb. Before I even had a chance to get out of the car, four men had a bag over Brandon’s head, pushing him into a different car. I was pulled out of the cab, pushed into another car and then we were here.

But these weren’t the same kinds of dumbasses that had taken me to see Daniel. These weren’t the same kind of bumbling fools that always seemed to be around whenever Ryan or Daniel were trying to pull something. Those kinds of guys were only trying to get their greedy needs met with something they thought they could get from Brandon.

This seemed much more official with almost military-like precision. It had to be a government operation, which was why I had pulled the daddy card in the first place. If they were some part of the government, whether it was military or some intelligence agency, telling them Senator Davis was my father should have been enough to have me
and
Brandon released.

But they already seemed to know exactly who I was. And telling them who my father was had only made it worse—it was getting Brandon water boarded.

“I think … I’m not sure. I think he might have met with Cade. But…” I couldn’t be sure of anything I was saying, but it seemed like the best chance Brandon had for getting out of that room and off the narrow board he was strapped to.

Bad Cop didn’t even hesitate. “Again. Hold him under for awhile this time.”

I flinched at the words, tears filling my eyes again as I imagined what was going on behind me. They couldn’t really have wanted me to lie—could they? Why would they want useless information? None of this made any sense—and what they were doing to Brandon made the least sense of all.

I glared across at Bad Cop. “Why are you doing this? Why Brandon?”

Good Cop smiled, touching my forearm again. “We’ll get to the man you’re calling Brandon in a bit. Right now—“

I interrupted him by pulling my arm away from his hand, yanking it free of the grip I hadn’t realized he had on my forearm. I knew this game—the good cop-bad cop thing, but I didn’t know anything about the photos they seemed to care so much about. And it was beginning to piss me off that they had pulled me into this situation at all. “Look, I told you, I’m not sure—“

Bad Cop interrupted this time. “And we don’t believe you. We obviously have reason to believe you’re lying to us, Jenna.” He pushed the button on his headset again. “Again—keep him under until he’s close this time.”

My heart banged and I felt my chest heave at the words. They were going to kill him—they must not have needed anything from him, as hard as it was for me to believe. I could have never imagined that there would ever be a time that
I
would have information more useful than Brandon. That
I
would have some secret that was so valuable … except that I knew I didn’t. And there was no way to convince them. No way to make them understand that I was just a naive dolt who should have just married one of the men my father thought would make a good political match. I could have spent my life going to charity events, shopping for new gowns that would get me on the best-dressed lists in the tabloids. Any of that would have been better than
this.
I would have even married that dick from Iowa if I had known it would have saved Brandon from the horrors he was facing in that room. Alone. I would have done anything to have been able to save him.

But
nooo
. I had to go and get myself in another heap of trouble of my own doing—not that I had any idea how I had managed to get myself caught up in whatever this was.

Bad Cop interrupted my momentary pity party. “Why don’t you turn around and watch? His legs will start to twitch any second now—“

Good Cop spun me around in my chair to face the window again as Bad Cop spoke. My scream was the only thing that interrupted him as I caught sight of what looked like a very lifeless Brandon.

I couldn’t live with myself. I couldn’t live another second knowing it was my fault this was happening to him.