Chapter 17
LEGION
Idrifted back to reality, my senses slowly awakening.
The first thing I felt was a cold bitterness and I think I was shaking, but I couldn’t tell.
Then there was the biting, clinical chill of metal against my bare skin.
I tried to shift, to roll my shoulders, but my body refused. I was literally locked in place.
I blinked, my vision swimming as I tried to make out where the hell I was.
It took me a few minutes to realize I was sitting in a heavy metal chair, my wrists cinched tight with zip ties that bit into my skin every time I tried to twitch.
My clothes were gone and I was stark naked and exposed.
The room itself was dim, although lighting lit up a few metal tables, a microscope, flasks aligned the walls.
A few feet away from, my leather jacket was draped over a stool, still stained with the grey-brown filth of the subway tunnels.
A dull throb pulsed in my cheekbone, a deep bruise that made my face feel heavy.
There was also a sting on my side, I assumed from the blade.
I could barely move my head down to look at the bandages.
The click of a boot heel echoed on the concrete and when I swung my head over I saw her. She was gathering items on a tray. She didn't speak at first, probably didn’t even realize I was awake. I felt relief thinking she was here to help me.
“Lantana?”
Her eyes met mine, dark and accusing. She got closer, circling the chair, and I could smell the familiar scent of strawberries. She suddenly stopped in front of me, the light catching the edge of a surgical blade in her hand.
"Lantana, what are we doing here?" My voice sounded like I’d swallowed glass.
Her silence was driving me crazy and I watched her tentatively step closer, the tip of the blade grazing my chest. She didn't press hard, just enough to part the skin.
A thin line of crimson bloomed across my pectoral, a hot wire of pain that made my breath hitch.
Then, she lowered the steel. The cold edge flicked across the head of my cock, a precise, shallow nick. I screamed as the pain hot through me.
"So this is what you were gonna use on me to get the information you wanted?"
“Lantana…” her name came out like a plea.
“Were you going to get the intel, fuck me and go?”
She asked the question with a tilt of her head, her voice a low, dangerous purr.
She traced the length of my shaft with the flat of the blade, the metal freezing against the heat of my skin.
Despite the terror, despite the betrayal, my body betrayed me.
I felt the blood rush south and I hardened under the touch of the steel.
My cock rising, pulsing against the blade.
Still, as much as I could feel what she was doing to me, I couldn’t move.
"What are you doing, Lantana?"
"You know you look like shit, Ben," she said.
I forced my head up, fighting the weight of the paralysis.
I searched her eyes, looking for the woman who had moaned for me so sweetly, the woman who had clung to me as if I were the only solid thing in a crumbling world.
She was gone. In her place stood the Harlots Road Captain, her expression was one of revenge.
"I've had a rough night," I replied. I managed a ghost of a smile, though it pulled at the bruise on my cheek. "The tunnels are a bitch this time of year."
She lunged forward, her fingers clamping around my chin. She squeezed with a sudden, violent strength that made me flinch, her nails dug deep into my skin, forcing my gaze to lock with hers.
“I understand you want to hurt me,” I whispered.
"You lied to me," the words sounded like they were painful.
"Not entirely," I whispered back.
"Liar." She leaned in, her breath warm and smelling of mint, brushing against my lips. She didn't kiss me. She just hovered there, a tease of intimacy meant to torture.
"You played me. You used me to map out the Harlots and the Scorpions. Did you think I was just some toy you could wind up and leave on a shelf?"
"You were never a toy, Lantana," I murmured. "You were the only real thing in this city."
She laughed. The sound was sharp, a jagged piece of glass that cut through the silence. She pulled away, resuming her slow, predatory circle around the chair.
"The only real thing," she repeated sarcastically. "That's a beautiful line. Who taught you that? Jameson? Or did you come up with it while you were lying with the rats in the sewers?"
"I only follow Jameson’s orders.”
“Is that right?” I couldn't see her, but I could feel the heat of her body as she leaned down, her lips pressing against the shell of my ear, her tits pressed to my back.
"Duchess wants information," she said. "She wants to know what you were tracing. She wants to know what the Scorpions are planning."
"And what do you want, Lantana?"
Her hand slid down the back of my neck, her grip tightening until I could feel the pulse in my own throat thrumming against her palm.
