Chapter 5
Cass
My back hit the wall. I shrieked in horror as Shane writhed on the ground, jerking and seizing as electricity pulsed through him. He clutched at the collar, choking. His throat bled from that wire. Any deeper, and it would slice his jugular.
“Stop!” I shrieked. “Stop it! Fucking stop it! Right now! You asshole!”
Then the bright white lights on the collar went green. The thin buzzing sound ceased. Shane lay still, shuddering. I saw his chest moving.
He was still alive. Oh, thank God.
I braced myself against the wall, dragging in choked, gasping whimpers, but my lungs wouldn’t open up for air. The door lock to the corridor clicked, the door opened, and Halliwell strode in, and stood over the unconscious man, nudging him with his foot.
“Well, well,” he said, his voice light. “That was entertaining. Did you come on to him like that just to shock me? I’m not so easily shocked, you know.”
“Y-y-you fucking m-m-monster!”
“Ah, ah, ah! Language. Come on, girl, help me get him back over to his side of the glass. We certainly can’t leave him out here.”
“I will not help you, you sick son-of-a-bitch!”
“You’re very agitated, Cassandra,” he said a soothing tone. “Calm down. Breathe deeply. And, ah... if you would make yourself decent? Please? It’s a bit much for my delicate sensibilities.” He gestured at my naked torso, his face faintly pained.
Oh, God. I’d actually forgotten. I tugged the dress straps back up over my shoulders with fingers that shook.
Halliwell crouched to grab Shane’s ankles, and dragged him briskly back into the part of the cell delineated by the tracks for the sliding glass wall, leaving a long red smear of blood from his lacerated throat.
Shane’s head bumped heavily over the tracks, making me wince. “He needs medical attention! Antibiotics, bandages! You should send someone down to—”
“You just don’t get it yet, do you?” He dropped Shane’s bare feet to the floor.
“This man’s need for medical attention is directly proportionate to how useful he is to me.
Which at the moment is, not at all. Except for entertainment value, of course.
These last few minutes… my goodness. My poor heart. Who knew? Naughty minx.”
“You are a goddamn pervert,” I said. “Who are you spanking? Me, or him?”
He straightened up, rolling his shoulders. “I don’t see why you’re so distraught,” he said coolly. “I didn’t give you any electric shocks. Are you just angry because I stopped him before he was able to complete the sex act with you? You oversexed vixen.”
“You are disgusting,” I told him. “Don’t make light of this. It’s horrific.”
“Possibly, but think of your sister, all alone in the Cascade Clinic, fighting for her life. You are in no position to scold me, girl.”
I let out a shuddering breath, my hand pressed so hard against the rough textured wall, I scraped off my own skin. Reggie. Oh, God, I was in such deep shit.
Halliwell tugged his suit jacket into place and adjusted his tie.
“He can look after himself. If he has a stroke, or his heart stops, or that wound goes septic, or whatever else, it’s just destiny, looking after itself.
Don’t concern yourself.” He keyed in a sequence on his phone, and a mechanism began to hum.
The thick glass slab once again emerged from the groove in the wall and ground across it, sliding deep into the recessed opening on the other side.
“In any case, you’ll be glad to know that I’ve decided he has nothing left in his head worth prying out.
And as a special favor to you, I’ve decided to eliminate him humanely.
No interrogation experts. You’ll come down with me tomorrow and witness his termination. ”
“No!” I yelled. “You can’t do that to him!”
“I can do anything I want, Cassandra. It’s time.
He’s a dangerous distraction for you. You cannot fixate on anything other than your job right now.
I need Glow-worm finished, and here you are, spending all your time mooning over this fellow.
Watching shower videos, for God’s sake. It’s ridiculous.
Tomorrow, you cut that bond. Snip-snip, and on you go, marching toward your ultimate destiny. No more frivolous diversions.”
“I will not witness that! I cannot watch you murder him!”
