I woke up to darkness. The blindfold on my eyes had been on for what felt like years. I felt for injuries again for the hundredth time that… day? Week? Month?

I had no idea how long I had been here. It was killing me.

They came in every day with new questions to be answered. I never gave them anything, though. It made them angrier, and the punishments got worse as time went on.

I heard the footsteps approaching again and I tensed up, ready to fight back. I wasn't prepared for the right hook to the jaw and I hung my head.

A cattle prod was then jammed into my chest, and I jerked against my restraints, trying to get away from the electricity.

It ended quickly, and they seemed to be moving around the room for a while until they stopped right in front of me.

"I'm only going to ask you one more time. Where is your army camp set up and how can I infiltrate it," the deep voice repeats.

I sigh loudly, aggravating the man further. The cattle prod was returned to my chest, and I cursed, rearing back and spitting in the general direction of his voice.

Angry curses reached my ears and I grinned, knowing I hit my target.

Suddenly my arms were released from their binds behind me and the man grabbed me and dragged me from the chair, throwing me onto the floor.

Blow after blow landed on seemingly every part of my body for… my concept of time with this blindfold was seriously fucked up.

By the time they got bored, I could feel my ribs caving under the pressure of being broken, and I prayed I could hold on long enough for my unit to come.

I knew it was only a matter of time. The second a rib cracked and punctured a lung, I was done. Gone.

I spared another second of thought to how long I had been here before they dragged me up, holding my arms out and securing chains around my wrists.

Then I felt myself being pulled upwards, and I realized they were hanging me from my wrists. Which was never good. The torture will be getting worse now.

I mentally prepared myself, blocking my mind off from the concept of pain, hoping my prior experiences with torture would keep me quiet.

But then they did something I wasn't quite prepared for. I had heard of it before, random soldiers going missing and being found months, even years later, burned all over their body. Often times after, camps burned down or were ambushed.

I barely had time to scream before I felt it. My skin slowly burning, melting away under the hot flame.

I writhed in the chains, my screams fading into angry curses and threats, eventually dying down to pleads, the blowtorch being lifted from my skin.

I struggled to catch my breath, knowing I would need to stall the next… session as long as possible, try to find a way out of this before they placed it on my skin again.

Unfortunately, they weren't wasting any time. The flame was returned to my abdomen only seconds later, the breath being stolen from me once again.

The screams returned, and I barely had time to process that they had removed the flame before I heard screaming from outside.

The men began panicking, yelling in Arabic, assuming I didn't understand their language.

I smirked as they revealed their plans. Then they released me from my chains and dragged me out one of the doors.

"Freeze! Don't move!" I heard a familiar voice say.

"Mouse," I mumble under my breath, just before I felt a prick in my neck and my eyes finally closed, the drugs knocking me out.

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The second we were on Afghanistan soil, Mouse rushed us to a Humvee, where we rode the rest of the way to their camp.

We all got off, shaking the sand out of our hair and shoes. We were led into the Commander's office, where he greeted us quickly, dismissing his soldiers.

"So, the raid will take place tomorrow, and hopefully we'll have Jay back by then," he told us quickly, leading us to the room where they were planning the raid.

We all watched as he motioned his men to come over. They started explaining the plan, trying their best to keep us in the loop.

By the end, we were all feeling more anxious about the whole thing, if that was possible. I glanced over at my team, noticing how they all looked nervous about the plan going off without a hitch, especially since we wouldn't be there.

I finally spoke up, knowing I had to at least ask. "And there's no chance we would be allowed to go in with you?"

All of the soldiers immediately turned to me, a humorous look on all their faces. Mouse simply looked at the floor.

"Look, Voight," Mouse says, placing his hand on my shoulder.

"No," I say, shrugging him off. "Look, I know we aren't nearly as well trained as any of you, but this is our guy out there. If there's any chance we can help him, we're gonna take it."

"Sarge, all of these guys here want to find Jay just as much as you, even me. He's kind of a hero around here," Mouse whispers to us.

We all turn to him in surprise and he turns back to the group gathered around us. "So, we're all good to move out tomorrow."

They are dismissed, and soon my team and I are left alone with the commander and Mouse.

"What exactly happened out there?" I ask suddenly.

The commander sighs. "We were leading a team to go see if we could apprehend a huge crime lord. The man sells opioids, children, anything to make money. We were about halfway there, in the middle of nowhere, when shots started ringing out. We all took cover to try and hold them off, but it ended so fast none of us really knew what happened until everything cleared. At that point, we had lost dozens of men and Jay was missing. We searched everywhere, praying we wouldn't find his body, but he was just gone. It looks like they were just looking to take a soldier, and Jay just happened to be the closest when they hit, so they grabbed him, fired off several rounds, and drove away."

I cursed under my breath. Would the kid ever get a break?

"Hey, boss, what if we head out now?" I hear Mouse ask from the other room. I walk back in and listen to what he has to say.

"Mouse, that could be a suicide mission if we aren't prepared," the commander answers.

"Maybe, but they could be ready for us. If we're right, about what we talked about earlier," Mouse says, eyeing us, obviously not telling us the whole story. "They could already be about to leave. This way, we could have the element of surprise."

The commander seemed to think for a moment before simply giving Mouse a thumbs up. Mouse runs out of the room and goes to get his team together.

We all huddle around Mouse's body cam as the raid begins. At first, we don't see anything hopeful, no sign anybody was even in the warehouse.

Then, a pain-filled scream filled the comms and Mouse immediately rushed forward, two men behind him.

A door opening was seen from the back of the warehouse and two men dragging a barely conscious person out. Jay.

Mouse runs over and holds up his gun, telling them to stop. The man who seems to be in charge barely spares him a glance before motioning for the men to bring Jay to the truck. At this point, they had drugged Jay and he was no longer awake, his head dropping to his chest.

Mouse yelled at them to stop again, but the man simply held a gun at Mouse and the men continued to load Jay onto the truck, chaining him onto the back.

The man in charge backed away towards the truck slowly, but Mouse jumped forward, getting shot full of bullets just before he reached Jay.

The body cam footage went out and Mouse's groans of pain could be heard over the comms. Then nothing. Silence.

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"We lost him. We lost both of them. Goddammit!" One of the men yelled upon their return. "We exited through the back door just as Mouse got shot, but as far as we could tell, it hit his vest cause he was fine. They dragged him into the truck with them and sped away, leaving us no time to run back to the Humvees and chase them. I'm sorry, Commander."

"No, it's okay. We'll get them back. I'm not giving up until we do."