ChapterOne
“Give us the names of the others.”
Lena Silverstone managed to pry her eyelids up a fraction of an inch. It didn’t help much. The room she found herself in was dim and completely unfamiliar. Shadows moved about it, but she wasn’t certain whether the shadows were people or just shadows. Frowning in concentration as she tried to focus her blurring vision, she turned the demand over in her mind, trying to figure out what he was talking about, where she was, and why she was in this unfamiliar place.
Someone grabbed her by her hair, jerking her head back until the base of her skull cracked against something hard and metallic--the back of the seat she was strapped to, her mind supplied. She winced as the blow and the tugging at her scalp sent pain through her nerve endings.
“Names! Give us some names!” the command came again.
Her thoughts were disjointed but finally a fact emerged. She’d been drugged. It wasn’t just her vision that was out of focus. Her mind wandered drunkenly from one thing to another. Her tongue and lips felt swollen and numb. “Uders?” she finally managed to emit the sounds though they were slurred, as if she’d had one shot too many of hard liquor.
“The underground.” The words were terse, almost violent.
Despite the drug, her heart gave a little leap of fear. “Doan know,” she muttered after several aborted attempts, too confused to figure out what they were talking about.
The man holding her hair slammed her head into the chair back again and released his grip abruptly.
The pain that hadn’t even subsided exploded into harder, pulsating waves. When the man released her, Lena’s head fell forward. It felt too heavy for her neck to support it.
“What do you think?”
“I think we gave her too much,” responded another voice.
The new voice penetrated Lena’s half stupor. She rolled her head to one side and struggled to focus her vision and her attention, knowing instinctively that the conversation was of utmost importance to her.
“Or maybe not enough? She’s a stubborn bitch.”
“Don’t be stupid. If we kill her now we won’t get anything out of her. Look at her. She hardly knows where she is.”
“Maybe she really doesn’t know anything?” the first man said slowly.
“Get your mind off your dick.”
“What?”
There was a mixture of amusement and anger in the single word question that captured Lena’s attention. Dimly, she realized there was an underlying threat in the direction the conversation had taken. She just wasn’t entirely sure of what that was.
“We’ve only just started questioning her. Until we get what we can from her, or know for sure that she doesn’t have anything to give us, they won’t be handing her over to you.”
“I could break her,” the first man offered.
A shiver traveled through Lena then and she suddenly knew what he was talking about with crystal clarity, partly because she’d finally managed to get a good enough look at the man to see his expression. He had the look of a thug--close set eyes, a hardness about his features that said he knew all about cruelty and he enjoyed it. He was dark, hairy, and built like a gorilla. The other man was lean, more of an academic type. She figured he must be there to make sure the interrogation didn’t go too far.
There was a light in the ceiling above the chair she was strapped to. It acted like a spotlight, throwing a ring of light around her and leaving the perimeter of the room in dimness, but she could see that the room was little more than a cubicle and the walls, floor, and ceiling were made of materials to deaden sound.
That realization sent another shiver through her.
“Just take her back to her cell for now. Next time I’ll give her a smaller dose.”
The gorilla man was angry when he unstrapped her restraints. He slapped her hard enough it rattled her teeth. “Wake up, little bird. Time to go back to your cage.”
Lena struggled to get up before he slapped her again.
He didn’t wait for her to manage it, however. Grabbing one arm, he dragged her out of the chair.
Her legs felt like limp noodles. She couldn’t seem to lock her knees or manage even a wobbling step and sprawled on the floor.
Ignoring her difficulties, he began to drag her.
