Chapter 5
Cole woke quickly when someone shook him. A guttural voice said, “You’re a hard guy to find.”
A second voice asked, “Where’s the dog?”
Cole tried to sit up, only to have the man beside him put one hand on his chest to keep him where he was. “Where’s the dog?” he said, reiterating the other man’s question.
“I don’t know,” Cole replied, panic-stricken, as the man turned on a flashlight, sweeping it around the room. “He…He was here when I…” He gulped. “When I went to sleep.”
“Looks like he left you in the lurch,” the second man said, coming into view. He grabbed Cole’s arm, pulling him free of the sleeping bag and to his feet. Then he backhanded him. “Now we have you all to ourselves.”
Cole felt a cold anger overriding his fear. Then pain—bone-deep pain as if his body was bein
