Almost against her will, Saffron asked, “What are you talking about?”
Berking studied her, then guffawed, throwing his head back in sudden and absolute delight. “You don’t know? You stupid girl, you didn’t recognize your father’s hand in my work?”
Saffron gaped at him. Part of her mind, the part interested in her survival, demanded her to be silent, to ignore his baiting. But a louder part, the one that had gotten her into this mess to begin with, wanted to understand. Had she been right to fear this connection?
“My father had nothing to do with your … experiment,” Saffron choked out.
“Oh, but he did.” Berking’s voice dropped into something soft and insidious. “When I joined the department, I inherited all of the previous head’s items, including mounds and mounds of paperwork. And what did I find in those stacks one day? A lone file, forgotten and unimportant, at the bottom of the pile, and a request for a meeting regarding a proposed study about breeding programs to enhance natural chemicals found in plants.” His smile grew at the look of apprehension on Saffron’s face. “I wonder, whatever was his purpose for such experiments? It wasn’t in any of his published work. Strange, isn’t it?”
Again, Saffron was silent. She had nothing to say, only questions.
Berking must have mistaken her silence for insubordination. “Not going to tempt you, Miss Everleigh? Fine.”
Berking’s thick hands flew to her neck, causing her to gasp as they closed on her throat. His palms dug painfully into her neck, closing around her airway. “You baited Blake with your family’s money. You know who he is, don’t you! Tell me what you know, or—”
Dots danced in Saffron’s vision, but she saw Blake enter the room, carrying glasses in which bright yellow leaves floated in steaming water. He didn’t look surprised at the scene in front of him, Berking choking Saffron while Alexander, still tiedto his chair, remained unconscious on the floor. He looked annoyed.
“Berking, enough of this melodrama. Let her go.”
Berking’s hands remained on her throat, and she gasped for breath. He was panting slightly and looked completely insane, eyes wild and face flushed with excitement.
Blake sighed and put the glasses down on a small table next to the couch. He pulled out the gun and pointed it at Berking. “Berking, let her go now.”
Berking blinked at Blake, nonplussed. He slowly removed his hands, sending Saffron into a paroxysm of coughing and sputtering. “No need for that. Just checking to see how much they know,” Berking muttered.
“It doesn’t matter what they know; they’ll be dead in a few minutes. We’ll be off with our money and with our scapegoat in place,” Blake said, gun still pointed at Berking. With his other hand he smoothed his hair.
Desperate for a hint of humanity, Saffron spoke with a rasp. “Mr. Blake, please—”
Blake, his eyes flashing, took a step toward Alexander and pointed the gun to where he lay on the floor. He cocked the hammer.
“Next time you speak,” Blake said coldly, “it’ll be a bullet through his body, Miss Everleigh. Berking may have no discipline, but you’ll find that I do. I’ve waited a long time for this, and I find myself a little impatient. I’m not going to torture you for answers, nor will I tolerate anything further from you.”
Saffron believed him. Her hopes of convincing Blake to let them go, or simply tie them up while he and Berking escaped the country, were silenced. Tears streamed down her face as she looked between Blake, who’d gone back to examining the yellowing water in the glasses, and Alexander, praying for his eyes to open.
“We can give it to her first,” Blake said to Berking. “Then when he wakes up, we can give it to him.”
Berking nodded, apparently cowed by his cold partner. Saffron watched them, her heart pounding, as they brought the glass near her. She desperately tried to remember what shade of yellow her own infusion of xolotl had been. She had put in three leaves of medium size. There were four in her glass now, and she didn’t know how long they’d been steeping. Alexander’s would likely steep until he woke up. What would that strength of infusion do to him?
The two men stood over her. Berking wrenched her hair back once again, forcing her mouth open with his other hand. Her breath caught in her throat when Blake touched the hot glass to her lips. She sputtered and his eyes narrowed. He took the gun from his waistband and pointed it toward Alexander once more. Saffron stopped struggling. The hot, bitter liquid poured into her throat, and she gagged.
“Drink it,” Blake demanded.
She drank. The lightning strike of pain hit, and the world around her went dark.
“It is supposed to be incredibly toxic.”
“Check her heartbeat.”
The voices, quiet as they were, echoed and rang in Alexander’s aching head.
“Very fast,” Berking’s voice reported.
“Looks almost the same as our little concoction. No wonder they believe xolotl nearly did in my dear Cynthia.”
They’d given xolotl to Saffron?
Footsteps, then there came the swish of fabric on leather.
