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CHAPTER 1

Malik

Pulling the blanket around hter, I try to suppress a shiver I can tell by the bluish tint around h I have no clue of the actual tio

All I know is I’ve been in this wooden hut, which has mud slathered into the joints, for months Of that, I’m confident, but I’m not sure how many

The hut is no more than the shell of a structure placed on the packed desert floor It’s a geological phenoments and pebbles make an almost paveht be deep in the Syrian desert, but that’s not saying much since over fifty-five percent of the country is, in fact, desert

Regardless,out a hole roughly ten-by-ten feet inside the hut, embedded a spike deep into the botto, my head barely reaches the top Even on tiptoes, I can’t see anything but the roof of the hut There’s no door and only one ithout glass or wooden shutters They haveI often wonder why they feel the need to put ure is it’s part of their torture plan I have to say it sucks not seeing the sky or the sun, nor being able to feel its warmth

The nights are getting pretty cold, whichthe winterdown into the forties at night The two scratchy woolen blankets they’ve given ainst the cold te and beingthe day when it warms up a bit

I rise fro more than one of the wool blankets doubled up and laid as far from my waste bucket as possible Not that it really o, which is a godsend I can’t even i the same clothes I was captured in—ue pants, long-sleeve black ther, having been soaked with my sweat, blood, and urine over the months of my captivity

Never h

Not once since I was captured have they gotten my tears

I round, holding the thick chain tied to one ankle up so I don’t trip over it Standing on , but it’s futile There was a time when I could have easily pulled myself out of this hole, but these days, I don’t have the strength It’s been beaten and starved out of me Besides that… there’s the whole chain-around-

When I was first captured, there was no sense of relief that I was still alive I knew being held in the hands of the enemy—presumably ISIS—that I was probably on a swift path to death by route of torture On top of that, I was beyond grief-stricken over the teammates I’d lost

I was quickly zip-tied, hooded, and driven for what seeed in In uished moans of the men who had been shot

What came next was expected I was Special Forces in the Marine Corps before joining the private sector with Jah SERE school

Survival Evasion Resistance Escape

I had no chance to test out ht to the resistance portion when the hood was pulled off ht into their torture efforts to get uts

I’d like to say I withstood the torture for days on end, but that’s not reality The human body can only take so much, but when it boiled down to it, I just didn’t have the information they wanted I wasn’t active duty military Once they finally believed I was a private security contractor fallen into eneed

Just before they moved me, I was told I’d be very useful in a spy trade with another country or theythat was sure to go viral, as most of those videos often did

I was hooded once again, driven for hours, and du It’s hard for me to tell time here, especially the last several weeks since I’ve become weaker and weaker I tend to sleep a lot That e of time is too fluid for me to understand