"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine. You look pale." She turns, eyes narrowing. "Actually, you've looked pale since you woke up. And earlier, in the van—my men said you were sick."
"It's the chloroform. It doesn't agree with me."
"Maybe." She walks back toward me, slow and predatory. "Or maybe it's something else."
Before I can react, my stomach heaves.
The nausea that's been building since I woke up crests without warning, and I barely manage to turn my head before I'm vomiting onto the hardwood floor.
It goes on for what feels like forever—bile then dry heaves, my body rejecting everything while I'm helpless to do anything but ride it out.
When it finally stops, I'm shaking, tears streaming down my face, my throat raw and burning.
Solveig is watching me with an expression I can't read.
"Interesting," she says softly.
"It's the chloroform," I repeat.
But my voice is weak, unconvincing even to my own ears.
She crouches in front of me again, and this time the knife comes up to my face.
The flat of the blade presses against my cheek, cold and smooth.
"You know what I think?" she murmurs. "I think you're lying to me."
"I'm not?—"
"Shh." The blade traces down my cheek, my jaw, my neck.
Not cutting. Not yet.
"I've spent thirty years learning to read people, Dalla. Learning to spot weaknesses. And right now, you're radiating fear that goes beyond just worrying about yourself."
The knife continues its path down my body.
Over my collarbone.
Along the neckline of my shirt.
"I think there's something you're not telling me," Solveig continues. "Something that scares you even more than dying."
The blade reaches my stomach.
She presses the point against my abdomen, just hard enough to dimple the fabric. My whole body goes rigid.
"Please," I whisper.
"Please what?" She tilts her head, a cruel smile playing at her lips. "I haven't done anything. Yet."
She increases the pressure, and I feel a sting as the knife pierces through my shirt and into the skin beneath.
Not deep. Just a scratch.
But enough to draw blood.
