God, I love her.
“Easy, Doc,” I drawl, feeling him pull against my skin, gritting my teeth.He’s the worst.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, forehead sweaty. “The artery was a clean cut, but I need to make sure everything is tied off. If you move the right way and it comes apart, you’re dead.”
“Fantastic.” I sigh.
“Sorry.”
Jesus, Collins would’ve been better. With her gentle touch, she’s a godsend in comparison to his sporadic movements. Wheeling his stool closer, he grabs more gauze. “At least Collins was there. That tourniquet is the only reason I’m able to put this back together.”
“Tell me about it.”
He continues working and I look to the open door. Collins deposited me without much fanfare—tugging on her dress, drenched with my blood, heels kicked off. She claimed wanting to shower, but I saw how she paused at the door.
The same thing she did when Killian brought me in after the first trial. I was out of it, so I thought I imagined it, but no. It was there. Fear, real and heartbreaking. Something about this room scares her.
What down here could scare my viper? She’s unflappable in the middle of danger, taking in the bloodshed so easily. I admire her control, her inability to be swayed by the shit of our world. But for something to crack her resolve, it had to be big.
And I want to figure it out. I need to protect her.
“All those nights working the morgue came in handy,” he says, dabbing blood from the wound. “Taught her to react fast.”
Confused, I tilt my head, trying to gauge his face. “What’s that?”
Simon pulls the thread tighter, brows furrowed. “The morgue. Collins used to be here all the time.”
“In here?” I ask, brows furrowed. I suddenly want to hold my gun. “Why the morgue?”
Simon glances up, scanning me before looking away. “She used to train here.”
It sounds innocent enough. Collins wants to be a doctor, working in the morgue is a great way to gain experience. It would explain why the sight of blood or death doesn’t scare her.
But my mind won’t let it go.Who trains in the morgue?
“When was this?”
“Uhm…” He winds the thread around his tweezers, tying off a section. “God, when she was younger. Twelve maybe? She spent her nights down here with Ferguson.”
My mind stills.The fuck?
“Doing what?”
“Teaching,” he says, simply. At my confused look, he sighs, going back to his job, almost like I’m the thick one. “Ferguson used to bring Collins down here at night to check out the bodies, the wounds, and do autopsies.”
My stomach twists. At twelve, he had her down here, poking and prodding dead bodies?
“Then once she got the hang of that, he had her help in the interviews.”
My blood runs cold and the room buzzes in my ears, silence loud.
Ferguson used to call torture sessionsinterviews. He would bring in rats, informants, enemies, hell, druggies and sex workers to test out his torture techniques. With a metal table full of tools, he’d strap them down and figure out different ways to make them talk. It didn’t matter about what—this was purely for him to give into the sadistic shit inside his veins.
I still remember my first timeinterviewingwith him. I had been in the clan only two years and had made it through rough patches, sticking close to Maeve. Because of that, I got his attention—he wanted to know what I was made of. He only brought down special runners to the torture room—only those he thought would stick it out. From what I understood, Killian and Maeve started young.
It explained so much about them. How he made them into monsters.
He brought me down into a dank cell, cement walls and dirt floors, with the sound of something scurrying in the corners.There was a man tied to a chair with thick belts and metal clasps. It smelled like old blood and vomit.
