Author's Note: WARNING: The middle of this chapter may be difficult for some readers to read. It gets quite violent. Proceed with caution if you are sensitive to such things.
Chapter 8
Race against Time
Auggie now thought he knew where Annie was being held. It had taken close to 72 hours to find all the information they needed, but they had a location. It had been a painstakingly long process full of misdirection, misidentification, and dummy leads. They now suspected that Annie was being held in a cabin in the Virginia Mountains. Before they could go in, Joan was requiring evidence that Annie was being held there. Auggie was frustrated with this demand of his boss. She was being cautious. Annie meant more to her than she was letting on.
As they prepared to stake out the cabin, Auggie chose the team he wanted to be with him. It would be difficult for them to get close to the cabin. It was secluded and set far from the road. They decided to put a plan in place in which the power was cut off to the cabin. Hopefully the owners would call the power company to get someone out there to fix it. Auggie and his team would be that "someone". The contingency plan was that the team would pretend to be going door to door to check everyone's power. They needed to somehow get in the house and check to see if Annie was there or if there was any sign of a woman being held there.
Their plan was to cut the power in an hour. Joan had instructed them to wait until they got the call from them asking why the power was out before anything was done. Auggie couldn't understand why Joan was insisting they do things like this. Why couldn't he just go bang down the door and get Annie? Joan's caution was completely unlike her.
Auggie only hoped that Annie could hold off for a little longer. He didn't know what they were doing to her, but he didn't imagine it could be anything good. As seconds turned to minutes and minutes to hours, he hoped this plan would work and he finally got her out of this mess.
...
With her head down against her chest and eyes closed, Annie sat, still tied in the chair as Amos came into the room. At the sound of the door opening and closing Annie lifted her head slowly, but kept her eyes closed. She could tell by the footfalls that only one man entered the room. She could also tell from the strong smell of alcohol hitting her nostrils that he had been drinking-a lot. This could not mean good things for her.
As he came over to her and began roughly untying the ropes around her legs and uncuffing her hands he said, "The power is out, so we are bored. We have an idea for you now. My friend went out for a bit, so let us have some fun. You say dis man is just a student of yours-that you do not know anything else about him. I know different. Let us see how much pain you are willing to endure for him." She heard his words slurring and feared what he could possibly do to her now. Her mind immediately went to Africa. Did he intend on raping her now? Was that what he considered to be "fun"?
As Annie's hands and feet where released from their bonds, Annie was immediately overcome with worry as she realized that she could neither feel her hands or her feet. Not only that, but she could not move them. They were not numb or tingly, they did not cause her pain. She was sure that they were there, but she wasn't sure how she knew that.
"Stand up." Amos told her.
"I can't." Annie said honestly, but fearfully. Certain that this would cause him to think she was being insubordinate and cause her to receive punishment for it.
"You will stand right now." Amos told her as he slapped her face.
"I can't feel my legs. I'm assuming blood circulation was lost to them for too long" she said trembling. As she turned her head to where she thought he might be, using the strong smell of Vodka to guide her.
"You will stand up!" Amos said as he pulled Annie up from her chair and forced her upright. At this movement, every part of Annie's body screamed in agony. Every muscle protested, every tendon moaned with pain and every bone creaked at the sudden movement. For a split second, Annie felt normal, her knees shook, but she thought she was holding herself up, that was until Amos released her and she found herself falling painfully to the floor.
With this, Annie felt several kicks to her abdomen and chest. "I told you to stand up!" he yelled above her. The man grunting with each blow he gave her body.
"I can't, please stop! I can't." Annie begged him to stop, but her pleas seemed to fall on Deaf ears.
Slowly, relief came over Annie when she felt one of the kicks Amos inflicted to her legs, as she realized that feeling was gradually coming back to her feet, legs, arms, and hands. As he continued to strike her there was nothing she could do to stop him. Then he stomped on her right leg causing intense pain to shoot through her. Her body reflexively turned in on itself and she tried to reach down to ease the pain.
Amos, lifted Annie up from the ground by her hair and "Get up you blind bitch!" He taunted her as he released her and watched her fall back down again, laughing at her, he kicked her again in the back. "You said you could tell where I am in the room, block my kicks. Defend yourself."
"I can't!" Annie sobbed as she tried to protect herself. Disoriented from the pain and feeling like she was in a washing machine, being tossed from one side of the machine to another.
