Behind me, against the wall, I can feel Dexter watching. Not just watching. Reading. Tasting the emotional weather of the room the way other people taste air. He can feel Petrov's fear, I know that. Can feel it spike and dip and spike again.
I wonder what he feels from me.
Nothing good.
Twenty minutes in,Petrov is still holding. He's better than I expected, which means Webb trains his people, or at least selects for a certain breed of stubbornness. I've worked the cut, found two other tender spots, applied pressure that sits in the grey space between interrogation and something uglier. His breathing is ragged. Sweat darkens the collar of his jumpsuit.
But he hasn't talked.
I stand up and pace. Slow. Deliberate. The kind of movement that tells a restrained man you're considering options, and none of them are good for him.
"You have family?" I ask.
His jaw tightens. There it is.
"I'm not threatening them." I come back to the chair, sit down again, lean forward until my face is close to his. Close enough that he can see exactly who I am, and more importantly, what I am. Whatever's in my eyes these days, it does the work that words can't. "I'm asking because I want you to think about whether they'd recognize the thing I'm going to send back to them if you keep wasting my time."
Petrov's composure cracks at the edges. A tremor in his lip. The rapid blink of a man recalculating.
"He'll kill me," Petrov says. First real words he's spoken that aren't denial.
"Webb isn't here. I am."
"You don't understand what he is."
"I understand exactly what he is." I pull back slightly. Give him the illusion of space. "I've been tracking him for three years. I know about the bioweapons shipments. I know about the dead informants. I know about the colony on Retha-4 that he let burn because the insurance payout was higher than the rescue cost. Forty-seven children, Petrov. You ran the fuel manifests for the ship that didn't arrive."
The color drains from his face. Not all the way. Enough.
"You're already dead," I continue. "The moment we pulled you off that supply run, your expiration date got stamped. Webb doesn't leave loose ends. You know that better than I do. So the question isn't whether you survive this. It's how much pain happens between now and whatever comes after."
He's shaking. Fine tremors that run through his bound arms and into the chair, making it rattle softly against the grate.
I reach out and grip his chin. Force his eyes to mine.
"Where did he go?"
"I can't."
I twist. Not far. Enough. The cartilage in his jaw pops, and he sucks air through his teeth.
"Where."
"He'll find me, he always finds?—"
I release his chin and hit the cut above his eye with the heel of my palm. Quick, precise. His head snaps back and blood sprays across my knuckles, hot and immediate. He gasps, and for a second his composure shatters entirely, and I can see the man behind the training: scared, cornered, weighing options that all end badly.
I lean in again. My voice drops to something quiet, something almost gentle, which makes it worse.
"I will sit in this room with you for as long as it takes. I will find every soft place you have, and I will make each one scream. Not because I have to. Because I'm good at it, and I stopped pretending that bothers me a long time ago." I pause. Let the fluorescent hum fill the space. "Haven's End. That's where he went. I already know the name, Petrov. I need the berth, the schedule, and the contact he's using for resupply. Give me those three things, and you live through the hour."
His mouth opens. Closes.
I wait. Time stretches like a wire under tension, and the fluorescents keep humming their mindless hymn, and the blood on my hand starts to cool and tighten against my skin.
"Berth seventeen." His voice breaks open like a hullunder stress. "Docking rotation changes every forty hours. His resupply contact goes by Maren, runs a fuel depot on the station's lower ring. He's expecting a shipment in three days."
I sit back.