“So you won’t offer the poor man a single kindly face to gaze on as he breathes his last?” His eyes were wide with fake compassion. “You’d deny him that?”
“But I… but he—”
“You need a sharp lesson about choices and consequences. It’s always a problem with extremely gifted young people like you.
They aren’t used to things not going their way.
It’s such a rude surprise to them. Often, they behave badly.
” He held up his passcard. It flashed green.
The door clicked open. He offered me his arm.
I shrank away. He rolled his eyes impatiently. “For God’s sake, Cassandra,” he grumbled, as I lurched out the door after him. “You’re being such a child.”
The door shut. The lock clicked shut. We walked in silence to the elevator bank.
He hit the button for Level Three, where the apartments were located.
I winced away from my own reflection in the gleaming metal wall.
My hair was a wild hag’s mane, my dress was crooked, my boobs were clearly visible through the dress…
Jesus, had they been that visible at the restaurant?
No wonder Andrew had sussed me out for sex.
No wonder Shane concluded that I was his farewell pity fuck.
I was dressed for sex, and I looked like I’d had a rough night of it already.
Face hot red, makeup smeared, lipstick worn down, lips puffy and swollen.
Red scrapes from Shane’s beard stubble. Eyes bright with terror, and other complicated emotions.
Shane was lying there, injured and untreated, on the floor. And tomorrow, he would die… right in front of me.
The elevator pinged, the door opened. Halliwell held it open for me.
“Sleep well, Cassandra,” he said briskly.
“I need you in top form tomorrow. You’ll be my hostess for another business dinner tomorrow night, after we deal with the prisoner’s disposal.
I’m holding this party right here, at headquarters.
The OlgarCorp team responds well to eye candy.
Another dress will be delivered tomorrow.
That one you’re wearing appears to be… well, not salvageable, after tonight’s adventures. ”
“I am not eye candy,” I snapped.
“You are whatever I need you to be, girl, so shut up and behave.”
I backed away from him, as the door closed on his low, mocking laughter.
I had a hard time keying in the code that opened my apartment, my eyes were so full of furious tears. It seemed silly that there was a code at all. Everyone in this place seemed to have access to it. Hell, why have a door at all?
I was not a weepy type. Mom had always called me a stoic. But whatever my natural emotional blocks, they had all been pulverized tonight.
Tomorrow was unthinkable. But I’d better start thinking, and fast. The parameters of how bad things could get in this place were expanding every minute that passed.
Halliwell could demand anything he wanted in exchange for Reggie’s life.
And he clearly liked doing it. He got off on making me feel vulnerable.
Exercising his power. He was going to kill that man in front of me just to show me who was boss.
Eventually he might use Reggie the same way. That would be the end of me.
I tore off the dress and shoved it into the garbage chute.
The shoes followed, and the underwear. My hands shook.
Halliwell had made it look as if I were his accomplice.
Like I had deliberately lured Shane into that sick ambush by kissing him.
And Halliwell had opened the glass wall just to scare me. A threat of second-hand rape.
I bet the twisted old bastard hadn’t expected me to like it.
It had surprised me, too. I’d never been all that interested in sex. I was too stuck in my head to let go and enjoy it. After trying it a few times, I had basically concluded that it wasn’t worth the mess. That my hormones were permanently stuck at the “take it or leave it” setting.
So I’d left it. I’d been busy with a sick mom at the time, anyway, and then with an orphaned sister. I simply could not be bothered.
Well, I sure was bothered now. And Halliwell had seen exactly how much that man moved me.
How deep those feelings went. I sobbed it out in the shower, then toweled off, trying not to think about the cameras probably hidden all over the apartment.
Wondering if people were always watching me in my most private moments.
Get real, Cass. Of course they fucking are.
My phone rang as I was swabbing inky black smudges from beneath my eyes. At four AM? Reggie. I wrapped myself in a robe and lunged for the phone. Reggie’s thin, hollowed face appeared on the screen, lit with eerie blue light from her tablet.
“Babe, what are you doing awake?” I asked. “It’s almost four AM!”
