Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
Something visceral twisted in his chest as small teardrops trailed silvery lines down the little ladybug’s cheeks.
Steel was overcome by a sudden need to break something.
Preferably, whatever had Rose Gardner crying, but since that was him and the rest of his team, he settled for crushing the tablet he was still watching in his hands.
The device was no match for his enhanced strength, and it easily cracked and bent.
It still wasn't enough, so he picked up the broken pieces and hurled them across the room.
They connected with the wall, shattering into a dozen smaller pieces.
The wall also cracked, with a large hole where the tablet had hit it, and the sight of the crumbled pieces of drywall lying among the remains of the tablet went a small way toward easing the sudden tightness in his chest.
Normally, tears would mean nothing to him. The drugs Ridge Gardner had injected him with had messed with his biology in more ways than just making him ten times stronger than the average man his size.
They had quite literally changed his brain chemistry, and his ability to process emotions was forever tainted.
It was like there was a gap there. He could recognize the emotions he used to feel in others, but he was unable to connect that to any empathy within himself.
While he didn't wish pain on people, he was no longer able to feel anything when it came to other people’s suffering.
Without the ability for empathy, he was little more than a monster.
So why were the little ladybug’s tears affecting him?
Bringing her here was supposed to be a quick and easy way to lure out Dr. Gardner. They had all assumed that as soon as the young woman woke up, she’d be panicked and hysterical. They’d let her stew for a few hours, then send the crazy scientist a little Jack Skellington-worthy Christmas gift.
Easy.
Only their little prisoner hadn't woken up panicked and hysterical. Instead, she’d been completely unimpressed with their behavior. The crazy woman hadn't even hesitated to strip naked to make the heat they’d been pumping into the room a little more bearable.
Not once had she shown a single crack, maybe that was why her tears bothered him.
Or maybe it was the way she was crying. Steel didn't get the feeling that it had anything to do with him and his team abducting her. They weren't messy or loud tears. They just rolled silently down her cheeks as she sat there, staring at nothing.
Was she staring at nothing?
It seemed more like she was staring straight into whatever darkness lived inside her head.
Maybe that was why he was having a hard time with … all of this.
Darkness lived inside that woman’s mind, there was no doubt about it, and that made her a kindred spirit of sorts.
What did that say about him that he still intended to do exactly what he’d planned?
Breaking the little ladybug wasn't personal, but it was necessary. How else were they supposed to draw out Dr. Gardner?
Ever since Steel and his team managed to escape their prison, the man had gone deep underground.
While as far as they could ascertain the doctor was no longer involved in the trial that active military could sign up to be part of, none of them doubted he was still out there, playing his sick games, toying with people’s lives, trying to be God by creating a new species.
Stopping the man was for the world’s benefit, but the torture they’d deliver before they finally stole his life would be their own personal revenge.
Unless Rose knew where her brother was hiding, breaking her and delivering proof to Ridge was their only chance to get to the doctor. If they tried to film a video for Ridge now, he had no doubt that Rose would try to communicate something to him that would alert her brother that it was a trap.
Broken.
That’s what he needed.
And yet as Steel stormed across the kitchen where he’d remained, glued to his tablet while the rest of his team did whatever they were up to right now, he had to fight against a need to go down to the basement.
What he’d say to the woman, he had no idea.
Try to explain to her why he needed her to crack?
That wouldn't serve any purpose, after all, he’d already told her he needed her broken to get to her brother.
But maybe if she understood why he and his team needed to destroy Ridge, then she wouldn't be sitting down there cold and alone, crying.
Somehow, he managed to rein in the compulsion to head to the basement.
Instead, he took the stairs three at a time, both sets, up to the fourth floor where he and his team had their rooms. In his room, there was another tablet.
Going down to the basement wasn't possible, but he needed to maintain some kind of connection to the little ladybug.
It made him feel like she wasn't alone, even though she had no idea he was watching over her.
Made him feel like he wasn't alone, even though he’d never cared about that before.
