Chapter 12 #4
She could start her life up again. He’d forget about her and she could move on, into the sunlight, into a regular life, instead of huddling in the shadows. Maybe even start an interior decorating business. Maybe find a nice man to marry. Maybe—maybe even have kids.
And even in the fear and terror of this past year, there’d been good moments. Tea with Irene, the odd funny client. She’d read a lot from the local library, listened to a lot of music on the radio. Solitary pleasures, but pleasures nonetheless.
All ending, right now.
A thump on her back, hard. The door of the bathroom yawned before her. “Get going. We don’t have all day here.” Hiah.
Kerry turned, licking her dry lips. “I’m—I’m going to need my hands.” She looked at him, at his light blue eyes, like colored marbles, just as devoid of any humanity as Mr. Elegant’s. “To…ahm.” Her mind whirred uselessly. “Need my hands,” she repeated in a whisper.
He’d either cut the tape or not. She couldn’t do anything about it.
He whipped out that sharp blade again, the steel whispering against its scabbard, and with one deft move cut through the duct tape. An amazing feat. He sliced through without touching skin, though her wrists were tightly bound together.
So he was handy with a knife. Real handy. She shuddered even more deeply.
He nodded sharply at the bathroom, not even bothering to waste words with her.
“Can—“ Kerry was shaking so hard her mouth could barely form words. She flexed her hands, trying to get some circulation going again. It would be too horrible if she botched this. “Can I close the door?”
He shook his head.
Oh God.
“Can you—can you turn your back?”
Without a word, he turned on his heel, presented his broad back to her. Kerry suspected it was more because he didn’t want to see her vomiting than to provide her with some privacy.
This was her chance, right now. She stepped into the filthy, stained cubicle.
It was dark, with only a small window way up high.
There was no question of her being able to escape from it, and she knew the two men realized it, as well.
Even if she were athletic enough to leap up onto the toilet seat, smash the filthy glass pane and try to haul herself up and out, this man would catch her in less than a second.
No, there was no way out.
So she looked around, heart pumping with dread, tears bleeding from her heart. This was where she’d end her life, in this fetid abandoned bathroom, with only two heartless strangers to witness her passing.
Such a miserably lonely and squalid place to die.
“Hurry it up,” the man with the funny accent said. Come on, get going, do what you have to do so we can torture you to death for information that’s not in your head.
Suddenly, a hot flush of rage ripped through her system and she welcomed it. It chased away the icy chill of fear, and even the sadness, because she was going to do what these two men thought was impossible.
She was going to beat them.
“Okay.” Kerry put soft humility in her voice, just as he’d expect. She understood very well that they liked degrading her, humiliating her. Just as they would like hurting her.
Fuck them.
She put up the toilet cover, a sound the man would be expecting. Only instead of bending over that filth, she held up her right hand and examined the ring on it. It was a sleek modern design, pure titanium. Will resist a conflagration, the online brochure had said.
Of course the subtext was—if they burn your body, something will remain.
The company was as mysterious as its owner—a legendary beauty who hid from the world.
Whoever she was, she was brilliant—a designer of jewelry that doubled as weaponry, only for women.
Necklaces that broke apart to become small razor-sharp scythes or hid garrottes, bracelets that held a small amount of C-4 and a detonator that came with detailed instructions and was just enough to blow someone up.
The solutions were endless and fascinating.
Kerry had opted for a ring, very simple and unobtrusive, but beautiful nonetheless. It was disguised as the kind of ring that at first glance looked like something you could pick up at a crafts fair or on any costume jewelry stand.
Perfectly ordinary ring except for one thing.
Press a tiny hidden button on one side and a spring-loaded mini hypodermic syringe preloaded with enough neurotoxin to fell a bull shot out.
The syringe could also be preloaded with a powerful tranquillizer, but Kerry knew that if she ever became desperate enough to use it, she’d need to kill. So it had been Option A. Neurotoxin.
There was a second option to the ring, which Kerry had barely paid attention to. Twist that tiny button instead of pressing it, and the syringe would pop out on the underside, penetrate the skin of your hand and kill you instantly.
If the man who stood with his back to her had been alone, she’d have stabbed him in a heartbeat. Reached over and jabbed him in the neck, hard. He wouldn’t be expecting it at all. He’d die at her feet and she’d rejoice.
But the syringe was preloaded with just one dose. Kerry hadn’t thought it through but she realized how incredibly clever the designer was. If you needed two doses, you were better off killing yourself because you’d never prevail.
“That’s enough,” the man muttered and turned around, giving her a quick, impersonal up and down look. She hadn’t gone to the bathroom, she hadn’t vomited. “What the fuck—“
Staring him straight into his dead eyes, Kerry wrenched the button, felt the white-hot prick of the needle, welcomed it, and dropped where she stood, dead before she hit the ground.