Running On Empty: An LCR Elite Novel

by Christy Reece

  Declan didn’t know how much time had passed, but the man continued to sit there and listen as Sabrina’s voice revealed she was a traitor, a betrayer.

  Bile surged up his throat. Declan didn’t want to hear those words any more than the man in the chair. Why were they doing this? He forced himself to listen carefully and finally realized there was something off about the sound, the quality of the recording. The pitches were wrong, all over the place. Various words and sentences sounded as if they were said at different octaves, different intonations.

  The answer came swiftly. Someone had recorded several conversations of Sabrina and then used only the words they wanted to create a certain type of message. But why would they do that? What did Sabrina have to do with them, or this man? And, surely, if the man knew Sabrina, he would know she would never sell anyone out. She wasn’t capable of that kind of treachery.

  But the man listened and then did something extraordinary. Tears poured down his face, and he screamed Sabrina’s name. He jerked on the rope, ignoring the pain as the rope cut into his arms and his hair was pulled from his head. He stopped, shouted, cursed. And still Sabrina’s voice continued, on and on.

  “Declan, come back. Now, dammit. Come back to me, now!”

  He shook his head. That was Sabrina again. She sounded different than she did in the recording. Her voice was thick with emotion, as if she were on the verge of crying. He wanted to see what happened to the man, but he could never deny Sabrina anything. With a sad sigh for the poor bastard who continued to swear and jerk in his chair, Declan felt himself floating away again.

  He opened his eyes, blinked several times. Sabrina was kneeling before him. Her eyes were dry, but the hell in them spoke volumes. Her face was death pale, her breathing erratic.

  “Declan, you back with us?”

  Dr. Horatio’s voice jerked him back into full reality. It had been him. He had been that poor, abused bastard. He remembered what they’d done to him. And he wanted to kill them.

  “They gave me an injection. I barely remember it...was so out of it. And then they played that sound bite over and over. Your voice, Sabrina. They took bits and pieces of your voice from different recordings and made you say the things they wanted. And for days, they made me sit and listen. When I fell asleep or lost consciousness, they’d whip me until I woke, splash water on my face, and then turn up the volume. They tortured me into believing a lie.”

  It took every bit of willpower for Sabrina not to throw herself into Declan’s arms. And irrationally, she wanted to apologize. Even though she had done nothing, she still felt the need to say she was sorry. Someone had used her voice, her words. But what hurt more than anything was the knowledge that in the other two torture scenes he had described, Declan had never said anything, never made a sound. But when they’d convinced him she had betrayed him, he had cried, sobbed.

  “It’s my opinion,” Dr. Horatio said, “that with the use of psychotropic drugs, the recording of your wife’s voice, as well as the torture you’d already endured and your weakened condition, they were able to create the mind-set that Sabrina and no one else betrayed you.”

  “That’s what it sounds like.” Declan’s voice was now matter-of-fact, calm.

  Sabrina battled surging emotions. She felt as if she could erupt at any moment. “How can you sit there so calmly and act as if you’re not furious?”

  “Watching it like it was a movie was a helluva lot easier than going through it.”

  Dr. Horatio stood. “I believe I’ll step out for a while and let you two talk. Feel free to stay as long as you need. I’ll be in my private office if you need me.”

  “Wait. What about his headaches? Will they go away?”

  “I don’t have a lot of experience with the type of drug he was given. My advice would be to talk with your personal physician.”

  “Give us your opinion, then,” Sabrina said.

  “Very well.” He turned to Declan. “Your headaches were caused by your denial of what you knew couldn’t be true—that your wife had betrayed you. Now that you know the truth…know what happened to you, I would think the headaches would go away on their own.” He gave them a kind smile and said again, “Feel free to stay as long as you need.”

  Sabrina waited until the door closed behind the doctor and then said, “I’m so very sorry, Declan. I knew you went through hell. I just never realized how very much worse than hell it was.”