So long as his team was there, he was never truly alone. They understood what each other felt, they’d all lived through the same thing. Eagle kept a check on them, and they interacted with anyone else on an as-needed basis only.
Yet the little ladybug was messing with his head.
“Stop doing it,” he ordered, though she couldn’t hear his words with four floors between them.
Pulling up the camera feed for the basement cell as soon as he had the tablet in his hands, Steel was surprised to find that Rose was no longer silent. She wasn't sobbing or crying, although tears continued to tumble, seemingly unnoticed, down her pale cheeks.
She was singing.
Softly and sweetly.
Almost unaware she was doing it, if the vacant look in her eyes was anything to go by.
If it were anyone else, he would have thought they were hovering on the edge of a breakdown, almost ready to crack and break.
But this wasn't anyone else.
It was the little ladybug.
A woman who just minutes before she started to weep silent tears had rolled her eyes at the camera and told him that it would take more than hot and cold to break her.
Mr. Bedroom Man.
That’s what she’d called him. Hearing her say it had made him snicker, the small sound surprising him, because Steel couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed. There hadn't been anything to laugh about when Dr. Gardner trashed his life so he could play at being a god.
Other than her lips moving, and the odd tremor rocking her body as it responded to the freezing air now being pumped into her cell, Rose was still. Her eyes stared at nothing, and her singing was audible only because he had the volume turned up high.
What are you thinking about, little ladybug?
Why are you so confident that we won't be able to break you?
When they’d made the decision to go after Ridge Gardner’s sister, they’d never stopped to consider anything more than the basics.
She was a law-abiding citizen, with no criminal history, no drug or alcohol-related charges.
She had a job, paid her taxes, and mostly kept to herself.
They hadn't thought they needed to know more about her than that.
Now he realized they'd made a possibly critical mistake.
It was more than obvious that Rose was no stranger to torture. Given that there was no boyfriend in her life, and no friends either, although she was active online in book-related communities, she hadn't become acquainted with it in the last couple of years.
Which meant it was more than likely something she’d experienced for a long time.
Possibly most of her life.
According to their research, her parents had died when she was young and she’d been raised by her brother, which was why they thought she would be the best possible bait they could find.
Had her brother abused her?
The two had lived off-grid, as had the family when the siblings’ parents were still alive. A small farm, they grew their own food, and provided for all their own needs, similar in fact to the way Eagle Oswald and his siblings had grown up, before their parents were murdered.
As Steel stood there, clutching the tablet, listening to the little ladybug sing softly to herself, he became more convinced that he and his team had made a mistake going rogue with this one.
If they’d spoken with Eagle about their plans to go after Ridge’s sister, he knew the man would have insisted on sending someone to speak with her first.
Maybe the crazy little ladybug would have been willing to help them.
Too late for that now, though.
They’d started down this path, and there was no going back, no do-overs.
So he was going to have to find a way to crush Rose’s spirit, break it down to nothing, and then pray that once he and his team had what they needed, it wouldn't be too late for her to rebuild herself, putting her broken pieces back together.
December 26th
9:25 A.M.
The cold was making her sleepy.
Rose was lying in a corner of her cell, curled up in a ball in the best attempt she could make to ward off as much of the cold air as possible. Her body had been shivering for hours, to the point where every one of her muscles ached.
Between the heat and then the cold, she hadn’t had a chance to sleep, and still hadn’t been given anything to eat or drink.
While the cramping in her stomach from hunger pangs was annoying, she’d grown up being deprived of food if she didn't perform her schoolwork up to the desired standard, so she was more than used to that.
However, the lack of water was hurting.
It made her body feel heavy and lethargic. Made it harder for her to form any sort of coherent plan, and even if she could, it made it less likely that her body could do what she needed it to do to even stand a chance at escaping.
Right as she was about to drift off into a hypothermia-induced slumber, one she actually hoped she might not wake from, the air in the room began to shift. It was warm air, but not as hot as it had been earlier.