CHAPTER 12

"Get up!"

A heavy blow to the side of Miguel's face jolted him awake. He groaned as the back of his head seared in the pain from getting knocked out earlier. As his eyes opened, they slowly adjusted to the darkness around him. He was in a room, a basement of some kind, with nothing in it but his captor and the four walls around him. His hands were tied by a hefty piece of rope. To his horror, Tory was nowhere to be seen. He had no clue where she was and he prayed that she was okay, but he knew the first thing he needed to do was get himself out of his own situation. Then he'd be able to go looking for her.

"What do you want? Why am I here?" Miguel murmured, too weak to do anything at that moment. His whole body was still aching from everything that had happened to him, and the guard standing in front of him wielded a large machete… he didn't fancy his chances. So he made the immediate decision to talk, try and talk his way out. He swallowed all of his fear, a difficult task given how terrified he was about not only his own predicament but Tory's too, and looked up at the captor.

"American." The man immediately detected Miguel's accent, chuckling in a thick Caribbean one. "Just like your friend."

Miguel's eyes widened in alarm at the mention of Tory. Any hope that he had that she had somehow managed to escape had been dashed.

"Where is she?" Miguel growled, adrenaline coursing through him and temporarily ridding him of the pain coming from all of his body. "I swear to God if you've done anything to her…"

"She's okay. For now." The man stated, ignoring Miguel's threats and continuing extremely calmly. "Beautiful girl like her… we can get a lot of money for selling her. It'd be a shame if we lost it by messing her up."

Miguel let out a small sigh of relief. Although he was utterly horrified by what he was hearing, he had just been told that they weren't going to hurt Tory. Besides, she could handle herself, he was sure. She was the most badass person he knew.

"You on the other hand…" The man continued. "Our customers might not want you so you're… disposable."

Miguel didn't say anything to this, continuing to lock eyes with the armed captor. He wouldn't show that he was afraid. He wouldn't give them that satisfaction.

"Fuck you." He growled at them.

"What's your name?" The guy asked, casually, like he was taking Miguel's Starbucks order or something.

Of course, Miguel didn't say a word. He merely glared at the guy, scowling daggers at him. After a while of not answering, the man laughed.

"Perhaps you didn't hear me." He said, walking closer to Miguel. "I said… What. Is. Your. Name."

Each word was punctuated with a dull THUD, as the man drew back his fist and let fly, mercilessly beating down at the side of Miguel's face. The blows hurt, no doubt about that, but Miguel barely felt them. All of his adrenaline and worry combined practically numbed the pain.

After hitting Miguel a view more times, the man kneeled down so he was eye level with Miguel, who had slid to the ground after the barrage of punches.

"You should know, people always do end up caving to my will. I'm a very persuasive man. A persuasive one, but not a patient one. So I suggest, for your own sake, you tell me what I want to know. What is your name?"

"Bo." Miguel eventually replied, keeping an unreadable expression on his face.

"Bo what?" The man asked.

"Bo Nerr." Miguel replied, smirking at the man. The man didn't laugh at his dirty joke though. He didn't scowl either. He merely leaned closer to Miguel, his face inches away from his own. At this moment, Miguel felt more and more of his strength returning. He knew it was now or never. The longer he was kept in this chamber, being beaten up, the less strength he would have to escape.

So sucking in all his fears, Miguel braced himself and struck the other man with the blow he least expected. From Miguel's head to his, a vicious headbutt rang through the room. Even though he was the one who sent it, Miguel nearly passed out, the crushing blow against his head proving extremely painful, but he silently thanked all of Johnny's old teachings to make it hurt as little as possible. The damage had been done to his captor though, the man stumbling back and clutching his head. Miguel walked over to him but he couldn't throw a punch at him or a choke either to knock him out as his hands were still tied. Instead, he unleashed a massive roundhouse kick right at the man's face. He channelled all frustration, worry, fear he had into that one kick, and it showed. A loud CRACK echoed through the room and the man went down like a sack of bricks. Miguel had knocked him so far into unconsciousness that he probably wouldn't be making a peep for a long time. Walking over to the man and taking the machete from the captor's belt, Miguel then turned towards the door and walked out of the room…

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As Tory came to, she immediately jerked herself awake, remembering her situation and instantly filling with more terror than ever. She seemed to be in a dark room, her hands cuffed together. As she remembered what had happened, she was more scared now than she had been on the island. While she was pretty screwed in both cases, now, death seemed more immediate. Also the fact that she had no clue where Miguel was… for all she knew they had taken him away and killed him. Tory couldn't bear to stand the thought.

"Ah good. You're awake." A voice came from the corner of the room. Tory spun around towards it and saw a skinny man looking at her. His face was covered in a mixture of tattoos and scars, and he looked like the kind of guy, although not physically impressive, you didn't want as an enemy. And he knew that, standing tall and confidently, his voice a slow drawl like he was the owner of the universe and didn't need to rush for anyone.

"Who are you? What's going on?" She growled, struggling to her feet but unable to move very well in her daze.

"Who am I? You don't need to know that." The man stated, casually picking at his teeth with a toothpick. "And what's going on? Well my dear… welcome to the first day of the rest of your life. We're going to dock in Mexico in a couple of days. There, we have a delighted buyer who I'm sure is really looking forward to meeting you."

Tory's face contorted in confusion.

