With the last cut healed and residual blood drying on her skin, he swapped out the regenerator for the laser scalpel. A gasp caught in her throat, a look of betrayal crossing her features.
He scoffed. After everything, she expected him to follow through on his word?Fool. She should know by now not to trust anyone in thissystem.No one will look out for you except you.A lesson he’d learned early in life.
He stepped back and reached above her hands, slicing through the bindings with one swipe. The action set her on her feet, then her knees buckled.Splat. She fell forward onto the sheeting; the plastic crinkled. He reached down to help her before he caught himself. Clenching his jaw, he moved off the drop sheet.
“You’re going to answer more questions, or I’ll string you up again.” At least he knew she didn’t like that part.
Her hand covering the newly healed cuts, she glared at him.
“For your wrists,” he said, tossing the regenerator in front of her.
When the hell had he gotten so soft? He didn’t understand what was wrong with him. First Archibald, now her. Why couldn’t he just get the fucking job done?
Buzz. The noise of the regenerator took up the silence while she healed her chafed wrists.
“You’re an agent, aren’t you?” she asked without looking up.
And that wasn’t how this was going to work. He left the question unanswered and paced back and forth.
“What else did that fucker know about me?”
She shook her head, and his hand tightened on his weapon. Would he have to resort to threats again?Not like that worked.
Then she said, “He only told me you were there to collect me. That’s it. Only your name and that.”
He couldn’t hear a lie in her voice. How would the Calypson have known his name and objective, though? Sawyer thought of ways his communication stream could have been hacked and came up empty.
There’d been moments during their fight that he’d thought the fucker was in his head, predicting what he’d do before Sawyer did it. He’d blanked his thoughts on purpose and had come out on top because of it.
The doctor cleared her throat. “He didn’t say much at all,” she added.
There it was, the tightness that told him she withheld information. He narrowed his eyes at her and continued to pace.
“Why does Cazin want you?”
A huff of breath left her, her focus on her wrists. “I don’t know who that is. You should know more than I do. You were the one sent tocollectme.”
He couldn’t detect a lie there either. And if she didn’t have some personal connection with Cazin, then this entire thing circled around the Calypson.
“How did the fucker control the beasts?”
The regenerator stopped, and so did he. Holding her forearm, she stared up at him with an uneasy expression, then shook her head.
His hand tightened on the scalpel.
“Silently,” she said a second later, her voice quiet. “Somehow.” She shook her head again. “I don’t know.”
She refocused on her wrist, most of the redness gone.
“Why was he at your outpost?”
Her entire body stiffened, the regenerator jerking against her skin. She didn’t look up when she said, “I don’t know.”
“Lie,” he spat, resuming his pacing. “You do know, and you’re going to tell me.” He had the urge to turn on the laser scalpel for emphasis, but knew the effect would be lost on her.
“Same reason as you,” she finally murmured. “He said he was there to collect me.”
There was truth there, but something else too. He didn’t have the time to explore it more. “Where was he going to take you?”
