Synopsis:
The Missionary
Ex-Navy SEAL Stone Pressfield has a
bad feeling about the proposed church missions trip to Manila, Philippines. The
college-age church group plans to go to Manila and help victims of the
sex-trafficking industry. Stone's lingering nightmare memories about the
sex-trafficking industry have him warning church leaders that the trip is a bad
idea. He knows all too well that it could end in violence, and those involved
aren't to be trifled with.
When beautiful Wren Morgan goes
missing, he has a sick feeling that he knows exactly who took her, and for what
purpose. The problem is, Wren isn't just any other student. She's someone he's
close to, someone he cares about. Now she's in the hands of cruel, evil men,
and Stone is the only one who can rescue her before the unthinkable happens.
Author Profile:
Jack Wilder—aka Mr. Wilder—is one
half of the writing team "The Wilders." You might know his wife,
Jasinda Wilder, as the author of bestselling books such as Falling Into You,
Falling Into Us, Stripped, and Wounded, among many others. The Missionary is
Jack's first solo work, but you can bet it won't be the last. The Wilders live
in the suburbs outside of Detroit, Michigan with their five kids, a dog that
vaguely resembles a coyote,and a manny.
Author Links:
Giveaways:
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Teaser
THE MISSIONARY TEASER
1
~Now~
The stench woke her.
It was a thick miasma of rot and garbage and death, laced with something acrid
and almost sweet. The next thing she noticed was the heat. And then, the pain.
Everything hurt.
Something with too
many quick legs skittered over her foot.
She couldn’t open her
eyes; either that, or she was in a darkened room. Memory was a foggy thing at
best. Thought was difficult, as if her brain was sluggish.
What’s my
name?
Where am
I?
She couldn’t summon
the answers to those questions. The pain made it too hard to think. The pain,
and the smell. And the heat. She tried to open her eyes again, and this time,
she felt like she was successful. She was blinking, she felt the shuttering of
her lashes against her cheek. She turned her head, or tried to. Something went skritch
under her scalp, and she felt the tug of her hair catching, so she knew she’d
achieved some kind of motion.
Her fingers wiggled,
behind her back, pinned underneath her body. She tried to bring them around in
front of her, but she couldn’t. She strained, pulled: pain sliced into her
wrists. She was bound. Tied by sharp, thin wires of some kind. A test of her
feet revealed that only her hands were bound. Blink again, strain against the
darkness. Nothing. Was she blind?
She focused on her
physical senses: sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound. She could see nothing,
not even shadows within shadows. Smell…the stink around her was so thick, so
powerful it was nearly a taste in her mouth. Touch? The surface beneath her was
uneven and hard and gritty. Dirt perhaps. There were sounds, now that she
focused. The distant caw of a seagull, the faint, amorphous din of a city:
horns honking, the rumbling of a diesel engine, voices speaking rapidly
somewhere immediately above her. She couldn’t understand the what was being
said. One voice sounded angry.
Then there was a
sixth sense. Or, perhaps it was emotion, or memory.
Fear.
Not just the simple
too-fast thumping of her heart and clenching stomach. No, this was far more.
Deeper, powerful beyond comprehension. This was pure, unadulterated terror. She
couldn’t summon the reason for the terror, but it was there, tainting
everything. It was why she didn’t call out, ask for help. She was tied up in
the darkness, in pain, and some instinct told her to stay quiet. Avoid
attention.
Don’t be noticed.
Don’t let him know
you’re awake.
Him?
She wasn’t sure who him
was, but the terror increased to a hammering, nauseating level at even the
nebulous idea of him knowing she was awake, seeing her, coming back.
He’d caused the pain, she knew that much.
Then, a flash of
memory.
A hard
palm across her mouth, another around her throat, cutting off her ability to
breathe, much less make a sound. Being dragged backward, away from her friends.
Away from the street. Away from the light, into an alley. She thrashed and
fought and tried to scream, to kick, to elbow and bite. A fist or something
hard bashed into her skull, sending stars skittering across her vision. Words
rasped harshly in her ear, not English. But the meaning was clear: SHUT UP. She thrashed all the
harder, and then something sharp was jabbed into her bicep. A needle.
NO.
She
fought it, the coldness washing through her like ice snaking through her blood.
She couldn’t fight it, though. It was futile. She was at once heavy yet light,
her body drowsing and drowning until she felt weighted down by irons at her
arms, yet her mind floated up and away, swirling and skirling and twisting.
She
noticed, dully, absently, as the cracks of blue sky visible through the slabs
of corrugated iron of the shanty roofs were replaced by the low roof of a van
or truck. Door closed, a sliding slam signifying something, a van? She was
floating, weightless, unable to move. Unable to want to move. A face hovered
over her, round features, narrow eyes. Hard, cruel. He grinned, showing cracked
and rotten teeth. He spoke, and the sound was distorted.
“Not so
tup now, American?” his voice slithered over her like a snake wrapping its
coils around her brain.
Not so
tup? What did that mean?
Tough.
Not so tough.
She
somehow translated his thick accent, but the drug he’d injected her with made
it hard to think, to remember.
He pushed
her face to one side, almost an affectionate nudge to see if she would respond.
She couldn’t. She wanted to. She didn’t like him. She didn’t like his touch.
She summoned willpower, and when he touched her again, she snapped her teeth at
him, trying to bite. It was all she could do, but she missed. He laughed, said
something in his language—her hazy, muddy, sludgy brain supplied an answer:
Filipino—and then slapped her across the face so hard it rocked her entire body
to one side. She couldn’t cry or whimper, but a tear trickled down her cheek.
Then he
hit her again, this time with a closed fist, and all went dark.
Her mind felt as
thick as treacle, but she knew something had happened to her. She’d been
kidnapped.
The girl fought for
clarity.
Wren. Her name was
Wren.
She need to speak, to
say it, to remember. “My name…is…Wren.” Her voice was sandpapery and rough from
disuse and thirst. “My name is Wren Morgan.”
A voice shouted from
above, spitting out rapid-fire Filipino. Hinges creaked, and a square of light
emerged over her head, illuminating a hard-packed dirt floor, concrete walls.
Feet clomped on wooden stairs, dirty feet in green plastic flip flops. The face
from her memory appeared in front of her, smiling.
“Need more?” He held
up a syringe filled with clear liquid. “Yes, I tink you need more.”
“No…” She tried to
scramble away from him, but only managed to kick at the floor with her feet.
“Please, no more.”
He only laughed and
crouched beside her. She drew deep and forced her body to roll over, nearly
dislocating her shoulder in the process. He grabbed her by the hair and jerked
her back. He was thin and wiry, but brutally strong. She thrashed, knowing
somehow what was coming. Fear cleared her mind, and she suddenly remembered
everything.
The missions trip.
Manila. Getting lost. Doug and Aaron and Emily. Hands on her, cutting off her
scream before it could erupt.
She fought, and
fought. But someone else came, held her right forearm in a vise grip, and the
needle slid into her vein. The plunger went down slowly, inevitably, flushing
the cold high through her, making her heavy and weightless and warm, making her
forget all over again.
The drug didn’t mask
the pain when he kicked her in the ribs.
Green
plastic-sandaled feet tromped up the stairs, and the square of light vanished,
leaving Wren Morgan lost and alone in the darkness, afraid, but unable to
remember what he was afraid of, except that she was beyond terrified.
No comments:
Post a Comment