Chapter 26
Chapter
Twenty-Six
MALLORY
Awareness returned in pieces. Pain came first. A vicious pulse behind my left eye synchronized itself with my heartbeat, every throb sending something hot and sharp through my skull.
Then sound.
An engine followed by tires against pavement. The soft mechanical hum of a car moving at speed.
Then smell. Oil. Rubber. Carpet. Something metallic.
I opened my eyes.
Darkness.
For one deeply stupid second, I thought I had gone blind. Then the car hit a pothole. My shoulder bounced against metal and my head followed.
Pain exploded.
“Fuck.”
The word came out slurred.
I was in a trunk.
I was in an actual trunk of an actual car and—I just went still because the world started spinning. The very last thing I wanted to do was throw up all over myself in the trunk of the person who had kidnapped me.
I tested my hands.
Free.
Feet.
Also free.
Phone?
Gone.
Well, yeah, that made sense. Leaving me my phone would have been too stupid to live territory. My watch remained on my wrist, but the face was dead.
I stared into the darkness and tried to reconstruct the last thing I remembered.
The conference room. Guy's medical records. The enhancement render finishing.
A name emerging from the indentations left behind on the specimen sheet.
E. brEWSTER.
Then—
The door opening. A voice behind me.
You really should have stopped, Mallory.
Elliot.
I remembered turning. I turned, right? I turned and then—nothing.
With care, I searched my forehead with my fingers. It was sticky and flaky. Blood.
Wonderful.
I breathed through the nausea and forced myself to think. Brewster had come into the conference room. He'd done something.
Hit me?
Drugged me?
Both?
I couldn't remember.
The car turned sharply enough to roll me against the side of the trunk.
I caught myself with one hand as my knee bounced off something hard.
“Asshole.”
No response. Probably for the best. Then another memory surfaced. Flint had gone upstairs. Executive meeting.
He'd argued about leaving me. I'd kissed him and told him to go. My stomach dropped.
Flint.
Had Elliot waited until Flint left?
Had he done something to Flint before he—no.
I stopped the thought before it finished. I had no facts. I could imagine a thousand terrible things and every single one would feel real inside my head.
That didn’t make any of them true.
Facts, Mal. I licked my too dry lips. Facts. What do I know?
Flint had gone upstairs.
Brewster had come into the conference room.
Those were the facts.
Everything in between was unknown.
I held onto that.
The car slowed. The stink of exhaust burned my nose. My pulse accelerated. A turn, then another. Gravel crackled beneath the tires.
Then we stopped.
I closed my eyes and tried to slow my breathing to play unconscious. It seemed embarrassingly cliché. On the other hand, clichés became clichés because they occasionally worked.
The engine shut off. The adrenaline-fueled race of my heart seemed to increase along with the throb in my head.
Silence rushed in.
A door opened.
Closed.
Footsteps.
Slowing my breathing seemed eve more impossible.
The trunk opened. Light struck my face. I didn't move.
For three seconds, neither did Brewster.
Then he said, “I know you're awake.”
Dammit.
I opened my eyes and squinted into the brightness. It just added new pain to my already surging head.
Elliot Brewster stood above me. He looked terrible. Worse than he had outside Flint's apartment. Worse than at the diner.
His shirt had wrinkled badly. Sweat darkened the collar. Stubble shadowed his jaw. His eyes looked too bright and as red-rimmed as my own.
He had a gun. The last kind of registered almost belatedly like—oh look, a gun.
“You put me in a trunk.” My voice came out a hoarse croak and I coughed.
“I needed to move you.”
Needed to move me? I wasn’t sure if it was his choice of phrasing or the fact he sounded like it was my fault that pissed me off more.
“You put me in a fucking trunk.”
“There wasn't time.” So not an excuse. Not that he sounded apologetic so much as exhausted. Well boo-fucking-hoo. I was exhausted too and I probably had a concussion.
“There's a back seat.”
The gun in his hand didn’t waver when he shrugged one shoulder. “You might have been seen.”
“Oh, I forgot. Silly me. You kidnapped me.” Bravado had gotten me out of a lot of bad situations. It had also buoyed me through others. Probably not the best plan to bait the profiler who had apparently slipped the chain on his reason—but dammit.
His jaw tightened. “I chose the safest option.”
I stared at him. Disbelief flooded through the anger burning in my gut. Then I laughed. The sound hurt my head, but I couldn’t stop.
“What's funny?” His gun dipped slightly as he glared at me.
“You.” I managed to squeeze the word out between chuckles.
His expression hardened.
“Oh, stop looking at me like that.” I waved a hand at him.
“You kidnapped me, put me in your trunk, brought me to God knows where at gunpoint—by the way, you’re still pointing that thing at me—and somehow you're offended by me finding your choices laughable because I know you think you’re protecting me.