  “There’s nothing for you to apologize about. You were as much of a victim as I was. If I hadn’t been so strung out on whatever they gave me and so damned weak, I would have recognized the wrongness of that recording.”

  “Did you see any faces you recognized? Hear any familiar voices or names mentioned?”

  “No. They were strangers. My big question is, why did they want me to believe that lie? What purpose did it serve?”

  “Maybe they thought you’d give up all hope and tell them what they wanted.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “So where do we go from here?”

  “We’re going to find the prick who did this to us, and we’re going to send him to hell.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Declan lay on the bed in the guestroom, fighting his instincts. Instead of returning to the LCR apartment they’d been using, they had come back to Sabrina’s house. He hadn’t even considered arguing. Even though it was an hour’s drive and Sabrina had looked ready to drop, he had realized she needed the familiarity of home to help her deal.

  Why hadn’t he considered how hard this would be on her? Though he had initially dreaded the hypnosis, he’d found it much easier to endure than he had expected. Watching it like a movie had been bearable. But to Sabrina, it had been fresh and new…and she had suffered. Her expressive eyes had been dark green pools of despair. His heart ached for her.

  The drive to her house had been silent and grim. The instant they’d walked inside the foyer, she’d thrown him a wan smile. “I’m beat. It’s a little early for bed, but I don’t think I can keep my eyes open any longer. There’s plenty of food in the fridge if you want to make yourself a sandwich.”

  She hadn’t allowed him to respond. Just went upstairs and then he’d heard her bedroom door click closed. He knew exactly what was going on behind those closed doors. Not once had he ever seen Sabrina cry in public. One of the many cruel things her stepbrother had enjoyed was mocking her pain. If she cried, he’d made fun of her as he raped her. She said the hard things were easier if she remained stoic and detached. Only when she was alone did she allow the powerful emotions to overtake her, overwhelm her.

  And only with Declan had she ever allowed her vulnerable emotions to be revealed—a gift he had never taken for granted.

  After all he’d done to her, didn’t he owe her the comfort of his arms? He surged up from the bed and opened the bedroom door. And there she was, standing before him, her hand raised to knock. She had never sought him out before. His conscience reminded him she had never needed to seek him out. He had always gone to her.

  “Hold me?” she asked softly.

  Pulling her into his arms, he gave her the only comfort he could. Turning back into the bedroom was too damn tempting. Instead, he swept her up in his arms and headed down the hallway to the small sitting room she had refurbished. He settled into an oversized chair and held her close.

  She pressed her face into his chest, and Declan, just as he had so many times in the past, smoothed his hand down her hair and shoulders, kissed the top of her head gently, and waited for the dam to break. It didn’t happen.

  “No tears tonight?” His voice was gruff, thick with his own emotions.

  “Some things…” Her voice broke. She swallowed hard, tried again. “I think I’ve just discovered that some things hurt too much for tears.”

  He continued to stroke her hair, hoping that either the tears would come or she would fall asleep in his arms. Either way, he wanted to continue to hold her, offering what comfort he could. How many
nights, at the beginning of his imprisonment, had he lain awake and relived their last night together? He had replayed every tender kiss, every soft sigh. Envisioned her lovely, expressive face, the long, silky length of her body. Those memories had sustained him for months.

  “Tell me,” she whispered.

  He drew a breath. He knew what she meant…knew that he owed her this. Didn’t mean it’d be easy.

  “It was so stupid of me. I got that text from you and knew it must’ve been important for you to be contacting me so soon. I was distracted, worried. The fact that it didn’t come from your private phone didn’t cross my mind. Wasn’t the first time you’d texted me from a burner.”

  He huffed out a disgusted sound at his own ignorance and carelessness. “Still…I should’ve known something was off. The minute I got out of the car, I knew it was a setup. You know how it is. Air’s different. That odd, cold zip up your spine. I went for my weapon. Got Tasered. Went down. Tried to fight. Got a kick or two in before they shot me up with something.