She still did not have complete control over her limbs to will them to protect her. She was certain her leg was broken and probably several ribs. If she didn't have internal bleeding from the beating, it would be a miracle. She knew she was bleeding from numerous cuts and abrasions that his steel-toed boots had just caused.
She felt one final kick to the back of her head as all senses were cut off by pain that erupted. She wasn't sure if she was still being kicked after that as everything else just went numb as the pain in her head took over her existence.
He would not get any information from her this time around, but, nevertheless, he enjoyed beating her.
...
The power had been cut to the cabin where they suspected Annie was being held at for three hours, but there had been no call from the tenants who lived there. Auggie decided that it was time for plan B. He and Eric Barber were going in. Eric would chat up the guys about when their power went out and what they had done to try to fix it, while Auggie would tell them he need to access the breakers and port in each room for potential faulty wiring.
Arriving at the cabin, they were not surprised to see no lights on; despite the fact it was after dark, but not late enough for anyone to be asleep.
Auggie wore a hat and glasses to disguise his appearance a little, just in case the men knew what he looked like. Both dressed in electrician's clothing, carried what anyone would assume to be a typical tool box, and each had a flashlight. Eric knocked on the door.
As a tall, burley dark haired man opened the door; he asked "What do you want?" with a strong German accent.
"We're from the electric company. We are investigating a power outage in the area. Mind if we check your breakers and wiring to see if we can get it fixed." Auggie stated politely not wanting to give any hint that he had an alternative motive.
Auggie quickly assessed the simple cabin and saw that there was a living room and kitchen connected to two other rooms whose doors were both closed.
"Ya sure. Come in, but be quick. The breaker box is in the room to the left." He pointed to one of the closed doors. "There is nothing you will need in the other room." The man added almost nervously.
Barber spoke up as Auggie gave him the agreed upon signal that he needed to search the rooms.
Auggie pretended to go around the living room and look at all of the outlets and then moved toward the kitchen, but went instead to the room he had told him the breaker box was in. "So when did the power go out." Barber asked walking in the opposite direction Auggie was moving in. "Four hours maybe." Amos answered him.
"Did all the power go off at once or was it room by room?" Eric asked pretending to seek more details to keep the man occupied so he wouldn't notice Auggie searching the rooms. He had a clipboard with a checklist sheet on it that he was filling out as Amos spoke with him. "All at once, all lights were on and then all were off. We waited for them to come on, but they have not. My business associate left a few minutes ago to go get some dinner, candles, and flashlights."
"You check breakers, so now you fix, yes?" Amos spoke to Auggie as he came out of the room that he had indicated contained the breaker box.
"The breakers seem fine. I'm going to check the wiring in the kitchen now." Auggie told him as he went to the kitchen, made a few noises and then left his flashlight on the counter so that the man would think he was still in there.
Auggie crouched down close to the ground so that the man currently talking to Eric would be less likely to see him and easily moved to the room that Amos had told him "there was nothing for him" in. Auggie opened the door to the room and quickly closed it, shining a second flashlight around the room until he saw what he assumed to be Annie in a bloody heap laying in the middle of the floor with her hands over her face and legs curled up to her chest. He silently ran over to her and checked for a pulse. Thankfully, he found one, but it was slow and weak. In the dim light he couldn't see much of the extent of her injuries, but he could tell enough to know it was really bad.
Auggie had to think quickly. He didn't have time to call Joan and get permission to get Annie out of here. She needed his help right now. He looked around the dark room with his flashlight, but saw no windows, no other exits.
His mind rapidly firing ideas that all seemed impossible right now, his only choice was to subdue the man Eric was chatting up, but first he needed to make sure he got out of this room before the man noticed he had gone in it.
He slid quietly back out the door and scanned the room to make sure it was still just the one man and Eric. Then he took action.
The man was sitting on the couch beside Eric. Auggie's Special Forces training had taught him many ways to kill a man, but that wasn't the objective today. Annie was the mission.
Auggie made some noises in the kitchen and then set his plan into motion.
"Hey man, I think I found your problem." Auggie called out nonchalantly.
"Yeah, what is it?" Amos said coming over to where Auggie was standing in the kitchen.
"Well, look here." Auggie said, pointing vaguely to a very normal power outlet.
