12 Minutes (#2 in Military series)

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Later that afternoon . . .

"Well, this wasn't how I predicted I'd be spending my afternoon," Twitch moaned as he looked down at his ankles strapped to the front legs of a chair and his wrists bound behind his back.

"Would you rather be lying on a beach somewhere?" Carlos laughed behind him, their chairs placed back to back in the middle of a concrete room.

Twitch shrugged a shoulder as he tilted his head back and looked up towards the low ceiling, "Something along those lines would be nice."

"Hey!" One of the men shouted, leaving his group of men and walking around Carlos to Twitch. Wearing light coloured clothing and weighing no more than a hundred pounds, Twitch thought his threat felt a little wanting, "Be quiet."

"Sorry," Twitch replied, if hands weren't tied he would have held them up beside him in a gesture of helplessness, "My mother always told me that I could chat for England and I guess she wasn't wrong, in fact she-"

"-Shut up!" He shouted again as he backhanded Twitch across the face when he heard Carlos chuckling behind him and pointed a finger at him menacingly, "And you!"

Carlos pressed his lips shut but he couldn't keep the corners of his lips tilting upwards.

As his head was knocked to the side, resting partly on Carlos's shoulder, Twitch looked up and saw Carlos smirking down at him. Groaning, Twitch straightened up and stared back at the boy whose lips now held a small smirk to them as well, "Now, be quiet." With a roll of his eyes, the boy walked back to the other side of the room where three other men stood watching them. Twitch glared at them from his restraints.

"How'd that feel for you?" Carlos asked, a glint of humour in his eyes.

"Shut up," Twitch grumbled, "They've looked away now, so hurry up and get my ropes undone will you?"

"Well stop moving," Carlos sighed as he reattempted to unfasten the ropes around Twitch's wrists with his own bound fingers. Keeping his eyes on the group of men as he fiddled with the knots he could find, Carlos took in all the details he could. Four men, two of which wore traditional clothes whilst the other two wore tactical clothing, were huddled together in low conversation, their eyes flickering across to Carlos and Twitch a few times.

They were probably wondering where they had come, and if there was anybody else with them. But in the short time they had been there they hadn't asked any questions yet. They thumped and kicked them a few times as they tied them up in the chairs but nothing else.

Carlos found himself wondering what they were waiting for, but he couldn't wait to find out.

"Are you two free yet?" Jules's voice came over the earpiece.

"Give me a minute," Carlos muttered under his breath, "We've been a little busy."

"Yeah yeah," Jules replied.

Lord preserve us, Carlos thought looking to the ceiling when he felt the rope around Twitch's wrists loosen before slipping off entirely. Catching the rope quickly before it fell to the floor and alerted the others, Twitch started to work on Carlos's bindings instead.

"Ow," Carlos winced as Twitch caught his skin with a nail, "Watch it."

"Sorry," Twitch replied, frantically pulling at the rope.

"You got it yet?" Carlos strained to look over his shoulder and down between them.

"Give me a minute," Twitch complained, pausing in his attempts, "You had a good few before you got mine off."