  “I woke up, hogtied and as helpless as a babe. Whatever they’d given me knocked me on my ass. I barely knew my name. By the time we got to the prison, I was cognizant but still tied so tight I couldn’t twitch a finger, much less get loose.”

  “And you didn’t recognize any voices? Accents, dialects? They didn’t talk about anything familiar?”

  “No. Nothing. They rarely spoke. When they did, it was in English…occasionally Spanish and French. The only one with a distinctive accent was that giant jackass you took down. The others had none. They kept me blindfolded for a few days. Threw me into a cell and left me there.”

  “When did the questions start?”

  “Hard to say. Days slid into nights, and I was out for long periods. The minute I started coming out of it, I’d get another needle.”

  “You think they were waiting on instructions? Or waiting for someone?”

  “I thought about that but decided the purpose was to just make me wait, dwell on what was coming. I’m sure they thought I’d feel helpless—I did, but it was buried beneath a ton of anger. I was too pissed to be too worried.”

  “And the questions? Were they specific or general in nature?”

  He knew what she was doing. She was trying to find a clue, that one thread that would tell them who was behind everything. It was something he’d done himself already, but Sabrina was an intelligent, savvy woman. Hell, maybe they could learn something new.

  “Questions were general at first. Almost like they didn’t want me to know the real reason I’d been taken. And they were the fairly generic ones for an enemy combatant—name, who did I work for, what were my superiors’ names...shit like that. They got pissed when I said nothing.”

  “I’ve seen you in interrogation.” He heard the smile in her voice. “You can make silence sound like a scream.”

  “Yeah, well. That’s when they decided to have some fun.”

  Sabrina winced at those words. Declan was a warrior through and through. His capture would have infuriated him and made him want to fight with every fiber of his being. That kind of anger gave a captive strength. Maintain the anger, they couldn’t bring you down. But strength from anger would last only so long. Once the pain penetrated the consciousness and couldn’t be blocked, a new psychological battle took place. One where the brain fought to deny the agony, battled to reinforce the anger. A push-pull of opposing forces.

  She cleared her throat. “I guess it was SOP on the torture tactics?”

  “Yeah, nothing new. Typical standard operating procedures that I’d been through dozens of times before—training and teaching. Sleep deprivation, waterboarding, electrical shocks, plenty of beatings.”

  “When did the questions get specific?”

  “Probably about a month or so into my captivity. Guess they figured I’d be broken down enough to tell something. They offered all sorts of shit to entice me—food, water, medical care. Didn’t work any better than the physical torture.”

  “What did they ask?”

  “No surprises. Wanted to know the undercover names of agents, locations of upcoming ops, locations of retired agents, code names, aliases.”

  “And there was no one specific question that made you think—oh, this could be the guy behind it?”

  “I thought that would happen, so I tried to stay as focused on the questions as possible. Eventually concluded that even if one particular question would specify the bastard’s identity, he planned to get as much out of me as possible.”

  “When you didn’t talk…it got worse?”

  “After a few weeks of...let’s just say stringent questioning, they backed off. Maybe they were giving me time to think about things. Or maybe they were waiting for instructions.”

  “And then they came at you in a different way?”

  “No. Started all over again. Probably thought I’d healed up too much to start with the other stuff, so the same shit happened. Another few weeks to break down my resistance.”

  “They threw you in that pit a lot?”

  “Yeah. That wasn’t fun.”

  She pressed her face against his neck, partly in sympathy and partly because she just wanted to feel his warmth...feel the beat of his pulse against her mouth. “Did they talk to you before you heard the recording of my voice?”

  “Yeah. It didn’t really dawn on me at first. I’d gotten in the mind-set to endure, so the words were just a buzz…a noise. But then they showed me your picture.”

  “Where did they get a photo of me?”