"You're gonna… sell me?" She asked. The man nodded, grinning a toothy grin that accentuated all of his chipped, disgusting, yellow teeth.

"Yes. Beautiful American girl like yourself… it's going to earn us quite a bit of money."

Tory's heart pounded as she listened to this but she refused to let that fear show either. Tory scowled at him and as they stood face to face, she spat in his face. The man's face flashed with anger for a few moments, but quickly turned into a smile as the man chuckled and wiped the saliva off his cheek.

"Well, well, well, kitty's got a temper, does she?" The man commented. "You know normally if someone disrespected me like this, I would kill them?"

"Then why don't you try?" Tory challenged, goading him. She was in no mood to listen to this asshole talk himself up. The man remained perfectly relaxed however.

"My supervisors have instructed that no harm should become of you while you're on this boat." The man stated. "I am not to hurt you in any physical way. That being said, if I'm to have a little bit of fun with you…" The man's hands began on Tory's face, stroking Tory's cheek gently. From there, they slid down slightly to a place where she only ever wanted Miguel to touch her. "I'm sure they won't mind."

That was it. The final straw for Tory. Knowing how much the odds were stacked against her, Tory still lunged at the man, kneeing him in the stomach, before using her rope handcuffs to wrap around the man's neck in a rear naked choke. She pulled the rope tightly as she could around his neck, squeezing with all her might as the man struggled, unable to fight, unable to shout for help as his strength swiftly waned. Soon, he went slack, out cold, and Tory took the opportunity to quickly run out the room…

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"TORY!" Miguel bellowed her name over and over again as he sprinted up and down the various levels of the ship. He didn't care how many people's attention he caught as he did this. All he cared about was the one person, the person he loved, who was somewhere on this ship. Because of this, he tirelessly ran all around the ship. They were on a small cargo ship, so Miguel weaved in and out of the various crates, screaming like a banshee. With each passing second, he was continuously losing hope that he'd be able to find Tory, but that all came screeching to a halt as suddenly, he ran face-first into someone. He was completely knocked over, as were they, and Miguel instinctively scrambled to his feet, readying himself for a fight and grabbing his machete. However, when he saw who it was, he dropped his weapon in surprise. The hazel eyes of his girlfriend stared back at him, and as soon as they got over their shock of seeing each other, alive and well, they grabbed each other into agonisingly tight embraces. They were both ecstatic as they hugged and kissed each other, the miniscule chance of them making it off this boat slowly increasing.

"Are you okay? Did they hurt you?" Miguel asked, concerned, as he felt Tory trembling in his warm embrace. To be honest, now that Tory was safe (well, safe as she would be given the circumstances, she was only just starting to think about what had just almost happened to her. Asides from the fact that she was almost just raped by her captor, she was about to be sold into a life of slavery, seperated from Miguel and all of her other loved ones, subjected to merciless tortures every day.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She eventually replied, although Miguel could tell it was the opposite.

"Yeah, you are. You're fine. You're safe now. I promise." Miguel whispered reassuringly. "We just need to find a way off this boat."

"Lifeboat." Tory stated, strength returning to her with every moment she spent next to Miguel. "I saw one at the back end of the boat when I was looking for you."

Miguel nodded.

"Okay, let's go." He nodded.

"Not so fast." A voice came from behind them. The pair spun around to see one of the captors staring at them, a machete in his hands. The man lunged at them, knife aloft, and he firstly targeted Miguel. Though Miguel was also branding a weapon, he had no clue how to use it so was slow to react as the man slashed at him. He was able to dodge the slash, but the man quickly followed up by knocking Miguel to the back of his head with his elbow. Miguel saw stars again, and he very nearly passed out, crashing backwards. His vision blurred, but not enough for him to still be able to watch as the man then turned to a terrified-looking Tory. Miguel's heart dropped in his chest. Tory looked extremely out of it, the gravity of the situation catching up to her and leaving her absolutely petrified, too much so that she was victim to whatever the man had planned. Seeing the love of his life in this state forced him to push down all of the pain he was feeling his skull, grab his machete, and lunge at the man again. Well, not so much lunge. Hell, he couldn't even stand up he was so dizzy. So all he could do was crawl over to the man and raise the machete, stabbing as hard as he could at the man's foot. The razor-sharp blade easily sliced through the man's shoe and a sickening cry of pain was heard as it went through his foot too. With him distracted and out of it, Tory and Miguel took their opportunity to escape. Miguel couldn't walk yet, so Tory had to practically carry him down to the back of the boat, no differently to how she had to do after the crocodile attack a few days ago.

And for the first time since probably they had arrived on the island, God was smiling upon them. They somehow managed to make it over to the lifeboat unseen, and using the machete, they sawed off the rope that was keeping it attached. Before anyone could stop them, the lifeboat hit the seawater with them following closely behind, diving into the water and leaping onto the lifeboat. From there, they were able to let out a small sigh of relief as they escaped the eye of the tornado. All it took was them turning the lifeboat's motor on for them to zip away and disappear from the sight of the ship. When it finally became so far away that it was no longer in few, the couple sunk back into their seats on the boat, panting heavily, the adrenaline starting to wear off and the gravity of what had just happened starting to sink in.

"So…" Miguel murmured as he stared out ahead. It was water all around him. No land in sight whatsoever. "Where now?"