His fingers grab hold of my hair near the scalp and hold, because he’s decided he’s going to touch me, and that I’m not going to do anything about it.
That Ican’tdo anything about it. And the worst thing about all of this is that I can’t. I can’t do anything to stop him. Not in this metal box, with this chain around my ankle.
His touch is firm but almost gentle at the same time, and that makes bile rise faster than a slap.
“Don’t,” I say, anyway, useless. He ignores me and pops the cap off a syringe in his other palm.
“Be still,” he cautions. “I need to draw a little blood, and if you wiggle around this is definitely gonna hurt you more’n does me.”
I think about struggling, but in the end, I don’t like needles, and I don’t like blood. I stand still as he pulls my hand out and sticks my finger, holding a plastic tube to it to collect a blood specimen quickly and efficiently.
“What is that for?”
“All in good time.” His smile widens, and he pockets the tube, never removing his other hand from my head. Instead, he digs his fingers into my hair and twists, fisting a portion at the base of my skull and yanking. Hard.
The world tilts.
And suddenly I’m not here.
I’mthere.
I’m in the service corridor with the stuttering fluorescent light, the one I told myself to remember because the cameras blinked dead in the blind spot and no one ever thinks to look behind the linen carts. The carpet there eats sound. My shoes don’t make a noise as I head toward the lobby.
I’m almost past the door when it blows open.
He grabs me the same way then, from the side—hand in my hair, knuckles punishing, the other arm banding low around my ribs as he drags me back into the dark between the cameras. His breath is in my ear. I taste peppermint and cigarettes and rot.
“Gotcha,” he says, delighted, because his kind adore the hunt more than the catch.
“ZEUS,” I gasp, but the dog is already moving.
My dog hits him like a fired shell. Forty-five pounds of muscle and pure love turned into teeth. The sound Danner makes—shock, then pain—lives alarmingly close to laughter. Zeus’s jaws clamp on Danner’s calf just above the boot. The meat gives.
Danner buckles, swears, lashes out with his knee. Zeus doesn’t let go. Blood slicks his fur. I twist, kick back, rake the back of my heel down Danner’s shin. He grunts. I go for his eyes with my nails but only catch his cheek. He jerks my head again; my vision goes white-hot then black at the edges.
“Little bitch,” he snarls, and oh, the joy.
He reaches for his gun. I don’t see it, but I know the body mechanics of it—the way a shoulder dips, the way his center of gravity changes. A hard object punches my kidney from behind and all the breath leaves me. Another hand from someone I didn’t know was there clamps over my mouth. The hallwaycollapses down to a single point of my breath choking in my throat.
Don’t panic, don’t panic.
All the good training in the world falters when your skull meets painted cinderblock at speed. He slams my head into the wall. Light explodes. I smell blood. Zeus’s snarl gurgles. Danner’s leg thuds into him. The second man—there was always a second man—drives an elbow into Zeus’s ribs, once, twice, until the sound changes. I try to scream and squeak like a mouse against the hand at my mouth.
Con, I think, stupidly, like it’s a prayer.Conrad is going to think I left him again.
The thought detaches and floats away like a balloon cut free. Darkness swallows the string.
When I come back, I’m on my knees in a metal box and my ankle hates me. The tape recorder sits on its little throne. The air tastes like salt and metal. The door is real. Danner is real.
So is the hand in my hair.
I blink, and the container snaps back into focus with a violence that leaves me lightheaded. Danner’s face swims before me, pig-blue eyes bright with the fascination men like him always reserve for the moment you remember who holds your leash.
“Ahh,” he says softly, pulling harder. Tears prick at my eyes where the hair pulls free at the root. “There it is. It’s all coming back to you now, isn’t it?”
I plant my palm against his chest where his badge used to sit and push. The clamp light buzzes above us.
I meet his eyes and make my voice steady, because if I can’t stop what’s next, I can at least refuse to give him the theater he wants.
