“Me? You didn’t know him. He pulled down the moon and stars to keep you happy and from finding out what he was doing. And when I said he was the best, it was mild praise.”
This was what she’d wanted. The entire reason she started down this path. If Hare—Jabberwock—was going to tell her the truth about one thing, she’d make it this. “Then why isn’t he here now?”
“Because some things can’t be stopped, no matter how much you want them to.”
“No.” She stomped her foot. She didn’t care that it was childish or that he could level the pistol at her at any moment. “No more vague, distracting, not-quite answers. Tell me why Alex is dead, if he was so important to you both in business and personally?”
“He was embezzling from me. It wasn’t a lot. He skimmed a couple thousand dollars here and there, and I was willing to wait him out. See if he owned up to it. I’m not certain why he did it, but I suspect that was something the two of you had in common. The thrill and rush are driving motivations.”
She clenched her jaw but wouldn’t rise to the taunt.
Hare shrugged. “I let it slide until I couldn’t anymore. Dormouse figured out what he was doing, and that’s the kind of thing that can’t go unanswered. If people hear I let it slide once, chaos ensues.”
“I thought you liked chaos.”
He gave her a dry smile. “Not like this. You would have been proud of him. At the very least, you should be grateful. He didn’t beg. He didn’t feed me an apology he didn’t mean. There was a request, and that was it—to keep you safe.”
“You’ve done a shit job.”
“Have I? You’re still here, aren’t you? And—fuck—you’re a pain in the ass. But you’re also sexy, fun in bed, and intelligent. So it evens out.”
“Don’t shift the focus.” Tears tried to spill out. She wouldn’t let them. She wasn’t sure if they were frustration or grief or pain, but they’d wait until she was alone. “There are a million ways you could have kept me safe. Why pull me into this world?”
“I didn’t do that. Hatter’s other employer did. You’re giving me a lot more credit than I deserve, and I’m flattered, but I need to share the appreciation. If it helps you feel any better, what he’ll suffer for betraying me is far worse than Alex’s fate.”
“No. It doesn’t.” She wanted to sink to the floor, pull her knees to her chest, and rock until this went away. “Who does Hatter work for?”
“He didn’t tell you? I was hoping he would. I don’t know who else signs his checks, but you’re also good bait, so I’ll know soon enough.” He winced. “That came out wrong. I didn’t mean you’re—”
“You did. You’re using me to draw him out. That’s a funny way to define safe. I’m done here.” She should stay. Find out how much more he’d tell her while he was in this kind of honest mood, but the conversation was slipping, and if she didn’t leave soon, she’d break in front of him. That wasn’t an option.
“Reagan, come on. We’re talking.”
She stormed from his room, paused in hers to grab her purse and phone and slip on shoes, and walked out the front door. A sliver of satisfaction mingled with doubt and terror, when she slammed the door in his face and stalked toward the staircase.
As she burst into the stairwell, that familiar surge of adrenaline kicked in, pumping through her veins and pulsing in her legs. She sprinted down the stairs, eager to get to the bottom. To be outside. It didn’t matter it was before four in the morning. Odds were few people knew she was here, she had the cash Hare had so generously supplied her with, and she needed to run.
She stepped out the back door of the building and paused. Maybe she should’ve figured out the lay of the neighborhood first. Great. She’d spent days letting herself be the princess, locked away in a labyrinth of lies, and now she was the too-stupid-to-live adventurer.
This was a city. There would be a convenience store somewhere, where she could buy a burner phone. Something that let her place calls and couldn’t be traced to her. She’d pick a direction and walk until she found an indicator of where to go next.
Someone grabbed her arms hard enough to send a jolt of pain rocketing through her shoulders, and something rough and cottony was stuffed in her mouth before she could scream. Her heart kicked into overdrive when a cloth bag was pulled over her head, tight enough to hold the gag in place.
