31. Rowan #3
Evelyn stares at me before looking away. When she turns back, she has lost enough control that I can finally see the woman underneath the professor. "Orell is going to kill you as soon as Erik hands over the files."
I stop. Evelyn wipes beneath one eye with the back of her wrist and looks furious with herself for needing to.
"He was going to keep you alive until the exchange. Your escape shortened his patience." She picks up the bowl, carries it to the sink, and pours the bloody water away. "He thinks Erik is close enough that holding you anywhere on the mainland is now an unacceptable risk."
"The boat." I watch her shoulders stiffen before she sets the empty bowl down.
Evelyn looks toward the closed door instead of at me.
I step closer. "Where does it go?"
She turns from the sink. "I don't know."
"That may be the first answer I believe from you." I watch her for any sign she intends to correct me, but the door opens before she can respond.
Rahil enters with two men. Evelyn moves between me and them before I understand what she is doing. "She needs rest."
Rahil closes the door behind him. The cut across his cheek has been cleaned and covered, though blood has already spotted one edge of the dressing. "She needs to answer one question."
He takes a photograph from inside his jacket and puts it on the medical table. Dad's storage unit. I look at it without moving while Rahil places a second image beside it, this one showing the old Route 9 records box.
"Where did Jeremy keep the originals?" He rests two fingers beside the photograph.
"I don't know."
Rahil picks up a restraint from the counter. Evelyn steps closer to the table instead of retreating with the other two men. "Rahil."
He doesn't look at her. "Orell wants the location."
"Orell wants leverage delivered intact." Evelyn puts herself close enough that he has to acknowledge her.
Rahil finally turns his head. "She walked eight miles."
"Four, probably." I sit on the edge of the table because my legs are starting to fail me. "The route sign said four to the highway. Accuracy matters."
Rahil looks at me for several seconds. Evelyn makes a strangled sound that is much too close to a laugh, which may be the strangest thing I've heard all day.
Then Rahil takes my left wrist and secures it to the rail beside the table, leaving enough room that I can sit upright. The second restraint goes around my right wrist. I look at Evelyn while she watches him check both cuffs. "Is this the part where the law professor observes?"
She flinches and moves closer to my side of the table, though she doesn't touch me.
Rahil takes my injured shoulder and rotates my arm backward until pain shoots from the bruise into my neck. I bite down hard enough that my teeth hurt.
He keeps my arm there. "Where are the originals?"
"I don't know." I force the answer out without giving him anything else.
Rahil increases the pressure. My body tries to fold away from it, but the restraints hold my wrists while he keeps the joint within a range that hurts without dislocating it. He knows exactly what he is doing, and I know that too.
Dad's originals may not even exist in the form Orell wants. We found copies, backups, notes, and records distributed across different locations because Dad didn't trust one repository. I can't give Rahil a location I don't know. Even if I could, I wouldn't.
He releases my shoulder without warning, and the pain decreases enough that I almost sag forward. Rahil waits while I straighten, then steps into my line of sight. "Where?"
"You're asking the same question." I shift my injured shoulder as little as possible.
His expression doesn't change before he reaches behind me. Evelyn moves immediately, cutting between his arm and the back of the table. "No."
Rahil looks at her. She doesn't move away.
"Orell's standing order is that the leverage arrives intact." Evelyn points toward the restraint on my wrist. "You know exactly what that means."
"She is intact." Rahil moves one step closer to her.
Evelyn holds her position. "She is fourteen weeks pregnant with triplets, dehydrated, bruised, and running on almost no sleep. You put her into a medical emergency, and Orell loses the thing he plans to trade."
Rahil studies her for several seconds before looking at me. Then he lets go. Orell's rules aren't suggestions.
I lower my head because holding it up has become unnecessary work. The room sways slightly when I look at the floor. My arms hurt from the restraints, my shoulder burns, and fatigue has started turning every sound farther away than it should be.
Rahil removes one wrist restraint. I don't understand why until he moves behind me and locks his forearm across my neck.
Evelyn crosses the room before he finishes positioning himself. "Rahil."
He looks at her over my shoulder. "This leaves no damage that matters."
I claw at his arm long enough to know I won't break the hold. He doesn't crush my throat. He cuts off blood flow cleanly from both sides, which Erik once explained can put someone out far faster than choking ever will.
I think about Erik because apparently I'm predictable when unconsciousness is approaching. I think about the ring I never knew existed and the three babies he finally knows about. The room narrows while footsteps approach somewhere beyond the door.
A man speaks from the corridor, and I know the voice.
Orell.
"Have the boat ready before dawn."
Rahil's arm stays in place, and the room disappears.