Instead, she felt something cold and smooth press against one of her fingers.
Heart rate spiking as she assumed he was going to slice the digit clean off her body, she was about to cry out a plea for mercy, beg him to understand she’d had no choice but to work for Dr. Gardner.
Only he didn't cut her at all.
Just held the blade of his knife firmly against one of her fingers and then took a step back. There was a smirk on his face, and he tipped back the goggles so she could finally see his eyes. She confirmed that he was indeed the man she knew only as Blade.
Holding up the knife, which she now realized had a pretty perfect fingerprint on it, his grin widened. “Think I’ll be able to find out your real name with this, darlin’?”
Despite how smug he was, she knew he wasn't going to get what he wanted.
When he took her in, Dr. Gardner had wiped out every single sign that she’d ever existed at all. As far as the outside world was concerned, she didn't exist. There was no birth certificate, nothing to prove she’d gone to school and graduated, she had never had a driver’s license, nor did she have any other form ofidentification. She was rarely even allowed outside the facility, so her face didn't appear in any CCTV footage either.
Her fingerprint wouldn't give him her name, and she wasn't sure if she should either.
What was she supposed to do? Was she supposed to beg for mercy and promise to tell him everything? Would he even believe her if she did? Would it change anything? Maybe it would only bring her more punishment and pain.
“You're a quiet little thing, aren't you, darlin’?” Blade asked, his head cocked to the side as his gaze examined her from head to toe. “Maybe a couple of hours hanging around might loosen your tongue a little.”
With that, he turned and walked away, back toward the house, leaving her hanging where she was, staring after him, with no idea how she was supposed to get out of this alive, and the certainty that she likely couldn’t weighing heavily on her.
Chapter
Four
January 11th
7:01 A.M.
Hanging in the dawn light, the mystery woman, who he was no closer to identifying now than he had been when he broke into the farmhouse ten hours ago, looked like a sacrifice strung up ready to be offered.
Who exactly he was offering her to, Blade had no idea. To the universe, to fate, to Dr. Gardner, to his team, to himself, to the past, to the present, to the future, it didn't really matter, but she most definitely was a sacrifice of sorts.
In the hours since he’d taken her fingerprint and left her out there, she hadn't done anything more than cry quietly to herself. He’d expected her to beg and plead as he walked away, to offer him a deal, intel for her freedom, or at the very least to ask for mercy and her life to be spared.
But it seemed like his little hanging beauty had no idea what to do.
There was no doubt at all that she was afraid. While she might work for Dr. Gardner, it was more than evident from herlack of fight and pure, undiluted terror that she was a scientist and nothing more. She had no skills to attempt to fight for her life, and he didn't have to guess to know she had none for withstanding torture either.
Despite being a timid little thing, he’d felt the first spark of defiance in her. She had no fight-or-flight instincts, but she wasn't completely helpless. She was going to fight back, she just didn't know how yet.
Good.
Right now, he was itching for a reason to do more than string the woman up and scare her. The tiny taste of her blood wasn't enough, he wanted, needed, craved more. He wanted to hear her screams, allow them to soothe the rage that he kept on a tight leash but was always a single misstep away from flying loose.
Which was an unusual feeling for him. While he and his team were a family, there was zero doubt about that, they hadn't sat around and talked about their pasts, so he didn't know much about everyone’s lives before they entered the program. But he had gathered enough to guess that of all of them, he’d come from the happiest family situation. His parents and extended family had been wonderful growing up. He’d had siblings, and cousins who were like siblings. He'd done well in school, had lots of friends, and played sport. Although he’d not been rich enough to have anything he wanted, he was well off enough to always have what he needed.
It wasn't until someone decided to play God with his body and his life without giving him all the information up front that he’d had his first real taste of rage.
When his phone rang, he stormed away from the window, annoyed with himself that he’d been standing there admiring the way the woman’s soft blonde locks caught the rising sun and shimmered like lengths of spun gold.
This wasn't a dating game it was an intel gathering op, he was there to get everything he could out of her in case Dr. Gardner was somewhere nearby, and then he and his team were going to kill her. There was no sugarcoating things, no downplaying them. The woman was spending her last couple of days on earth hanging from a tree, and then suffering a slow, agonizing death.
“Did you get it?” Blade asked without preamble, snatching up his phone and accepting the call.
“Good morning to you too,” Steel drawled, making him roll his eyes.
“Yeah, yeah, morning,” he muttered. But then because he really did care and wanted to know, he asked, “How are Rose and Cassandra today?”
