It’s a good thing that I’ve been in such close contact with these two these last few weeks because when they demand we all fill a third vial with urine, there’s no privacy. Having no other choice, we all drop our pants on the spot.
Once she has collected all of her samples, she places them in a black nylon bag—similar to a lunchbox—that one of the agents is holding. That done, she checks her clipboard before reaching into one of the way-too-many pockets on her lab coat. Without a single expression crossing her emotionless features, she pulls out two syringes. One is only partly filled. The other is completely filled.
The medicine inside of it is the same color as piss.
Lovely.
She goes over to Maverick first. “Give me your arm.”
“Go to hell,” is his rough, grave reply.
She ignores that. Instead, she glances at the nearest agent. “Hold him.”
Again, moving much quicker than should be possible, he’s suddenly at Maverick’s bedside. One shove on Mav’s shoulder and the cop is on his back, spitting obscenities that tell me he still has some fight in him. Not enough considering the goon pins him easily, holding him in place for the technician to inject him with the entire full syringe.
“What the fuck was that?” he demands. “More of the Injection that killed Lindsay and ruined my life?”
If this technician was one who worked alongside Maverick’s wife, I have no clue. She doesn’t react at all to her name. She doesn’t react toanythingbut her clipboard.
She glances at it again, then turns toward me.
“You’re next.”
I shake my head. “I don’t want it.”
I wasn’t important enough to rate an Injection in the before times. It saved me then… I sure as hell don’t want to mess with it now.
Chase steps in front of me.
The technician looks down her nose, finding me anyway as though I don’t have a man blocking her path.
“You don’t have any choice. This is just a basic healing serum. It’ll knit your bones together, fixing that finger of yours like it’ll fix his arm. Now give me your hand. The Doctor insists on testing whole specimens only, and he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
Like I care. “No.”
Her head tilts enough that I know what’ll happen even before it does. The other agent grips my hand before I can blink, presenting my hand to the technician.
She pricks me with the syringe, shooting the tiny amount of serum into my skin.
“There. By the time we get you to the Doctor, it will be healed.”
“I’m not going to the Doctor.”
That’s what I say. I meant it, too, but I knew that, when I came down to it, I’d have no choice about that, either—and I don’t.
The technician and her entourage disappeared through that door as soon as she got what she needed. I hated to think what she was doing with our hair and our blood and our pee, but when she returns another two hours later with her precious clipboard, we all find out.
She turns toward Maverick first. Like my finger, his broken arm did heal. He’s currently lying on his back, arms folding behind his head, and after he erupted on the technician earlier, he hasn’t said another damn word since.
No matter how Chase and I try to get him to talk to us.
He was the planner. The man with the map. The man with the bombs. Everything we had was confiscated by Winston when they caught us—including my pocketknife, though I was allowed to keep my jacket… for now—and I think losing his gun broke him more than failing to blow up the NRI.
Chase has hope. That’s just the kind of guy he is. He vows he’ll get us out of this, and I want to believe him desperately. This can’t be it for us. Back at the Grave… I was going to finally figure out why I can’t stop thinking about him.
But we’re not at the Grave. We’re in New York, and I don’t think we’re getting out of here anytime soon.
At least, if Winston has his way, we definitely won’t…