  “Must’ve been taken when you were new to the Agency. Your hair was a lot longer, and you were wearing that ball cap I ended up throwing away.”

  “That was my favorite cap,” she grumbled. She felt him shift, knew he was smiling. They’d had a blowout of an argument over that silly little cap.

  “What did they say when they showed you my photo?”

  “Taunted me…lot of vulgar innuendoes. Unfortunately, I was tied up or I would have defended your honor.”

  She pressed a kiss to his beard-stubbled cheek. “I’ll forgive you this time.”

  “Then they started talking about how you had set me up. Reminded me you’d sent me a text. They told me you were in on the plan all along. Of course, I knew they were full of shit, but I maintained silence.”

  “And then came the recording?”

  “Yeah. I vaguely remember the first time. I think I smiled at hearing your voice. It sounded so damn good. It took two or three tries before the words penetrated. I laughed in their faces.”

  She closed her eyes against the tears she’d sworn she wouldn’t shed. She could picture him in her mind—bruised, bleeding, starving, but still so very strong, so very brave. Of course he wouldn’t believe she had set him up, no matter how much they tried beating it into him. But then, with the recording playing 24/7, along with the drugs, it was no wonder he became convinced of her guilt.

  “I don’t know how many days or weeks they played that damn recording. Every time I passed out, they’d either throw cold water on me or shock me back to consciousness. I’d wake, and the recording would still be running.” His arms tightened around her. “They hit at the weakest, most vulnerable part of me—my love for you. Crafty bastards.”

  “I was surprised you didn’t try to kill me right away, instead of abducting me.”

  “I guess I wanted to watch you suffer.”

  “No. You knew LCR would come for me.”

  He drew away slightly to look down at her. “What?”

  “The tracker in my arm. You knew about it. Knew the protocol I’d told Noah to follow if I was ever taken. That Noah would contact Albert.” She shook her head. “With all the craziness of these last few weeks, that fact didn’t occur to me until the other day. That’s why you didn’t kill me. You knew I would be rescued.

  “A part of you remembered how much you loved me…could never physically hurt me.” She lifted her head from his shoulder to press her forehead agains
t his cheek. “You’re still the same heroic, noble man I fell in love with.”

  His entire body stiff with denial, he pushed her off his lap, his face an expressionless mask.

  She stood before him, wanting him so much she literally ached with pain. “I still love you, Declan.”

  In a swift move, he stood, probably expecting she would back up. She didn’t, and she wouldn’t back down. This was too important.

  “Deny it all you want. It’s not going away, and neither am I.”

  Instead of arguing, which she really preferred since it would have been a good catharsis for the anger she knew still bubbled inside him, he unexpectedly grabbed hold of her shoulders, dropped a hard kiss on the top of her head, then said with a resoluteness she knew he meant, “Give it up, Sabrina, and move on, because as soon as this is over, we are, too.”

  She watched helplessly as he walked away from her, and seconds later, she heard the click of his bedroom door shutting.

  Her feet were moving before she even knew it. She made herself stop in front of his bedroom, but the glare she gave the closed door could’ve melted a hole in the wood. “Give up? Like hell, Declan Steele. Like hell.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  “How’s it going?”

  Pulling his eyes away from the computer screen, Declan relaxed back in the chair. Sabrina stood at the office door. Dressed in faded jeans that lovingly hugged her long, lean legs and a long-sleeved black T-shirt that, for some insane reason, showed an almost indecent amount of cleavage, she was healthy, beautiful, and so damned sexy his mouth went dry.

  Concentrating on her question and not on how much he wanted to get up from the desk and take advantage of the invitation lurking in her eyes took discipline. He cleared his throat, refocused. “Let’s just say there are a helluva lot of Agency employees who have too much debt, lots of vices, and have had more affairs than I ever thought possible.”

  Her grimace was one of sympathy. “Still no real leads?”

  “Not yet. By the time we’re finished, we’ll know the shoe size of their great-great-grandmothers.”