She struggled to catch her breath, but every new drag through her nose left her feeling as if she suffocated. The fabric covering her face was musty, and whatever was in her mouth sapped moisture away.
Reagan kicked off the ground, trying to throw whoever held her off balance. Their grip tightened, and a second set of hands grabbed her ankles and shoved them toward her chest. She tried to scream, but all that came out was a muffled squeak. The harder she twisted and turned, the tighter they held her.
Her world bounced. They were moving. Seconds later, she hit the ground, jarring her shoulder into her jaw. Ignoring the pain, she tried to shoot to her feet, but a hand at her neck shoved her back down, and her arms were yanked behind her back.
Cold, smooth metal bound her wrists, and a similar sensation tingled around her ankles. She heard the clink of a chain, and her arms and legs were jerked back. She struggled for all she had, but the angle they’d shackled her to the floor made it tough to move, and each squirm squeezed a tighter fist around her lungs, until she gasped for air she couldn’t find.
An engine roared to life, and she was jostled when the grounded jerked beneath her. Fucking hell, I’m moving. The tears she held back earlier surged forward. When she tried to sob, her gag did its job, and she fell into a fit of choking coughs that racked her body and throbbed in her shoulder, hip, and skull.
Stay calm. She could do that. It took several minutes, but she forced herself to breathe through her nose, slow and even, until her heart rate slowed to something beneath galloping. Now relax. Okay. If she could find a position that didn’t cramp her muscles, she’d have another chance to catch them off guard and break free when they stopped.
The way she was bound made getting comfortable impossible. It took immense force of will to keep her muscles from cramping. She didn’t know if it was better or worse that sleep spread from her foot and up her leg, leaving the limb numb.
She didn’t know how long they drove. She tried counting seconds in her head, but kept losing track before she reached five minutes. For all she knew, they were in Portland. Or Canada. Okay, probably not Canada. Someone would want to search back here, right? And they hadn’t been driving all day. It had to have been an hour or two.
The ground stopped moving, like it had countless times already, but this time the engine shut off. She squirmed and banged her leg against the floor. Wake up, please.
Hinges creaked, and the air pressure changed. At least two people held her hands and legs, while she was unlocked from the chains holding her to the floor. Pins and needles shot through her calf.
The way they carried her, she couldn’t twist away, and not for lack of trying. She was set on the ground, more gently this time. The second the cuffs feel away from her legs and arms, she thrashed out wildly. She connected with something and heard a satisfying oof. She scrambled to her feet, but stumbled when she tried to put her weight on her legs. She landed on her ass, and agony rocketed up her spine into her skull.
She yanked the sack from her head, and the gag less than a second later, and took in her surroundings.
Not that there was much to see. The walls and floor were unpainted concrete. There was no window. A mattress sat on the floor in the corner, and a stainless-steel toilet was bolted to the wall. The door was painted to match the concrete and looked metal, with no lock or latch inside.
“Hey,” she screamed, and her voice echoed back at her. “Hello?” No answer. No sound outside the door. Nothing.
“Hey. Let me out. Talk to me.” She pounded on the door. Still nothing. Her earlier panic surged back, fresh and gnawing. She yelled and hammered until
her hands throbbed and her throat was raw.
Nothing. She sank to the floor and pulled her knees to her chest. Don’t cry. It won’t help. Neither did anything else. She sobbed in the barren room, and the walls bounced the sound back to taunt her.
Chapter Sixteen
Reagan cried until her eyes burned and she was gasping through sniffles. It didn’t change anything, but she felt cleansed in an odd way. As she let focus spill back into her senses, she realized the walls weren’t as smooth and barren as she originally thought. There was a square in one corner of the ceiling that reflected light back at her. She stood and wandered to it. It looked like glass and was maybe six inches square. A camera? She couldn’t tell. The light in the room kept her from seeing what lay on the other side, but camera seemed like as reasonable a guess as anything.
