Page 46 of Out of Reach

Sam sighed. “It doesn’t matter now. I managed to recompile my list using a lot of time and resources. And I’ve decided you’re going to pay for that, my dear ex-lover. You’re going on a long trip on a big ship. Excited?”

“Fuck you,” Jude said.

Grabbing Jude’s face, Sam dug his fingers into his cheeks. “You might want to keep that mouth shut, or I’ll have to fill it up with something big. Oscar over there is a good nine inches.” He forced Jude to turn his head toward the guy at the door, and Oscar leered and grabbed hold of his crotch.

After that, Jude stayed silent no matter what Sam said to him. The sky outside darkened, and as soon as Jude showed signs of moving around more easily, Sam ordered him into the bathroom to piss and then gave him more drugs. Jude didn’t know if the dose was larger than before, or if he was just exhausted, but he immediately fell asleep, waking only briefly when someone picked him up and carried him outside.

Once again, he woke up somewhere strange. But this time when the bed dipped, it wasn’t Sam who appeared in Jude’s line of vision.

“Zion? What are you doing here?”

“Same as you,” Zion said. He looked like he’d been crying.

Turning his head, Jude looked around. He was in a small room with only Zion and two young women who sat clutching each other in the corner.

“That’s Jill and Meghan, who’ve been in this room with me for two nights. We were told we’re on a ship. Oscar carried you in here a few hours ago.” Taking Jude’s hand, Zion looked at him miserably. “You were drugged. We were, too, when they brought us. Do you know what’s going to happen to us?”

Jude nodded. But he also knew that there was a chance they’d be saved. He was afraid to say it out loud, though, for fear the room was bugged.

“I’m scared,” Zion said.

“Me, too,” Jude whispered. In the corner, the girls started to sob.

They sat like that for a long time, Zion holding Jude’s hand while Jude slowly regained his mobility, and the girls huddled together on the floor, intermittently bursting into tears.

All around them, the ship was quiet, although, according to Zion, there were about two dozen other people on it. When a rumble went through the ship, Jude tensed and pushed himself to a sitting position. Was the ship about to leave port? A series of loud reports, slightly muffled by the walls of the ship, caused all four of them to jump.

“Were those gunshots?” Zion asked, eyes wide with fear.

“Sure sounded like it.”

The two women jumped up onto the bed with them, and they all backed up against the wall. Jude looked up at the ceiling when he heard shouting, then a volley of gunshots again.

“Is there anything in here we can use to defend ourselves?” Jude asked, glancing around frantically.

“No. We’ve been over this entire room,” Meghan said. “There’s nothing.” For the first time, he noticed the large bruise on the side of her face.

“Have they been hitting you?”

“Only Aggy, the bitch that kept us before this,” Jill said.

Jude was curious about their stories—where they came from and where they’d been held before coming on the ship—but more gunshots and shouting kept him from asking.

Then someone kicked down the door to their cabin, shouting, “FBI!” And suddenly it became crowded as federal agents swarmed the room, some of them looking into every nook and cranny while others escorted Jude, Zion, Meghan, and Jill off the bed and out into the corridor, where similar scenes were playing out in other cabins. At the far end of the hall, Jude caught a glimpse of Sebastian being lined up against a wall with several other victims.

Jude and his group were hustled up the stairs and onto the deck where a large moon hung in the sky. He held onto Zion’s hand, and the girls stayed together. Jude caught sight of several men face-down on the deck with their hands and legs tied together. The agents all wore black jackets that said FBI in white lettering on the backs. Jude scanned their faces, hoping to see Hawk among them, but he didn’t.

It wasn’t until forty-five minutes later, when Jude was led off the ship with the rest of the victims, that Jude saw Hawk standing at the bottom of the gangway. Jude broke into a run and jumped into Hawk’s arms, nearly toppling him.

“Thank God, thank God,” Hawk kept murmuring in Jude’s ear as he held him tightly.

When they finally parted, Jude saw Zion standing with Mal at the back of an ambulance.

“They’re going to want to check you over,” Hawk said.

“I’m okay.”

“But you were drugged. You need to go to the hospital, Jude. I’ll go with you.”