Chapter 2 #2
She probably shouldn’t have pushed it, but she could only do so much when it came to these assholes.
She now realized that this wouldn’t get any better.
It would just be a case of more pain for her, until they finally showed their hand.
Unfortunately she was pretty sure that Terk might be right—she was a test subject to see what she could do.
If she didn’t do anything, they would up the ante.
Then she would end up in a worse scenario than she had been.
Yet, as they made it more uncomfortable for her, looking to see if she would try to escape, they just might reveal their hand in the process.
Why they would think she had any abilities, she didn’t know, but it all came back to the job interview she’d been foolish enough to come to England for.
It even sounded stupid to say that it was a job interview, since it wasn’t really.
Yet she’d come over to talk to them about this new department.
One of the things that she wanted to know was why they weren’t talking to Terk.
He was the guy who had managed the previous department for the US.
So, if MI6 wanted to set up something like that here, surely you would want the best guy on their team, and that would undoubtedly be Terk.
Amy frowned. But if it wasn’t Jonas’s hand to deal, then maybe he really didn’t have a choice in the matter.
Sometimes working with governments was way more convoluted than necessary.
She laughed at that because it wasn’t just sometimes .
It was all the time. As everybody did their own checks and balances to cover their own butts, it ended up just making it worse instead of better.
She was pretty darn sure that was exactly what was happening right now.
She would sort it out with them when she got out of here, but somebody had found out about her through that request for her appearance at that meeting.
Betrayal was something she found very hard to deal with.
Somebody in the government had betrayed somebody else in the government—no surprise there.
She shook her head and laughed again, then settled back, determined not to let them get to her. She just didn’t know how long this would last and how ugly it could get, before they decided she was way too comfortable. Then they would make it way the hell worse for her.
She closed her eyes and tried to rest. When she opened her eyes again, she realized she’d fallen asleep.
The door was opening ever-so-slightly, and she stiffened, watching, but instead of her captor stepping inside, something was dropped in.
She scrunched up to the back of the bed as a large snake slithered toward her.
She sucked in her breath and stared at it.
“If that isn’t a confirmation, I don’t know what is,” she muttered out loud.
No answer came from anybody, but she knew for sure that she was being watched now.
Somebody wanted to see what she would do with this.
As much as she didn’t particularly like snakes, she knew this guy was also terrified by whatever circumstance he’d just found himself in.
As she watched, it slithered around, looking for a way out too, and she smiled.
“You find a way out, buddy, and then I’ll follow.”
Of course, she would need a hell of a lot bigger space to accommodate her than him.
As she watched, he went all the way around the room.
Now, as it got closer to her, it clearly smelled her scent and realized she was here.
She had no idea whether or not he was dangerous, but any animal in this circumstance was dangerous, and it didn’t matter whether they were considered lethal or not.
Every animal would fight to defend itself, and this poor critter had already been captured.
Kind of like her. It was probably a good bet on their part that she would not take kindly to a snake, but she found very few in the animal world distressing enough to really upset her.
Mostly the two-legged predators offended her.
Which meant that this guy, as long as he didn’t bite her, was totally okay with her.
Drawn to her body heat, he slithered up onto the bed.
She stiffened as he got closer and closer.
“It’s cold in here, isn’t it?” she asked him in a conversational tone. “It’s all right. It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you.”
He wasn’t showing any signs of aggression or attack. He just appeared to be looking for warmth.
“I wonder what they did to you, poor thing,” she murmured, then realized how it would look to these guys if they were watching her, expecting her to freak out while dealing with a snake perched on her bed.
That was hardly much of a test, but she was afraid that now the tests would start in earnest, whether she liked them or not.
She looked down at the snake, sliding closer and closer to her leg, before it slowly crept up against her body and wrapped itself up underneath her knee, soaking up as much of her heat as it could. “You and me both, buddy, you and me both.”
She settled back to wait for their next move because this one had just sided with her, and nothing much they could do about it.
*
Wallace followed behind Riff in the darkness, their flashlights and headlamps bouncing across concrete tunnel walls, revealing water dripping down and occasionally rats scrambling away from them.
When they came up to a series of stairs, Riff asked him, “You picking up anything?”
He nodded. “Definitely, I just don’t know what,” he muttered. “Everything is muffled down here.”
“That’s because you’re looking for some direct response,” Riff pointed out.
“Don’t just absorb the atmosphere. Recognize this setting for what it is, and note that it won’t interfere in any way with any signal you’re getting—because your signals aren’t traveling the normal way of other signals.
That’s your brain kicking in, trying to use logic.
Use only your psychic senses instead, and don’t allow anything else to get in the way of it. ”
Wallace understood in theory what Riff was saying, and it did make sense because the mind did tend to kick in and say, Oh, you’re underground, so no signal . Yet telepathy was not the type of signals they were sending, and they didn’t need to be aboveground to send them.
Wallace kept sending off a locator beacon signal, directing it to find Amy, trying to let her know that he was coming.
He was hoping that something as simple as that would give almost a metronome effect, and she would pick it up on the airwaves.
He sent it out, knowing that it would also reverberate within the tunnels and should amplify itself, without his having to put out too much energy on it.