What else did she miss when she arrived? She searched the room again—not that it took long. There was a patch in the wall across from the bed. A rectangle about two feet wide. She tapped it with her knuckles, and a hollow, metal sound greeted her. She knocked the wall outside the square to confirm. Yup. Concrete.
There was another rectangle on the same wall as the large one, almost as wide but only about six inches tall and just above her waist level.
Is this Hare’s doing? His response to her decision not to roll over and wait for life to pass her by? He obviously enjoyed the mind fuck. Was this another one of his games?
“Hello.” Her call rang in her ears.
Nothing.
She wasn’t going to scream herself hoarse this time. If they could hear her, they already had. She turned to the glass in the ceiling. If it was a camera, and there was a mic in the room, they were watching and listening. If not, no one would know she was about to bargain with an empty room.
“Anyone there?” Reagan asked the piece of glass. “If this is something Jabberwock ordered”—a shudder of betrayal shook her body, and she forced it down—“I’m willing to admit I was unreasonable. I’m happy to talk this out with whomever you want to send in, like a rational adult.”
Minutes ticked away. Nothing.
“Hello?” She let frustration bleed into her voice.
The sound of a motor filled the room, and the larger square on the wall slid open. The screen beneath flickered to life, and she jumped at the abrupt volume of the news program it played.
“Hey. Can I get the sound cranked down? Maybe change the channel to some Big Brother?” She couldn’t help a dry smile at her joke. If no one else was here to be amused at how clever she was, she’d do it.
The news rolled on without change. It was an old clip she’d seen several times, because it was about the CEO of a tech company who died under suspicious circumstances. Rumors said Jabberwock had him killed.
The segment reached its conclusion, and she waited, curious for what came next. The sound died, and a photo flashed on the screen. She squinted for a moment. Oh God. It was a photo of a gunshot exit wound, detailed and up close. Bile rose in her throat, and she choked it back down. The next image was another angle, wider, of a crime scene. The surroundings were the CEO’s home, the room where his body had been found.
Unlike other photos Reagan had seen, his body was still in these. The next was another up-close photo, and so was the fourth. She heaved and forced her gaze from the screen.
Jabberwock rarely pulled the trigger himself, because he stayed hidden, but that didn’t mean he was any more innocent in this or other crimes. Then again, given that he masqueraded as one of his own generals, he might be doing as much killing as anyone.
Having been shot at after Wayne’s funeral, she thought she understood how serious this was. But with each new reality shoved in her face, another layer of security was stripped from her. Hare—Jabberwock—the man she’d let lead her around for almost a week and never really hesitated to fuck, was responsible for these things. These brutal, horrific things. Did Alex look like that when he died?
Was that what she was meant to understand? Did Hare toss her in here to drive his point home? Was he this off his rocker? The question didn’t taste right, and she laughed at herself. She was defining how bad bad was? Painting gray areas between ordering people killed and tossing her in a cell to teach her a lesson?
The photos of the CEO faded, and another news story started. The volume was as loud as before, jarring her and drawing her gaze.
It was a clip she’d seen before, but the first time, she watched it with subtitles. It was in Spanish, about a coup in Venezuela. This time a news anchor screamed at her in a language she didn’t speak. As the story came to an end, another video started; a shaky, handheld shot. She recognized the clip from YouTube. It was about the same revolt.
Again, still photos with no sound followed. Rows of bodies lined up on the street, some covered with sheets and others exposed. The wounds were worse than the CEO’s. Burns. Splintered limbs. So much death and pain.
She squeezed her eyes shut and looked away. “I get it,” she shouted. “You’re a big badass who makes corporations and countries rise and fall. You can’t be fucked with. I get it,” she repeated.
The volume kicked on again, and she pressed her hands to her ears, to block out the sound. Her stomach growled. What time was it? She didn’t eat much yesterday. Was starving her part of whatever this was?
The news continued in the background, but she kept her gaze focused on the door. With her ears plugged, she heard the shifts in volume from blaring to nothing but blocked out most of the details.