"I want to know why," she said. "I want to know why you thought you could do this to me and still expect me to look at you without wanting to rip your throat out."
I let out a long, shaky breath, the air whistling in my lungs.
"Because I thought I could protect you from it. If I stayed in the dark, you stayed clean."
"Clean?" She stepped back around to face me, her expression hardening into something granite.
"I'm a Harlot, Ben. I was never clean. I just trusted you. That was my mistake."
"It wasn't a mistake," I whispered. "The feeling was real. Everything I felt for you was real."
"Feelings don't mean a damn thing when you're spying on the people who keep me safe," she spat. "You're a traitor."
"I was just watching out for you."
"Then I suppose this will make your job a lot easier."
She reached into the pocket of her leather pants and pulled out a syringe. The liquid inside was clear, shimmering under the fluorescent lights. I struggled, my muscles screaming, but I couldn’t move. My fingers twitched uselessly against the metal armrests. I was at her mercy.
"What is that?"
"Shhhh."
She began to wrap a tourniquet around my upper arm, her touch clinical.
She probed for a vein, her fingers pressing into my bicep.
She pressed a finger to her lips as she pressed the needle against the skin of my forearm, just enough to draw a single, thin bead of blood.
I didn't flinch. I just watched her, the intensity of her gaze pinning me more effectively than the zip ties.
"You wouldn't kill me."
"Now what fun would that be," she whispered.
Inserting the needle, I watched the liquid go into my vein.
"Fuck!" I growled, the drug hitting my brain like a sledgehammer.
She smiled. She looked every bit the gorgeous poison she was, her lips curved in a smirk that promised nothing but agony. Meanwhile, the world began to tilt. I felt lightheaded, the edges of my vision fraying, and the room seemed to expand and contract with every heartbeat.
“Just give it a few minutes and we’ll talk.” She removed the tourniquet, patted my arm and walked away.
I sat there and waited, contemplating every move I did wrong in this job. I fucked up, I deserved this, I knew that and Lantana knew that. There was no getting out of this, not ever.
“So this is what you do to those poor fuckers who come through your doors?”
“Poor fuckers? You have no idea the types of perverts and pedos we have walking through our doors. This is nothing compared to what we do to those.”
“Is it true you ripped a man’s penis off once, while he lay paralyzed and hopeless.”
She laughed. “I cut it off, surgically. He lived for a short while after he was put in jail for raping one of our girls and beating her half to death. I heard he hung himself a few weeks later.”
“What did you inject me with?”
“You’ll see,” she pulled up a chair in front of me, turned it do its back was facing me, and sat down wide-legged to look at me.
"First, let's talk about last night."
I tried to struggle out of the chair and was able to move a fraction of an inch, but enough to do anything, just enough to look foolish.
"Oooh, careful. Wouldn't want you to tear those stitches."
She reached over and poked the stitched area on my side, a sharp, deliberate jab. I groaned, the sound ripped from my throat, my body arching as much as the restraints allowed.
"You're paralyzed, Ben. It’s a cocktail I’ve perfected in all these years of having to deal with men like you.”
“Men like me? I haven’t done anything!”
“And this?" she tapped the syringe, "this is a truth serum. It doesn't make you want to talk. It just makes it impossible to lie. It strips away the filters and leaves without any inhibitions."
I feared her for once and I didn’t understand that notion. "I don't know what you want from me," I gasped. "But I'm not here to hurt any of you."
“But you did, didn’t you. And besides that, I don’t care. I just want the information you have so I can leave and never have to see you again.”
"Now, what did you overhear the Bloody Scorpions talk about, Ben? Tell me."
I tried to clamp my jaw shut, but I had this urge to just tell her everything I know.
"The Scorpions…they’re moving," I blurred out.
"Moving where? What are they doing?"
She reached up and poked my temple, right where the bruise was deepest. I winced, a sharp spark of pain grounding me just as the drug tried to float me away.
"They're... they're setting up a hit," I said, the words tumbling out. "A federal agent."
"Which one?"
"I don't know. I didn't get a name."
She flicked my cock wit the dull part of the blade in her hand, a sharp, sudden snap of skin that sent a jolt of electricity through my groin. I gasped, my hips jerking involunarily.
"Why were you watching us, Ben? Why the Harlots?"