As they moved up the stairs, they found themselves at a crossroads, with another structure, another tunnel, cutting off in a different direction.
Riff walked past it, but Wallace couldn’t. He called out, “I need to go down there.”
Riff turned, stared at him, and came back in his direction. “You sure?”
Wallace nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure. I don’t know what’s down here, but I need to go.” He added in a clipped note, “You can go on that way.”
“I think we need to stay together.”
Wallace hesitated, then shook his head. “I don’t know that we have time.”
Swearing, Riff nodded. “Fine, I’ll head up this way then. You keep going that way, but stay in communication.” And, with that, Riff was gone.
Unable to ignore this pressure inside that screamed at Wallace to move faster, he raced down this new tunnel toward whatever lay at the other end, just wishing he could see something, anything, that would give him a clue.
As he got farther along, he heard a voice. He hesitated and crept closer, finding a man on the ground. Wallace wasn’t sure if he was homeless, but he looked to be in a bad way. Wallace crouched beside him. “Hey, what’s up?”
The guy gasped. “I need help, man, I need help.”
“I can call you some help.” Wallace pulled out his phone, swearing as he checked the bars because, of course, no signals were down here. He decided to use telepathy, only he had no idea if he could reach Riff. His telepathy only seemed to work with Amy.
The guy kept trying to breathe through his pain. So when he spoke next, it was around his breathing. “Phones don’t work down here,… but I’ve been calling out for hours.… Those assholes did this.”
Wallace’s heart stilled. “What assholes?”
“Some guys.” He gasped for more air. “I don’t know who they are.
” He groaned. “I was kidnapped and held captive for a couple days. Then they wanted me to do some shit for them, and I just… I couldn’t do it and didn’t know what they were talking about.
They thought I was some other dude,… but I wasn’t.
I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
” He gave a sarcastic laugh that set off a fit of coughing. “That’s the story of my life.”
It was easy for Wallace to see the man was in bad shape. Bending, he slipped his arms under the man’s body. “Okay, take a deep breath.” And, with that, he straightened up.
The broken man screamed in pain.
“Did they beat you?”
The man nodded. “One of them didn’t like me. Every time I opened my mouth, he pretty well smacked it closed,” he murmured. “Then, as I failed to do what they wanted, the beatings got worse.”
As he carried the man back toward Riff, Wallace added, “Tell me what happened.”
“I was in a hotel downtown,” he began, between groans.
“I came to London for a job interview, went to the pub, and was talking to some guys there because I felt good about the interview. One of the guys asked me if my name was Wallace, and I replied, yeah, though I didn’t know how the hell he knew. ”
At the name, Wallace himself stiffened. “Your name is Wallace?” he asked incredulously.
“Yeah, Gerry Wallace,” he stated.
“Ah.”
“My name set him off,” Gerry muttered.
As Wallace took another step, it jarred Gerry, who cried out in pain. “Anything broken?”
“I don’t know, likely though,” he muttered. “They left me in here to die. I’m sure of that. I’m just not the dying kind.”
As Wallace got out to the other tunnel, Riff waited at the T intersection. He took one look at the man and frowned. “What the hell?”
“Hardly what we came for, I know, but, more important, he has information, and I think he was already kidnapped by the same guys.” Then he quickly explained what the guy had told him. Riff stared at his partner. “So, you’re also a target then.”
“Yeah, makes me wonder what the fuck they’re up to with her.”
The injured man stared at him. “What do you mean, you’re a target?”
“My name is Wallace,” he explained. “I also came into town for an interview. Hardly a job interview, but it was to lead a team for the British government, so I was over here for talks about it. A woman who was to be part of the whole deal has also been kidnapped, and we’re down here trying to find her. ”
“Shit, man,” the guy muttered. “Good thing you’re the one who rescued me.”
“Did they say anything about a woman?”
“Yeah, they did. That they had to pick her up, but she wouldn’t present much of a challenge. They were hoping that she did a better job than I did.”
“What did they ask you to do?” Wallace asked urgently.
“Jesus, just strange stuff that I don’t even know about.
I really don’t know what they expected, but they kept getting angry with me because I couldn’t do anything.
I kept telling them that I would do whatever they wanted, but they had to tell me what they wanted me to do.
One did say something about being a show pony, but that’s…
I don’t even know what the hell he meant by that. ”
“Did they mention psychics or anything weird like that?”
“Yeah, he told me to bend spoons or do something like that, but what the hell? Who can bend spoons?” he cried out. And even that much movement caused him to cry out in pain.
“Okay, take it easy.”
Riff stepped up to ask him, “Do you have any idea where they kept you?”
“All I know is that I got out of the tunnel, and I can’t walk,” he shared. “Both my legs are damaged, so they carried me for a while, and dropped me where this guy found me. So it’s got to be somewhere nearby.”
Riff nodded. “You go look,” he suggested to Wallace. “I’ll get some help for this guy.” And, with that, Riff snatched the injured man and took off.
Wallace turned, stared down the tunnel where he’d come from, then swore and sent out a message in his head. I’m coming, kiddo. I’m coming.
And dammit, for the first time, he almost got this faint acknowledgment, almost Amy’s voice, saying, Hurry it up please .