Chapter 6 #2
That was absolutely true. And she deserved whatever Blade and his team had planned for her.
After all, whether it turned out the way she had intended or not, it was her drug that had forever changed his life.
It was because of her drug that he’d been kept captive for three years and then had to live the last seven in hiding because Dr. Gardner would never stop looking for them.
Never stop looking for her, either.
Although she guessed that since Blade and his team were going to end her life anyway, she didn't have to worry about her former boss getting his hands on her.
She might be a commodity he didn't want to lose, but he could still punish her for turning on him and escaping.
Guess there was a silver lining to every cloud.
Was there really?
No.
But it sounded nice.
Sounded hopeful.
Sounded …
“Hey.”
A slap to her cheek accompanied the harsh word, and Whitney realized with a weird sort of detachment she hoped stuck around for her upcoming torture, that she must have passed out.
Oh well.
What could he expect? She hadn't slept properly in over a week, none at all in the last couple of days. She hadn't eaten or had anything to drink in twenty-four hours, and she’d been hanging from a tree in the cold for almost a day.
“Sorry, won't be much fun to torture, can't stay awake,” she mumbled, some distant part of her mind telling her she didn't need to apologize for that, but she didn't care.
Didn’t care much about anything anymore.
Just wanted to rest.
That would be nice.
When had she ever really been allowed to rest? She had to always be working. Brain too big, too smart, had to work.
But not now.
Now she got to rest.
At least until the torture started.
“Not torturing you,” Blade snapped, like he was offended by the idea.
Which was stupid. That’s why he’d followed her there. It was what he’d been doing for almost a day now.
“Although this is going to suck. Big time,” he muttered as he wrapped an arm around her waist.
He felt nice. Warm. But then he lifted her body, and agony unlike anything she’d felt before tore through her shoulders, and she screamed, long and loud.
Hadn't he just said he wasn't going to torture her?
Moving her was torturing her.
“Leave me,” she begged as the pain worsened when he shifted her position a little. She’d rather hang there in her numb state and die than be moved and live. Messed up maybe, but honestly, she had nothing to live for other than the sake of being alive. And being alive was seriously overrated.
“No. It’ll get better in a moment,” Blade said, his voice tight, and she’d felt him flinch at her scream because he was holding her weight. “Tell me something.”
“Tell you something?”
“One of your random facts that you say when you're nervous.”
“Oh …” For once, her mind was blank. Nothing in it. That never happened, her brain was like a machine always running on overdrive. It was nice to have a break from that.
“Come on, Whitney. Tell me something,” Blade insisted. “This is going to be hell, but it’s going to be over soon.”
“You're going to kill me?” she asked, noticing the note of hopefulness in her tone. Right now, death seemed like a blessing if it stopped her from hurting like this.
“No,” he snarled the word at her. “Now start talking.
I'm going to cut you down, then carry you inside. Your shoulders have dislocated from holding your weight for so long, but they’ll feel better when I put them back in.
Inside, I'm going to clean you up, get you pain meds, and something to eat and drink. Warm you up as well. But this will all be easier if you distract yourself.”
Easier?
For her or for him?
Because from where she was standing—hanging—nothing about this was easy for her.
“Please, Whitney.” That whispered plea held more emotion than she would have guessed, given that she was his enemy and he wanted her dead.
Or didn't?
She wasn't sure whether that had changed despite the change in his attitude.
“The space between your eyebrows is called your glabella,” she started reciting meaningless facts. Maybe he was right. Maybe it would help with the torture. Because he could call it whatever he wanted, but being moved more would be torture.
“Good girl,” he murmured, and then she felt the nick of a knife, and the next thing she knew, her arms were dropping down.
Another scream was torn from her lips at the excruciating agony. The world shimmered again, and she didn't hesitate to let it tug at her consciousness.
“Talk,” Blade ordered, and the word seemed to have some sort of magical power over her, because she did.
As he carried her toward the house, she kept spouting off facts.
“That little bit at the end of your shoelaces, the plastic or metal bit, it’s called an aglet. When a newborn baby cries, it’s called a vagitus. The prongs of a fork are called tines.”
Another cry of pain derailed her speech when Blade stepped inside, and the warmth against her frozen skin felt like thousands of fire ants dancing all over her.
The tension in Blade’s body seemed to ramp up several notches, but his steps didn't falter as he carried her toward a couch. At the edges of her blurry vision, tears streamed down her cheeks in a steady flood. She noted he’d put a towel down on the couch to make it an easier clean up after he killed her?
“Make it quick, please,” she whimpered as he set her down on the towel, and a fresh wave of pain rolled over her.
“I’ll have them back in place in a moment,” he assured her.
“No, I meant killing me, the towel, to clean up after, quick, please,” she rambled, not sure if she was making sense in her effort to get the words out.
A large hand grabbed her face. The pressure was enough to clear her vision a little, and she found Blade’s face mere inches from her own. “Towel is there because you're dirty, I told you I’m not killing you.”
Had he?
Implied it maybe, but not outright stated it.
Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Did it mean he was keeping her alive to torture her indefinitely or that he believed her despite there being zero evidence?
“Not made to survive torture,” she whispered. She wasn't strong or tough, wasn't a warrior, she was a brain and nothing more, and she hadn't trained her brain to handle those levels of pain.
“I think you're made to survive a whole lot more than you give yourself credit for, darlin’.”
For once, the way Blade said the word darling didn't sound like an insult. It sounded almost affectionate, even as she knew that couldn’t be true.
Even if he believed she hadn't been a willing participant in creating the drug as it had been developed, she was still an enemy. Still the one responsible for everything he’d been through.
This close, he was very handsome.
Had nice eyes … so dark.
Nice lips … might be nice to kiss them.
Totally inappropriate thoughts … but she couldn’t seem to help them. Must be delirious from the pain.
A hand ghosted over her cheek. “Keep talking, Whitney, this is going to be the worst part.”
Keep talking.
Okay.
She could do that.
Following orders was kind of her thing.
“When you close your eyes, press your hands to them, and you see that flare of light, that’s called phosphenes.”
Hands braced just above one of her shoulders, and just below, and her entire body tensed, bracing for the pain.
“Will go a whole lot easier if you relax,” Blade told her, but that was impossible. No way she could relax.
“The day after tomorrow is called overmorrow. And when you put an exclamation mark together with a question mark, it’s called a—”
Whitney never finished that sentence, because Blade popped her shoulder back into place, and the shaft of indescribable pain that stabbed through her was the final strike her brain needed before it checked out.