After about two dozen blinks between loud and quiet, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. The smaller opening in the wall was open—it was like a passthrough from another room. Inside sat two bottles of water, and a foil packet.
Don’t listen. She dropped her fingers from her ears and crossed the room to examine the goods.
The water was in sealed bottles. She cracked one and downed half of it in a swig. The room-temperature liquid hit her empty stomach with a thud, and she forced herself to pause, rather than getting sick.
She fought back a smile when she examined the large packet had written on the top, in large black letters, Meal, Ready-to-Eat. Alex always brought MRE’s when he took her camping. It meant the food was probably safe and mostly edible, and she could make it last if she needed. She tore into the packet, and picked out the fruit. She wanted to eat the entree, but she’d save that.
She took her time. Focusing on eating made it easier to drown out the TV, and let her slide into some of the happier memories about Alex—the things he used to drill into her head when he’d do things like take her camping. For instance, to never eat the food or drink the water unless it’s prepackaged. Back then, she teased him about being paranoid. Was he prepping her for something like this?
With some sugar and sustenance racing in her veins, her head was working better. She settled onto the mattress, back against the far wall, and got as comfortable as she could with the news blaring.
It was tempting to grab the sack-blindfold from the floor where she’d left it, roll it up so it would only cover her eyes and ears, and use it to block out the light and sound. Maybe she could doze, in that case.
But the thought of putting that thing back on squeezed the breath from her lungs. It was better this way. She needed to stay aware of her surroundings.
Reagan studied her feet, rather than letting the images on the TV offer up new and creative nightmares. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she pinched her cheeks to try and stay awake. She had no idea what time of day it was, but she hadn’t slept since the odd dream at Hare’s condo.
She was startled awake by a sharp scream. She looked at the TV, pulse shredding through her. The image that played out was grainy but steady. A cheap camera on a tripod, maybe. The noise was a woman—girl?—backed in a corner. Three young men laughed and jeered as they took turns forcing themselves on the disheveled woman.
Reagan wanted to look away, but horror held her attention. Was this a veiled threat? A you�
��re next kind of thing? The rapists finished, and the girl curled into a small ball, sobbing. Reagan finally managed to stop watching. She was going to be ill.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” The familiar female voice drew Reagan’s gaze, and despite the voice in her head screaming don’t look, her head jolted up again.
Dormouse was on the screen. One of the guys opened his mouth to speak, and Dormouse leveled her pistol and shot him in the head. Before the other two could move, she’d delivered them the same fate.
Dormouse was a good fucking shot. And Reagan’s respect and appreciation for the general rose several points.
The conclusion to the film didn’t erase the victim’s screams or her assailants’ laughs from Reagan’s thoughts. Sickness surged forward, and she lunged for the toilet. Several minutes of retching later, what she’d emptied the contents of her stomach.
The toilet flushed on its own. At least I have modern conveniences. The sarcastic thought didn’t reassure her.
She pressed herself back into the corner, sitting on the mattress, watching the door, singing songs, reciting poems—anything that came to mind, to block out the TV.
She was so tired. Each time she dozed, the TV woke her up. And then the original story played again. They had it on a loop. Could she use the clips to get some idea of passage of time? Nothing related to the real world, but to be able to say she was on the second loop or the third would be something.
Except the next video wasn’t the one from Venezuela. And then ran one she hadn’t seen. And the original played twice in a row. And whoever had her in here really liked the fucking execution clip with Dormouse—that was the only way Reagan could let herself think about it.
Exhaustion finally won out, and she slept. She had no idea how long for, but when she woke up, she was lying down and her neck was stiff.
The familiar whirring noise of a motor drew her attention, and the smaller slot opened again.
“Trash goes in the slot.” The digital voice overlapped the TV. Most likely words spoken by the computer after someone input them.
Reagan Through the Looking Glass (Hacking Wonderland, #1) Page 11
