Road Tripped: Satan's Devils MC Utah #1 by Manda Mellett

Author:Manda Mellett [Mellett, Manda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781912288748
Publisher: Trish Haill Associates
Published: 2020-08-26T18:30:00+00:00

21

Swift…

I’m deaf.

I’m alone. But I’m not in my home. There’s a cuff around my hand that’s fastened to a chain about six feet in length, and that, in turn, is fixed to an iron ring cemented in the wall. I give it an experimental tug. It holds fast.

I’ve been taken. But where and by whom or why, I don’t know. I rise to a sitting position, putting my hand to my head. I feel dizzy, my head throbs and I’m nauseous. I can’t remember anything after going to bed and falling asleep.

I add the few clues together. My physical symptoms suggest I’ve been subjected to chloroform or some drug to render me unconscious, I must have fought as there’s a bruise and graze on my arm, but I can’t remember. How had it happened and why the hell hadn’t my security system worked? The technology I’d put so much faith in hadn’t alerted me that someone had invaded my home. While I wish this was a nightmare, I’m very much awake and aware I’ve been kidnapped.

My hearing aids? Well, they are the first things I look for, but whoever took me, hadn’t brought them, or if they have, they’ve not left them out for me.

A wave of panic rises inside me. I can’t hear anything.

I can see and touch. I taste a sour flavour in my mouth, and smell a stale odour but it’s not enough. I can’t hear voices that might give me clues as to what’s happening, nor footsteps that could warn me of someone’s approach, or even a rattling to show the door’s being opened. I’m helpless.

No. I can’t think that way. As I feel the onset of a panic attack—the ones that can overtake me ever since I woke up and found my hearing impaired—I consciously try to slow down my breathing, trying to stave off the weakness that would ensue should I give into the urge. I’m Swift. I’d reached the rank of corporal in the army before passing the selection process for the SAS. Part of the training involved kidnap and negotiation training. I know the advice I’d give someone who could potentially be kidnapped, and the words I’d use to negotiate their freedom.

I just never expected to be on this side of a kidnapping, to be the kidnapee. I’d more likely be the kidnapper. I hadn’t expected to feel so helpless and out of control, which definitely are alien feelings for me. I breathe in through my mouth and out through my nose, then I do it again.

Think Swift. Use your head. Rule one for someone who’s been kidnapped, keep your eyes and ears open for anything that might help, either to free yourself or to bring the kidnappers to justice once you’re released.

Is this what it’s like to feel terrified? I don’t think I’ve felt real fear before, apprehension of course, when we were waiting for the order to proceed, but it was the adrenaline as with my comrades we prepared to head into what the intelligence reports had told us of the unknown.

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