“You’re always working in the daytime. And I can’t sleep anyhow. Whenever I try, I have nightmares. So I mostly just doze. Sorry if I woke you up.”
“No, I was in the shower, see my towel? I’m glad you called. I miss you like crazy.”
Reggie’s face crumpled. “I miss you too.”
The next several minutes were spent soothing her, trying to figure out the problem, which unfortunately was not one I could solve.
She wasn’t being overtly abused or maltreated, just ignored.
Bland, unappetizing meals arrived three times a day, delivered by an orderly who wouldn’t speak to her.
A team of doctors examined her every day without talking to her or acknowledging her when she spoke.
The nurse took blood and tissue scrapings from her throat every day, but not one of them had a fucking kind word for a lonely little girl locked in a windowless room.
She might as well be in a cage in a kennel.
Worse, even. At least the dogs could bark at each other for company.
“You can always call me,” I said. “Whenever I’m not at work.”
She snorted. “When is that? Only late at night.”
This was sadly true. I clocked twenty-hour days on a regular basis trying to finish Glow-worm. “I’m sorry about that, honey. Did you read the books I sent to your tablet? And the films?”
“Yeah, they were great,” she said listlessly. “Could you send me some more?”
“Sure, sweetheart. I’ll find something really special for you.”
She stared at me through the screen with sad brown eyes. Her hair was as red as mine but in this light it looked black. “Am I going to die, Cass? I ask the doctors, and the nurse, but they don’t hear me. I feel like a ghost. Like maybe I’m dead already.”
Those fucking assholes. “Of course you’re not going to die,” I assured her. “Halliwell said he had a cure. You’re better than before, right? No more of those rashes, or the fevers and nosebleeds or coughing or snot, right? All that stuff has stopped.”
“Yeah,” Reggie said. “But there’s not much point being alive here. They never let me go out. There isn’t even a window. Just cinderblocks. And I’m locked in.”
Those sick fuckers were being cruel just for the sake of being cruel.
It drove me mad with fury and frustration.
“Then I’ll be your window,” I told her, walking out onto the deck.
I flipped the screen so that I could pan the phone around, showing her the white surf surging up on the wide, dark beach below, the sharp crags of rock, the morning star hanging heavy and bright over the dark hills.
“This place is messed up, but at least the Pacific Ocean is beautiful to look at.”
“I can’t stand it, Cass,” Reggie said, her voice thick with tears.
“I’m sorry. I know you’re working really hard for me.
But I can’t keep doing this. I’d rather just be with you now, and whatever happens, happens, you know?
At least we could say goodbye, right? I don’t want to die here alone with people who don’t even see me. ”
“You won’t,” I promised rashly. “I’ll find a solution. Hang on, okay? Please, babe. For me. Try to get some sleep. Think of the ocean waves I just showed you.”
“Okay,” Reggie said faintly. “I’ll try. I love you.”
“I love you, too, angel. Remember that. Think of the stars, the waves. That waterfall we went to, that one time, remember it? The forest, with the long hanging moss? As soon as I spring you out of there, we’ll go back to all our favorite places.”
“Promise?”
“Pinky swear. Cross my heart.”
“Let’s not hope to die, though. And never mind the thousand needles.” Reggie gave me a fleeting ghost of a smile. “I do a thousand needles every day as it is.”
“No needles. Just freedom. The wind in your hair, the sun through the leaves. Lazy afternoons by a stream with a good book. You and me.”
“Okay,” Reggie said. “I’ll let you sleep. Bye, then. I love you.”
“I love you, too, sweetheart.”
She gave me that shaky, brave smile that broke my heart. After we closed the call, I started crying again. It was so confusing. I had to be strong for Reggie, but paradoxically, I had to be soft for her, too, because everything around her was so fucking hard.
I’d done some hard things in my twenty-six years. Been proud of them, too. But being strong and soft at the same time was the trickiest thing I’d ever attempted.
And by far the most important.