Or at least that’s what you’re lying to yourself. ”
“I am protecting you.”
“From who?” I snorted as I swiped at the tears which had escaped my eyes. From the laughter or the pain? I didn’t know.
Hostility flashed in his eyes. “You know who.”
Simon. I stopped laughing.
Brewster reached toward me with his free hand. “Can you stand?”
“I'd rather not hold hands.” I avoided the offer as I braced a hand on the side of the trunk.
“Mallory.”
I made a face and mimicked his tone. “Elliot.”
His hand remained extended. I ignored it and pushed myself upright even as I avoided his hand.
Bad decision.
The world tilted.
Brewster caught my arm.
I jerked away and banged my arm against the side. “Don't touch me.” The bruise hurt but I preferred it to his hand.
His mouth compressed. For one second, renewed anger flashed through his eyes. Then vanished. It was unnerving to see the way the emotions played out on his face before he ruthlessly suppressed them.
“Fine.” He waved me out of the trunk with the gun. “Get out.”
I swung my legs over the bumper and looked around. I took my time in order to see as much as I could. It also helped my queasy stomach and aching head.
Industrial area. Warehouse. Lovely.
The building rose behind him, three stories of stained brick and broken windows. An old loading dock stretched along one side. Rusted metal doors. Weeds growing through cracks in the pavement.
Beyond it, I could hear water. River. That felt like another cliché.
“Where are we?” I kept a firm grip on the edge of the trunk as I slid my feet to the ground. I took a moment, not quite trusting my balance.
“You don't recognize it?”
“No?” Something about my answer disappointed him. I slid off the bumper as I stood. My knees almost folded.
This time Brewster caught me by the arm. I allowed it for two seconds while I regained my balance before pulling out of his hold. “Whatever you gave me sucks.”
“I didn't give you anything.”
I touched the blood at my temple. His gaze followed the movement. “What is this?”
“You fell.”
I stared at him. “You expect me to believe that?” Was he serious? “Did I walk into a door too?”
“You fought me.”
I frowned. “I don't remember fighting you.” I didn’t see any marks on him. Pity.
“Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
I just stared at him.
He huffed out an impatient breath. “You struck your head against the workstation. Happy?”
“Thrilled.” I searched his face. No obvious lie. But then, I wouldn’t have pegged him as a psychotic who would kidnap me and throw me in a trunk. “Where’s Flint?”
His whole demeanor changed and his eyes went from flashfire to frosty. Actual fear pooled at the base of my spine.
“Elliot.”
“He's alive.”
Every thought stopped. The world narrowed until only those two words remained. “He's alive?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to him?”
Brewster just stared at me. Brewster. Not Agent Brewster. Not Elliot. His stare was empty and unnerving. “He was shot.”
“Where?” It came out a little higher pitched as I forced myself to breathe to say it.
“He was alive when I left.” He shrugged.
“Where was he shot?” I wanted to hit him. But he still had that gun pointed at me.
“Mallory—”
“Where?” I gritted the word between my teeth.
“Shoulder.”
My knees weakened again. This time I hated myself for it. “How bad?”
“I don't know.” Another shrug and he swept a look over the area.
“Who shot him?”
Brewster didn't answer. I stared at him.
“Who shot Flint?”
His eyes met mine. Not answering was an answer. Something inside me went cold and died. “You.”
A faint smirk touched his expression. “No.”
“You shot him?”
“No.” Another smirk, though this one carried an element of regret? For Flint being hurt? Or for not being the one who actually did it?
“You had him shot.”
“I needed him out of the way.” So. Fucking. Dismissive.
My hand moved before I made a decision. The slap cracked across the empty lot. Brewster's head snapped sideways. Pain shot through my palm.
He didn't retaliate.
Slowly, he turned his face back toward me. A red mark appeared along his cheek. “Feel better?”
“No.”
So I slapped him again. That one he caught. His fingers closed around my wrist in a brutal grip that squeezed so tightly my bones groaned.
“Enough.”
“No. I don't think we're anywhere near enough.”
His grip tightened. “You don't understand what's happening.”
“You’re so fucking patronizing,” I snarled. “You kidnapped me, shoved me in a trunk, and you had Flint shot. What part am I failing to understand?”
“Not fatally.”
I went very still then I jerked my hand back. He didn’t release me immediately. Instead, he kept ahold of me like he wanted to prove I had no control. Only when I stopped yanking did his fingers loosen.
“You arranged to have him shot.” I had seen Flint shot before. I hated it then. I hated it now.
“He was supposed to be delayed.” A shrug.
“Someone put a bullet in him.”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen that way, Mallory. But it did delay him.”