Chapter 32
Daniel
“Excuse me, I asked you a question?” Elkin’s fingers dug into Seb’s hair and she shook him so hard the gag between his teeth rattled like a dog toy. Her lover, her beautiful Sebastian was keeping his eyes downcast, probably hoping she wouldn’t see the extent of his injuries. It didn’t matter. The blood drying in blackened streaks across his chest and in his hair was horrifying enough.
“I don’t know what a whipping boy is,” Daniel lied, because the longer they talked, the longer it wasn’t happening. “Please stop hurting him.”
Elkin sniffed. “I find that hard to believe.”
“I don’t. Please, just explain it to me?”
Elkin loosened her grip on Seb’s hair so that his head slumped forward onto his bloody chest.
Please be okay, Daniel thought desperately. Please, fucking god, be okay.
“Under divine law no man was worthy of raising a hand to a prince,” she explained. “So when a schoolmaster needed to discipline a future ruler, he would beat his beloved friend instead.”
Daniel’s hands and legs had begun trembling as though she were freezing. “I see.”
Elkin studied her with her glacial eyes. “Now you are no English prince but there are parallels. All your life people have been unable to discipline you, and it has made you arrogant.”
“Yeah, John had a similar theory,” Daniel croaked, trying and failing to keep her eyes off Seb. “Except his method of punishment was primarily focused on my vagina.”
“Well mine isn’t.” Elkin gave Seb’s bowed head a hatefully affectionate tousle. “This gorgeous creature is your whipping boy. You will provide us with the information relating to your work with Cynthia Moorcroft or Fabian over there will open Sebastian’s back.”
Daniel glanced at the man lingering by the door. A belt with a steel buckle as large as her face dangled from his fist. Her breathing became shallow, barely a droplet in and out. “I don’t suppose I can ask you not to do this out of human decency?”
“No.” Elkin licked a finger and rubbed a spot of blood from Seb’s swollen cheek. “That would be pointless.”
“Do we have any other options?”
“Hmm.” Elkin leaned over and nuzzled her nose into Seb’s neck. “Do you have a jealous streak?”
Seb cringed away, moaning through the gag, and hatred like nothing Daniel had never known ripped through her like an F5 tornado. If her hands were free she’d have rushed at Elkin and tried to pull her face off but tied to a chair she could, as in so many situations, only use her brain, her words. She made a loud gagging noise. “Okay, we get it, you want my boyfriend to dust off your ancient pussy but here’s the thing, you’re evil and like a million years old, and I really don’t think he could maintain an erection.”
Her words rang through the dining room, bouncing off the high ceiling; maintain an erection, maintain an erection, maintain an erection.
A few of the heavies shifted uncomfortably and Daniel waited, her heart bright with rage for one of them to hurt her. She had guessed correctly that Elkin would be most sensitive about her looks and age. She had the appearance of one who’d been beautiful all her life and was unwilling to relinquish the power and privilege it brought. While she bore no obvious signs of Botox or cosmetic surgery, her skin was unnaturally smooth and elaborately made up, her clothes beautiful, her hair perfect. Vanity was a characteristic Daniel understood and sympathized with in women, but not today. “You could always give him Viagra,” she suggested. “Works for pornstars.”
Elkin smiled gently, almost lovingly then seized a fistful of Seb’s hair and yanked his head up.
Daniel gasped. Seb’s eyelids were slits; his nostrils two gory circles, his upper lip dripping blood over the ball gag beneath it.
“Go on,” Elkin urged. “Say something funny. Say anything you like.”
Seb moaned something around his gag and while she could barely distinguish a single sound she knew he was telling her not to look.
“Seb, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m so, so sorry, baby.”
“Dan-iel, I’m wait-ing,” Elkin trilled. “And the longer I wait the more disappointed I’m going to be-ee.”
Daniel looked away, just like Seb wanted. “I don’t have anything to say.”
“Excellent.” Elkin released Seb’s hair so his head flopped back onto his chest. “That’s better. Although I still think a lesson is in order, Fabian, would you please…”
“No!” Daniel screamed but the noise sounded muffled in her ears, as if she was underwater. “I take it back. I didn’t mean it. Hit me inste—”
Whap. Leather hit Seb’s torso at what sounded like the speed of light. He grunted into the gag, his whole body rigid as a corpse. Daniel exhaled, her own back tingling as though it was trying to absorb the pain.
Fabian raised his arm again but Elkin stopped him. “One will do. Won’t it, Daniel?”
