If he lived long enough.
“So what’s the plan?” Tate asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Who tells the fuckers our base is at the dam cistern?”
Anton swallowed, feeling the pebbled concrete press into the flesh of his forehead. A few tears leaked out of his eyes. He blinked them away.
Goddammit, he didn’t want to die. He was barely eighteen. He wanted to live. He should have a whole lifetime in front of him. Was he bat shit crazy to want to live, even if it meant rotting away in this hellhole?
“I’ll do it.” His throat was thick when he spoke the words. “But we have to make them believe we’re broken.”
Tate didn’t respond. They both knew what that meant. There was more torture in store for them. The Russians had to believe they were truly broken. Anton shuddered at the thought. He wasn’t sure how much more he could take. He may truly break when the KGB agent returned. Anton had no doubt he would return.
His knees began to ache from his awkward position on the floor. He decided to make another attempt at righting himself.
Surprise them, Anton.
A desperate laugh bubbled up from his throat.
“Anton? You okay, man?”
“Not really. I thought I heard my mom talking to me.” He tensed his muscles, shifting his toes to grip the floor. After counting to three in his head, he threw his weight up and back.
It took two tries, but he finally got the chair upright. A weak laugh of triumph passed his lips. Maybe he did have a surprise or two left in him. Even if it was only figuring out how to right himself in a Russian torture chamber.
“Anton?” Tate still lay on the floor, tied to his chair.
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad I’m not alone in this shithole. I’m sorry I got you into this mess, but I’m glad I’m not alone.”
Anton tried to come up with a response. He didn’t know what to say. There was no denying their recklessness. They’d handed themselves to the Russians on a platter. He was pretty sure that wasn’t the sort of surprise his mom had been referring to.
“Mom,” he whispered, “if I ever escape this pit, I promise to do things differently.” He would stop chasing his brother’s golden shadow. He would start living as himself, whatever that meant.
“Anton?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be tortured to death, but I don’t want to die, either.”
Anton closed his eyes as Tate’s word washed over him. “I don’t want to die, either, man.”
But that’s exactly what would happen. When they revealed the cistern location, the KGB agent would murder them. Or at least, that’s what he said he’d do. Anton wasn’t sure if he wanted him to follow through with that threat or not, but he couldn’t see any other way out of their situation.
“I wish I knew if Mom and Dad were alive,” Tate whispered.
“I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry we couldn’t rescue them.”
“When I saw them on that lift, I—I couldn’t tell if they were still alive. I lost it, man. I—”
“I get it, man.” Anton couldn’t stand the anguish in Tate’s voice. “I get it.”
A scream filled the prison block. It came from a nearby cell. Someone was shrieking. A woman.
The sound made Anton’s blood run cold. He stopped breathing as the long cry echoed through the cellblock.
He’d never heard Mrs. Craig scream before, but a deep part of him recognized her voice in that horrible cry. Did Tate recognize it, too?
Mrs. Craig was here in this hellhole. So was Mr. Craig. They’d been taken down from the lift and brought here to be tortured, just like Anton and Tate.
The knowledge was almost too much to bear. It was almost enough to make him wish he was dead.
Anton said nothing to his friend, hanging his head in silence.
9
Broken
Anton choked on water. He couldn’t breathe. His head was submerged in a bucket of water.
Hands held him down. One gripped the back of his neck like a pair of pinchers. The other had a fistful of his hair.
Anton struggled. He fought to live, even though all rational thought said he should just give up. Let the bucket of water carry him into oblivion.
He held his breath as long as he could, bucking and struggling against the hands that held him. He kept his lips clamped shut, willing himself not breathe.
His body overpowered him. Instinct shoved aside will. He inhaled without meaning to. Water gushed down his nose and throat. He fought harder against his captor, but the fuckhead had the advantage of leverage. The soldier gripped Anton’s hair with such ferocity, Anton half expected his scalp to be torn away.
Just when he thought it was over—just when he thought he would drown in a bucket of water like a rat—he was yanked up. The soldier flung him roughly across the cell. His skin tore against the concrete floor.
Anton rolled onto his side, coughing up water. He was still hacking when cigarette embers scorched his shoulder.
He couldn’t help it. Even though he’d been determined not to cry out, the combination of not being able to breathe and the pain of the embers tore it from his throat. He collapsed to the ground, still choking on the water that filled his lungs.
Laughter rang out above him. The KGB agent leered down at him through the curling ends of his mustache. Off to one side stood his soldier lackey, whose sleeves were drenched from holding Anton’s head in the bucket.
Through a haze of fear, Anton noticed the lackey had grayish bruises on his face and hands. He looked like he’d gotten the shit kicked out of him. Good. The fucker deserved every punch.
How many times had he been nearly drowned today? How many times had he been burned by a cigarette? Twelve? Twenty? He’d lost count of both.
There was a second soldier in the room today. At a nod from the agent, the second soldier pulled Tate’s head out
