Free In the Teeth of the Wind by Charlotte Boyett-Compo Page A

felt a presence bending over him. The intense pain of the drug invading his brain had almost driven
    him mindless. Strong hands shut off his air.
    "Turn his head," the Colombian said.
    Conor struggled uselessly, then felt the needle as it pierced his neck. The instant agony exploded in his
    head and he tried desperately to draw breath but couldn't. When he was almost to the point of passing
    out, the rough hands that had been covering his nose and mouth were removed. Conor gasped, dragging
    large gulps of icy oxygen into his depleted lungs. He coughed, gulping air, his chest heaving.
    A light came on over head, momentarily blinding him, then the man who Conor had come to
    understand was his hell on earth leaned over him. Despite the pain in his head and the too-bright intensity
    of the light, he looked up into the man's face and his eyes widened with shock.
    "Not what you expected, eh, brown eyes?" The Colombian chuckled.
    Even in his worst nightmares, Conor had never seen anything so hideous as the man - no, the creature
    - that bent over him, putting its face close to his own. The putrid smell of the thing's breath washed over
    him, bringing instant nausea, and Nolan shrank from the horrible visage as far as the restraints would
    allow.
    "Ah, brown eyes," the Colombian sighed. "You have nothing to fear from me." He smiled and the
    hideously scarred flesh on his face pulled grotesquely. "I am going to make you feel even better. I have
    increased the dosage."
    It was the drug, Nolan thought in desperation as he felt the horny pad of the Colombian's palm on his
    cheek. It had to be the damned drug making him hallucinate. He tried to will himself back into the drug's
    intoxicating arms, but the sight coming closer was so unnatural, so hideously vile, he could not tear his
    eyes away.
    "Does my deformity upset you, pretty one?"
    "It's the drug," Conor answered, shaking his head. "It's the drug. It's the heroin making me hallucinate.
    I know what heroin can do!"
    "Yes, I know you do," the Colombian said. "I know all about your addiction as a boy." He leaned
    closer. "Does Rhianna know?"
    "Leave her out of this!" The breath fanning over his face was so terrible he could barely breathe.
    "Oh, but we cannot," the Colombian told him. "She is our hold over you, brown eyes. If you do not do
    as you are told, we will bring her here and do to her what we are doing to you. Will you allow that?"
    Conor's world was shutting down. The mellow blanket unfolded over him and he was sinking down in
    to the soft pillow. He heard a slight buzzing then no sound at all as his mind ceased assimilating sight,
    sound, and touch.

____________________
    *Part Two*
    *Chapter Thirteen*
    "You didn't find anything at all, then?" Steve Trevor, Conor Nolan's attorney and one of his best
    friends, asked, admiring the strength of the woman across the desk from him.
    Rhianna shook her head. Black hair swept the top of her shoulders. "As far as we know, Felicity
    Rogers never existed. We couldn't find a damned thing about her in any database anywhere. If that isn't
    suspicious, I don't know what is!"
    Stephen noted the tiny lines around her mouth. They hadn't been there before. "I know this has been
    hard on you."
    Marek tensed and toyed with the paperweight sitting on his desk. "Why did you call me here today,
    Steve?" she asked, her eyes wary. "Please don't tell me you're gonna read his will because I won't accept
    that he's…"
    "No!" the attorney said. "Nothing like that." He reached out to take her hand. "He'd have to be missing
    seven years before we could legally declare him…" He paused. "Well, you know."
    "Then why am I here?"
    He released her hand and shuffled through the file, which contained Conor's legal papers. "I have
    something for you." He withdrew an envelope then closed the folder. "Irish gave this to me about a year
    ago." He looked down at the pristine white paper with Rhianna's name scrawled across the front. "He
    said if anything happened to