“Yes. I’ll shut up now I promise.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Seb made a soft groaning sound and energy rushed into Daniel’s blood like poison. She chewed the inside of her cheeks fighting back a wave of useless, hysterical tears. Call it naiveté, call it sexism, but she hadn’t thought Elkin capable of this. She hadn’t thought any woman was capable of this. Women weren’t supposed to be like this. For the dozenth time she scanned the room for something, anything that could help and found nothing but chairs, candles, and Elkin’s goons. Why hadn’t she carried the fucking NEMP on her at all times? Why hadn’t she taken Krav Maga? Like a typical nerd she’d dismissed the physical arena as something she didn’t need to concern herself with and here she was, a useless captured sack of crap.
“Let’s get down to business,” Elkin said. She was now stroking Seb’s hair like he was a dog, not at all put off by the tacky blood that had collected on her hand. “This young man told Fabian he was willing to die for you. Tell me what you know about Cynthia Moorcroft’s research or we’ll begin testing the limits of that theory.”
Seb gave a muffled groan.
“Shh,” Elkin said, nipping at his earlobe. “Let her make her own decision, darling.”
“Stop touching him!” Daniel screamed her anger hot and bright as a lightning strike. “Keep your fucking hands off him!”
As anyone could have guessed her outburst only made Elkin smile grow wider. She passed a smug hand down Seb’s chest as though measuring the shape and heft of his muscles. “He’s mine, Ms. Schwartz, to do with as I please until you make your decision. So what will it be?”
She swallowed, blood pounding in her ears, trying to dream up options she knew didn’t exist. There was no escape hatch, no deus ex machina; her only choices were to fuck over the world or to fuck over Seb.
It should have been simple; the world, but Daniel knew if they hurt Sebastian Arthur Rhodes in front of her she’d die. She’d shed her body like a flesh suit and die. But maybe they knew that, perhaps that’s why they chose him first.
“I’m waiting,” Elkin said in her singsong voice. “And if I wait much longer I’m going to take it out on your pretty Texan farm boy’s back.”
“He’s from Tennessee,” Daniel said automatically.
Elkin’s eyes narrowed to icy slits. “Oh, my apologies. Fabian?”
The big man strode forward and with no ceremony, no warning delivered another cracking blow to Seb’s back. Blood exploded around the ball gag as Seb grunted with pain and shock. And Daniel heard herself scream as though she was very far away. “Stop it,” she begged. “Stop it!”
“Will you talk?” Elkin asked.
Daniel stared at the older woman, trying to penetrate her reptilian chest with her eyes. “I can’t! Please don’t hurt him.”
“Two more.”
The cracks seemed louder this time. Fresher, as though someone had turned up the volume on inside her head. Around the room the guards nudged one another, pointing at her and Seb in turn. To have so many people witnessing her inability to act was almost as agonizing as Seb’s pain. Elkin and John had been right after all. She wasn’t used to failure, she almost always got her way and now she needed to make a choice. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think. She wanted both to stop, she wanted everything to end.
“No, something’s not right…What is it?” Elkin snapped her fingers. “Remove the gag.”
Fabian tore the bloody mangled ball from Seb’s mouth hard enough to re-open Seb’s split lips but her lover didn’t utter a noise of complaint. Instead he raised his gaze to meet hers, his eyes full of the same boiling grief bubbling up inside her. “Hey darlin’.”
Daniel breathed deep through her nose knowing she had no right to cry, she wasn’t the one getting beaten. “Hi babe.”
Seb smiled, he’d always liked the way she said ‘babe.’ The action caused foamy blood to spray from his cracked lips, lips Daniel had kissed over and over again. It turned her stomach even as it made her insides ache. “Seb…”
“I’m fine,” he insisted. “I was trained for this.”
“Yes, you did two stints at SERE didn’t you, brave boy?” Elkin rubbed Seb’s sticky pink head once more. But she’d forgotten her pet captive was no longer gagged, he jerked away from her, his eyes dark with hate and said, “Don’t you touch me, woman.”
Daniel’s heart swelled. Somehow without curse words, without threats and without any foul language her Southern Gentleman had told Elkin he hoped she fell down a well and died of tetanus. “You’re so brave, babe.”
And Seb grinned, his beauty suddenly clear, even through the blood and bruises. “Don’t say anythin’.”
Elkin’s face was a study in hatred. “Continue, Fabian. Don’t stop until he’s crying out for mercy.”
She was right. With Seb free to make noises, the experience was fifty times worse. Every time he cried out in pain Daniel’s body buzzed. It felt like there was a hive of African wasps inside her, trying to sting their way out of her body, filling her with poison, making her head buzz. And because she couldn’t do anything else she screamed. She screamed like a brat in a supermarket. She screamed until her chest was torn open. “Stop, stop, stop,” she wailed.