"What? I don't see anything." Amos said just as his head hit the kitchen cabinet. In an instant, Auggie had him in a choke hold. The man fought back of course, grabbing at Auggie's arms, trying to break his hold. Amos was able to hit Auggie hard with his elbow in the abdomen and broke free from Auggie's hold.
They struggled for several minutes after Amos was able to get out of Auggie's hold. He punches Auggie a few times. Suddenly, Amos, grabbed a butcher knife from the chopping block. How he found it in the dark Auggie would never know. Auggie was grateful that there was a full moon tonight and the bare trees outside allowed the moonlight to shine in more than it could when the trees were full of leaves. Amos thrusted the knife towards Auggie's torso, but Auggie twisted the man's wrist and brought the knife up to the man's neck in one swift move.
"I don't want to kill you, but if you leave me no other choice, I will." Auggie said through gritted teeth as he put a still fighting Amos in a second choke hold with the arm not holding the knife. Slowly he felt the man's body go limp as he went unconscious. He held the hold for a few seconds longer and then let the man fall to the floor.
Auggie stepped over to the man, grabbed his phone from his pocket and called Joan.
She answered on the first ring.
"Auggie?" Joan said.
"Joan, she's here. Turn the power back on and get an ambulance here ASAP." Auggie said with concern.
"Consider it done." Joan said as she hung up the phone.
As the lights came back on in the house a couple minutes later, Eric and Auggie quickly went to the room Annie was in. Both men gasped as they saw the current state Annie was in. She remained unmoving, unaffected by the lights suddenly shining brightly on her.
"Auggie, ummm, wow. I'm not used to seeing stuff like this. What do we do?" Eric asked averting his eyes from Annie's broken form on the floor. There was blood all around her, but as far as Auggie could tell, there was no blood still flowing. He quickly walked over to her.
"We check for life, put pressure on any serious wounds still bleeding, and make her comfortable if we can. It will take an ambulance at least fifteen minutes to get here in this weather, maybe up to an hour. Go see if you can find a blanket or something to cover her with, she is shivering like crazy."
Eric quickly left the room, grateful to have something to do that didn't involve staring, because let's face it, it was impossible not to look at her in the state she was in.
Auggie sat down next to Annie's frail body and leaned over her carefully. He was afraid to move her. He had no way of knowing what they had done to her. He checked for a pulse again and found it weaker than before. He didn't see any wounds still bleeding at the moment, but there certainly were a lot of deep cuts and major bruising everywhere he could see. This did not look like same woman he had met a few days ago.
As he brought his hand away from her neck, she moved her head slightly. "Please no. Stop. Please don't kick me again." She mumbled out weakly, pulling her hands and arms up closer over her face.
Eric came back into the room a couple minutes after leaving with two thick blankets. He handed them to Auggie who covered her carefully with one of them.
Auggie reached under the blanket and put his hand on her shoulder, but immediately moved it to her arm when she winced at his touch.
"Annie, you're going to be okay. We are getting you out of here. You're going home." He said softly.
"August?" She opened her eyes slightly and moved them as if she were searching for his face. A brief moment of panic came over her, but it passed quickly as she felt comfort in the hand that was still on her arm. Her face was badly swollen and Auggie was surprised her eyes could open at all. He knew they would be swollen shut before long.
"Yeah, it's August. But my friends call me Auggie." He said smiling, trying to lighten the mood. She remembered his voice? Wow, she was good, after all she'd been through, and she still remembered his voice. "Just rest right now. We have called for help. Try not to move."
"It hurts. Everything hurts" She managed to whisper almost too quietly for Auggie to hear her, but she remained unmoving.
Annie couldn't describe what she was feeling. The pain was unbearable. The darkness was consuming her. At that moment, she just wanted it all to stop.
"I know, Annie. I know it does, sweetie. Help is on the way." He said in the most smoothing voice he could, sill touching her arm, wanting her to feel connected to something unassociated with the horror she had went through the last few days. "Can you tell me what hurts the most?"
Since when was he so sweet? Annie thought to herself in a brief moment of clarity. She could only imagine what she looked like right now. Why was he here? How did he find her? Who was he, really? Wanting the answers to her questions, but not having the energy to ask them, she simply said, "Thank you, August."
And that was the last thing she whispered before she went unconscious again.
...
Author Note: Please review :) Each review gives me the fuel I need to continue writing.
