Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 107661 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107661 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Buzzing, taunting zaps, scuffing boots—all of it grew distant amid the pounding in her ears. Time ceased to exist. Her face stuck to a puddle of vomit, sweat, tears, and snot. Her body lay wasted on the table, electrocuted to the point of death.
She welcomed the end. Willed it to take her from the torment. Yet her heart kept beating. Her lungs continued to suck air. Her body wouldn’t die.
Then the buzzing din of static stopped, and the room fell quiet.
A hand stroked over her head, petting her hair. “Are you ready to talk now?”
“Stop.” Saliva leaked from her mouth, her voice raw and ruined. “Please.”
She didn’t have enough energy to lift an arm. Her throat throbbed from screaming and dry heaving. It even hurt to blink.
“We’re going to annihilate La Rocha Cartel.” His hot breath brushed her face. “Doesn’t matter if you’re a small-time player. You need to start talking.”
“I don’t know anyone in any cartel. I’m. Just. A teacher.”
Why were they doing this? Why did they want to hurt her so badly? She hadn’t done anything wrong.
“My name is Petula Gomez from Phoenix, Arizona. Please, believe what I’m saying. You have the wrong person.”
“You want more?” He patted her cheek. “I’ll give you more.”
He rammed the rod into her ass and resumed the electrocution.
Fiery waves of voltage shot through her body, causing muscle contractions that were so violent it felt like her bones were fracturing.
Her mind flirted with the edge of unconsciousness, and she reached for it, needing the comfort it would give her. But her awareness hung on, refusing to burn out.
Hours passed. Maybe days. It felt like several lifetimes came and went before they unlocked the handcuffs and kicked her onto the floor.
She lay where she landed, crumpled on her side, unable to move. Silent tears escaped her eyes. Drool tickled her cracked lips, and perspiration clung to her naked skin.
The shaking in her limbs was unbearable, every inch of her drenched in a cold sweat. The pain, the shock, the unholy fear—it gathered in her core and vibrated outward like a jackhammer.
She couldn’t escape it, couldn’t silence the torment.
Voices sounded from the hallway, and she pried her eyes open.
Three men stood just outside the room—the officer and two unfamiliar soldiers—staring at her passport.
“She doesn’t know anything.” The officer handed off the I.D. “She’s not the woman.”
She tried to reach out an arm, form a word, or do something to get their attention. She needed to tell them to call an ambulance.
But they turned and walked away.
The edges of her periphery closed in, shrinking her vision until nothing existed.
She blacked out.
When she woke, the first thing she sensed was the clothing against her raw skin. Someone had redressed her.
The surrounding space felt bigger.
She opened her eyes to a new room, this one filled with at least a dozen people. She lay on the cement floor against a wall. Handcuffs shackled her to the bench beside her head.
They weren’t letting her go?
Her chest tightened, her panic deep and internal. The agony between her legs would’ve made her sob if she’d had the strength. She didn’t have enough life in her body to move a muscle.
But she could shift her gaze, and as she looked down, she registered a large amount of drugs in a bag at her feet.
“We apprehended an American.” Her torturer stood a few feet away, addressing the room with his hands folded behind him. “Petula Gomez attempted to traffic fifty kilograms of marijuana into the United States.”
Her stomach bottomed out.
She had never touched an illegal substance. Never been associated with drugs in any way.
She was being framed.
Incapacitated beyond exhaustion, her body tried to sink back into oblivion. She fought it, desperate to defend herself.
Some of the people in the room tossed out questions. At the edge of her awareness, she sensed the sounds of a flashing camera. A news reporter?
She was too scared, too far out of it to comprehend or open her mouth. Everything inside her felt as if it were slowly dying.
Consciousness slipped in and out. When she woke again, two soldiers were loading her in the rear of an armored vehicle, subjecting her achy eyes to the bright sunlight.
It was morning.
Her heart lurched. An entire evening had passed.
They’d confiscated her purse, phone, and identification. All she had was the clothes on her back.
A twenty-minute drive transported her toward a terrifyingly familiar part of Ciudad Hueca. She knew where they were taking her before the barbed wire walls appeared through the truck’s tiny windows.
Jaulaso.
The most violent prison in the nation.
The living conditions in Jaulaso were so dangerous and inhumane there had been several attempts to shut it down. And like many prisons in Mexico, male and female inmates cohabited within its walls.
Her chance of surviving in Jaulaso was zero. Especially as an American woman with no connections or experience. She wouldn’t make it the first night without getting raped.