“Talk, talk, talk,” Elkin taunted.
“I can’t!”
“Then we continue.” Elkin gestured to the big man whose face was now shining with sweat from the exertion of beating Seb. He dutifully raised his arm.
Daniel lost track of the times she heard the dull thwack of leather on her lovers’ skin, a low drumbeat of pain. She curled up inside her misery, too sore to even scream. She prayed for her body’s chemicals to carry her away but they didn’t. She stayed rooted to the present until even agony became ordinary. Finally when Seb cried out to god, she wondered if it would be so bad to let Elkin kill her. The world was going to end anyway and besides, what would Middlebend do if she confessed? Let her go?
Of course they wouldn’t. She and John and Colt and Seb were all going to be sleeping under the dirt tonight.
She pictured it, their bodies lying side by side, and was surprised to find the idea didn’t scare her. It seemed right somehow that they could be peaceful together. She closed her eyes, her head suddenly too heavy to hold aloft and drifted. In her mind she walked the street John had showed her, gray and bland as all suburbia, only this time she was sure from the birds and the sounds she was home. In Auckland. In the street where she’d lived with her parents. ‘Daniel!’ someone called. ‘Daniel! Where’s Sky? Where is he?”
“Sky,” she mumbled. “Skyler Schwartz.”
A second later the right side of her face exploded.
“Wake up!” the heavy in front of her demanded. “Wake up or you’ll get another one.”
Daniel blinked at him, her ear whining like an air raid horn. “What?”
He hit her across the other cheek, a businesslike crack that offended more than it stung. “You get me now, bitch,” he said in a broad Cornish accent.
“Sure.” Daniel shook her head, trying to stop her ears from ringing. She could hear Seb struggling, calling her name, swearing like she’d never heard him swear before.
“It’s okay Seb,” she called, the sound distorted through her malfunctioning ears.
“Good,” Elkin said looking irritated. “Perhaps we can continue? Fabian?”
The prospect of hearing even one more grunt of pain made Daniel’s stomach lurch anew. It was like the slap had pressed the reset button on her brain and made the entire process new and horrific again. She braced herself for it and then she remembered what she had just dreamed. The suburban street in Auckland, the man calling her name, asking for Sky, and she realized something. If that had been the future and she knew in her guts that it was, then, then, then…
She couldn’t be dying today.
The thought exploded inside her like an atom bomb. If she was going to die today she wouldn’t have seen herself home in New Zealand. It made no sense but it made perfect sense because that was going to be her future. An idea glimmered in front of her like a mirage of water on a desert horizon and just like that Daniel knew what she had to do. She swallowed hard. “Enough of this bullshit. I’ll talk.”
“Dagniel Nogh!” Seb bellowed. “Nogh.”
“What?” Elkin’s voice was sharp with excitement. “You’ll confess? Fabian, get the boy to shut up so I can hear her.”
Fabian clapped a hand over Seb’s mouth, muffling his cries.
“You mean it?” Elkin asked. “You’ll talk?”
Daniel sucked her tongue; her mouth seemed to be overproducing saliva. “Yes.”
“You’ll give us locations? Dates?”
“Yes.”
Elkin smiled, so sincerely Daniel could finally picture her as a human, as a child even, with hopes and dreams and a need for love and affection. Considering what she’d become Daniel almost felt sorry for her. Almost.
“I have some conditions,” she said.
Elkin’s smile evaporated. “You are in no position to negotiate with me. Unless you’ve forgotten…”
She pointed to Seb, who was now on the floor, Fabian’s knee jammed into his bleeding back.
“Yeah, yeah I’m a pussy and violence wins.” Daniel swallowed again. “Just hear me out; can you let Seb go?”
“No,” Elkin said flatly.
“I’ll come work for you. I’ll tell you anything you want, just don’t kill him.”
“Darling, your choice is whether your young man will be killed quickly or slowly, in front of you or somewhere else.”
“Doesn’t seem very fair.”
Daniel knew exactly what Elkin was about to say. “Life’s not fair,” they chanted in unison.
“Twinsies,” Daniel added wrinkling her nose in the absence of being able to touch it.
Elkin ran a tongue over her teeth. “Ms. Schwartz, you appear to be rebounding from Mr. Rhodes’ beating remarkably well. Do you need us to continue? I should add that Mr. Stone and Mr. Blackwood are watching this very room. I’m sure their friend’s distress is even more traumatic for them.”
Daniel fought to conceal the burst of hot joy inside her. John and Colt were alive. The four of them were still here. This was going to work.
