BOTH OF THE BOY’S ARMS were tied behind his back, and his face was pushed down into the water.
“You don’t have to do this,” the boy mumbled through the pain. He was lying on his stomach. “You could let me go. I never saw your face.”
“Well, why don’t I show you my face then, Kendrick,” the man said.
The man knew his name.
“No,” Kendrick pleaded.
But the man came around in front of him. Lifted his head up.
Pain shot along Kendrick’s shoulder and down his arm.
Kendrick saw the man’s eyes. A touch of stringy white drool hung from the corner of his lip.
Kendrick’s face was pushed into the water again, and the man laid on top of him.
They were both clothed, but the man began sniffing along his neck. Murmuring strange words, mixed in with English. Petting and scratching at the boy’s head.
“Rise,” the man said in between words that sounded like something from another world.
Kendrick’s head was pulled up from the water, and he gulped at air.
Sputtering. Yelling. “Get off me!”
“Burn,” the man repeated next, pushing Kendrick’s head back down.
Kendrick gulped at muddy water, thrashing against the man. Which sent spears of pain from his wrist to his elbow.
Kendrick was nearly out of energy when the man pulled his head up for the last time.
“Take him,” the man said to someone else waiting in the darkness.
Kendrick exhaled. Was it over?
But he felt himself being yanked backward.
Dragged along a rough-hewn floor.
Then lifted up by the rope that bound his hands behind his back—his two jelly-like arms supporting all his weight. And he screamed like he’d never screamed before.
But wherever he was . . . nobody seemed to hear.