28
Justin felt a groan try to escape as he returned to consciousness and did his best to suppress the sound.
He cracked open one eye cautiously and wished he hadn’t; a headache slammed to life and blurred what vision he had.
The darkness was near complete. Light that might have been sunrise or sunset was either barely begun or spent for the day.
A lamp flared, a small oil lamp; the sudden brightness made his head hurt more. He closed his eye and tried to assess. Gagged. Bound feet. Hands as well, thankfully in front. Lying on his side. No obvious point of outside pain. Intense inside pain.
His last memory? Holding Carmen in a loose choke hold because she’d completely deserved it for teasing him about setting a wedding date.
Justin had let her loose, then looked up into the barrel of