“Ms. Schwartz, are you going to comply or not?” Elkin’s mouth was thin and her voice had taken on a high, brittle quality. Apparently after a few blissful seconds of thinking her captive had cracked she was pissed that they were back to square one. Elkin was hungry now, eager for what she felt Daniel owed her, and people in that headspace were very easy to fuck with.
Daniel shifted forward as far as her plastic handcuffs would allow. “I’ll comply with two conditions. One: you kill me tonight too. Bullet to the head, no fucking around.”
“Nourgh!” Seb fought all the more violently against Fabian’s hold but Daniel ignored him. She had to ignore him.
“I think that can be arranged. Would you like to do it yourself?” Elkin asked, clearly relishing the idea.
“Yeah nah, I’ve suffered enough without having to put myself down like a sick dog but cheers. Second condition—”
“Dagniel nourgh!” Seb began to struggle so roughly Fabian called over two more thugs for assistance.
“Get rid of him,” Elkin said. “He’s no longer required.”
“Oh yes he is.” Daniel tried to stand, remembered she couldn’t and collapsed back into her chair. “My second condition is that I want to say goodbye to Seb. In my bedroom.”
Elkin smiled her thin-lipped smile. “Just how stupid do you think I am?”
“Pretty stupid if you think we have a chance of getting out of here,” Daniel nodded at the men braced around the room. “All the cameras are on, you brought a whole platoon of fuckwits to guard us and this is a fortress, what exactly do you think me and a guy you’ve almost hospitalized can achieve from inside my bedroom?”
Daniel could see the greed sparkling in Elkin’s eyes and pulled out her final ace of spades. “I’ll write down the dates and locations first; you’ll get them right now.”
Elkin smiled, the same giddy sincere smile she’d revealed before and Daniel’s heart leapt—she’d won. She’d fucking won.
“If…” Elkin drew the word out of her mouth like a long silvery chain. “If you write down the dates and locations, we could, possibly allow you a brief interlude with one of your men.”
Daniel felt a stab of irritation. “Seb?”
“I don’t think so.” Elkin shot her lover an affectionate look. “He’s all bloody and tired. Personally I would recommend Mr. Blackwood. Mr. Stone received a nasty blow to the back of the head and I doubt he’s performance ready.”
Riskier. She’d wanted Seb because his semi-unconscious state meant he was unlikely to go all Dirty Harry while she tried to set off the NEMP but still, what choice did she have? “Okay, whatever you want.”
Elkin’s smile was beatific once more. “Julián, a notepad for Daniel if you please?”
The man who had slapped her stepped forward again and placed a spiral bound notebook and a golf pencil in front of her. He was young, Hispanic and handsome. A month ago, if she saw him in a bar Daniel would have tried to catch his eye. Now she wanted to stab him in the guts. His gaze lingered on her breasts as he backed away.
Elkin shifted excitedly in her chair. “Now, please detail exactly what you and Cynthia Moorcroft discovered a year ago relating to Project Rangitoto.”
Daniel rattled her bound wrists. “With my mouth?”
Elkin laughed a high, overexcited laugh. “My mistake. Julián, please untie her.”
The arsehole stepped forward again and a steely flash of switchblade snapped her zip ties. Her arms floated to her sides, numb and tingly. “Thanks, Julián.”
The handsome guard backed away, a slight smirk on his face.
“Now, listen to me.” Elkin pointed to her face. “Once you’ve finished writing you’ll be escorted to your bedroom. Mr. Blackwood will be brought up to you and you’ll be given exactly thirty minutes for a thorough…goodbye. You will be monitored of course but that never seemed to bother you before.”
“No, but I find time restrictions impede my ability to climax.”
“Too bad. Start writing.”
Daniel picked up the pencil, which was difficult as her fingers were stiff and pale blue at the tips.
“Oh, and Ms. Schwartz?”
She looked up. “Yes, pumpkin?”
Elkin closed her eyes and Daniel was sure she was picturing her brains exploding all over the back lawn. “While you have your last fuck on earth I will be sending your information to our headquarters. If there’s even the slightest indication you’ve attempted to deceive us Julián will come into your bedroom and shoot you both where you lie. Won’t you, Julián?”
“Yes Ms. Elkin,” the young man said with a horrible grin.
“Whatever,” Daniel said. We’ll see whose smiling in half an hour fuckstack.
“Good, now hurry up.”
Daniel glanced down at what she’d written so far. ‘Cynthia Moorcroft’s’ research revealed that due to fracking of unstable areas in the United States the continental US will experience some minor to serious farming challenges due to volcanic ash clouds in 2044.’
She smiled to herself. As she’d once said six weeks ago to mean but eminently fuckable John Blackwood, deception was such a subjective concept.