Page 38 of Her Faithful Protector

“Yeah, I do,” Nic said.

Nic swung his binoculars to the south end of the village where he could make out the shacks. Again, he couldn’t see anything moving. It almost looked like they were now used for storage or something. In the dim light of dusk, Nic thought he saw a shadow and knew damn well it was Raiden Sato moving toward the shack closest to the jungle’s edge.

Peering intently through his binoculars he tried to home in on Raiden, but he couldn’t find him.

“Sato, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Max growled through their comm.

Raiden didn’t answer. Nic kept his eyes on the far corner of the shack, positive that Raiden would pass by there to get back to the jungle.

“Someone’s coming. Get out of there.” It was Cullen.

Nic saw a movement but it was just for a moment. He counted to ten in his head. At number eleven, Raiden’s voice came through his receiver.

“Men and teenage boy’s bodies were in the one shack I checked. They must have decimated the entire male population of the village.”

Nic gripped his rifle tighter, and even though he kept his eyes open, for a millisecond he literally saw only red.

“Jesus.” He heard the others’ shocked responses over his receiver as he wafted a prayer up to heaven.

“Men, heads-up. Kane said he and the others will be here at zero four hundred. They’re hauling ass. So, change of plans.”

“We’re waiting,” Zed said in response.

“You got it in one,” Max agreed. “So no taking out anyone, smoking or shitting in the jungle until zero three hundred. Got it?”

“Got it,” they all responded.

Great, now it was a waiting game. Nic wanted to keep his binoculars trained on Cami, make sure that she stayed safe. All of those women were sitting ducks during the night.

The big man in the chair got up and stretched. “It’s time for bed, tomorrow’s going to be a big day. We’ve sent out all the e-mails today, we’ll see what they have to say back. You better hope for their sake they’ve told me the right thing, otherwise, we’re going to send them a little video of you.” The students’ heads nodded upwards, looking at the man. “Oh yes, you’re going to be on camera for your mamas and papas. You won’t like it. You won’t like it at all,” he laughed.

He snapped his fingers. From out of the gloom two men rushed toward him.

“Stand guard. I don’t want any of them getting any idea to escape. Don’t let them talk to one another.”

Both men nodded. They moved closer to the tied-up students, their feet spread apart, their shoulders thrown back.

With one last look at Cami, Nic trained his binoculars on the big man to watch where he was going.

11

“I told you to shut up.” The words were said in heavily accented English.

Crack. It was the sound of a hand meeting flesh. A man groaned. Who was it? Paul. Brian? It didn’t sound like Travis.

“This one’s not talking, she’s being a good girl.” This time the words were in Spanish.

“Bastardo!” It was Lisa. Then she let out a high cry. Oh God, what now?

“Don’t, you can’t untie her,” a second man said in Spanish. “Whatever we do, we have to leave her tied up,” the words were low, but Camilla could hear them through the gloom of the night.

“Shit, you’re right. But even tied up, we can have fun,” the first man said.

Camilla saw red. She knew what they were planning to do to Lisa and she couldn’t let it happen. She had to stop them somehow.

“Help me!” Camilla yelled out.

“Shut up, bitch,” the first man yelled out.