Decoding Darkness

by Marissa Farrar

  I got back to my feet and crossed over to the door. My body ached all over from being thrown around, but I ignored the pain. I stopped at the door. The hatch in the middle only opened from the outside, but I ducked my head and tried to see if there were any cracks I could look through. There was one right at the bottom, and I squinted, and then closed one eye, trying to get a view. The only thing I could see was the same corridor I’d been dragged down. It didn’t look as though I had a guard stationed outside, or that anyone else was around. Even so, I balled up my right hand, wincing as I crushed the skinned flesh in the center of my palm, and then hammered my fist against the metal door.

  “Hollan! Hey, Hollan! Are we doing this, or what?” I paused, listening for any sign I’d been heard, and then shouted again. “Come on, you sick son of a bitch. You’ve got me. Are you too frightened to ask me now? What are you scared of? That you’ll never get the code out of me? That after all this time, I’ll win, and my dad will have been the one to have the final laugh?” I hammered my fist again, not caring about the pain shooting daggers down through my arm. I was breathing hard, partly out of exertion, but mostly out of rage. I was frightened, too, of course, but my need to see Hollan pay overrode my fear.

  The cur-clunk of a lock and door opening came from somewhere else in the building.

  Footsteps, heavy, but hurried, headed toward me.

  I took a breath and stepped back, my heart pounding. He was coming.

  Ducking back down, I peered out of the crack in the hatch. Sure enough, in the tiny slit of light, Hollan walked toward me, still wearing the same suit he’d been wearing when he’d taken me from the road. The expression on his face read as ‘seriously pissed,’ and then he got too close for me to be able to see his face, the gray of his suit blocking my view as he came to a halt in front of the door.

  “What are you doing, Darcy?”

  I straightened. “I want to talk.”

  He barked laughter through the metal door between us. “Not about the code, I assume.”

  I didn’t honor his question with an answer. “What are you going to do with me?”

  “I think you already know that.”

  I shrugged, even though he couldn’t see me. “So why aren’t we getting on with it? Why just leave me locked up in here?”

  “I’m waiting for a friend to arrive. He’s the one who’s going to get that number out of your head. He’s extremely skilled at what he does, and I have no doubt he’ll have you blurting out that number before long.”

  “Skilled?”

  “Oh, yes. He’s well practiced in getting people to talk.”

  I swallowed hard, trying to hold down the nausea swelling inside me. I knew what Hollan was saying—this man would torture me. I prayed Isaac and the others reached this place before he did.

  “You don’t like getting your hands dirty, then, Hollan?” I spat, trying to keep up my bravado. “Don’t think you could do it yourself?”

  “I’m quite capable of getting my hands dirty, young lady. Have you forgotten I was the one who shot your father? I’d considered killing you, too, when I realized you were also in the house, but I took mercy on you. Good thing I did, too, or the information on that memory stick would have been lost forever.”

  “Mercy on me? You left me with my father bleeding out on me!”

  “It would have been just as easy to put a bullet in your head as well,” he said, sounding perturbed, as though he couldn’t understand why I wasn’t grateful to him.

  “So instead, you just left me with my dad dying in my arms. Maybe shooting me would have been the kinder thing to do?”

  Maybe it would be better if that information was lost. I knew it wasn’t what the guys wanted, and that it would mean the breakdown in everything they’d set up to beat corruption, but they’d functioned without it for the past six years. Couldn’t they continue to function?

  But they thought of each other as family. How I would feel if I’d been separated from my family, and then the only thing that would give me their locations was destroyed forever?

  Hollan continued to talk to me through the closed and locked door. “Yes, but I still spared your life, Darcy. Maybe you should give me a little thanks.”

  I blinked in surprise, rearing back at the ludicrousness of his words. This man was insane. He’d killed my father and expected me to thank him for not killing me, too.

  “You’re crazy,” I said lamely, bewildered by his response. Did he really believe he’d done me a favor?

  We were getting off the point. My plan was to get him to reveal the location of the memory stick, not talk about what he’d done that night. I needed to focus on the future, not keep rehashing the past.

  “Where is the memory stick?” I asked. “Is it even here?”

  “Why would I tell you that?”

  “You want something from me, so maybe you should give me something in return.”

  He chuckled. “I like your feistiness, Darcy, but really, you’re the one being held prisoner. I don’t think you have too much to bargain with.”

  “No? I think I have the most important thing to bargain with. I have the thing everyone wants.”

  “Don’t think you can play tricks on me, young lady. When my associate gets here, we’ll get the truth out of you, no matter what. There are drugs we can give you that will ensure you tell us what we need to know.”

  Alarm jarred through me. Drugs? I hadn’t thought of that. I could hold out against them hurting me, but if they injected me with something that would make my tongue loose, they could make me spill my guts without ever laying a finger on me.

  He must have noticed my silence, and he laughed. “Ah, now, that’s got you worried. And you will tell me the truth. There’s no point even attempting to lie to me after your veins are pumped full of this stuff. You’ll have no option but to tell me everything.”

  I remembered how Kingsley had talked about how suggestible I was back when he’d been hypnotizing me, how he struggled to pull me back out of it after he’d put me under. Would it be even worse if I was given a drug that effectively did the same thing? Coldness coiled in my gut at the implication of that possibility. I could tell Hollan everything. I might even tell them about the base where the guys had grown up, and how many people were there, and how they had their guns taken from them as soon as they went inside, so they were all unarmed. I might tell Hollan everything I knew, including the code.

  “Anyway,” Hollan continued, “he’ll be here soon, so how about you go and sit yourself down and stop making such a fuss.”

  I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. My thoughts were sharp and vicious, and I aimed them directly toward him, as though they could penetrate his heart and stop it from beating.

  On the other side of the door, I heard Hollan’s footsteps as he walked away again, leaving me to my thoughts. I was no closer to learning if the memory stick was even here.

  Numb at the possibility of what might happen if this man arrived before Isaac and the others did, I slowly walked back to the bed. My legs felt weak, my stomach loose. Had I made a horrible mistake? I’d been stupid thinking hurting me would be the only method Hollan would have at getting the code from me. These people probably dealt with terrorists and people from other countries who’d compromised national security. How blasé of me to think some twenty-year-old girl from D.C. was going to last up against those kinds of methods. My legs crumpled, and I sat down heavily on the bed, trying not to hyperventilate.

  I sent a thought out through the ether—come on, guys. Please hurry up. I need you. I knew they couldn’t hear me, but that didn’t stop me from wishing, like others would offer up prayers in times of need.

  Chapter Five

  The minutes passed by too slowly. I alternated between sitting on the bed, unable to bring myself to lie on it, and pacing around the cell, vocalizing my hatred of Hollan in fierce whispers, imaging all the horrible things I would do to him once I got the chance.

  I was sitting o
n the edge of the bed when footsteps and voices approached once more. Jumping to my feet, I hurried to the door, then kneeled to peer through the crack in the hatch. Several men strode down the corridor toward my cell. One of them was Hollan, and the other two were his sidekicks, Stewart and Bryson. The fourth man I hadn’t seen before.

  He was tall—about six feet one—with hair so blond it was almost white, and eyes of the palest shade of blue I’d ever seen. I wondered if he was albino, but then I realized his skin was tan, so that wasn’t possible. This was simply his coloring. Like the others, he was smartly dressed. I had a theory that men like them dressed in such a way to hide who they really were underneath. People were automatically suspicious of someone who dressed like Clay, in his baggy t-shirts and jeans, or someone like Lorcan, with his leather jacket and tattoos. Put a man in an expensive suit, however, and people automatically assumed they were decent, professional people, even if that was the furthest thing from the truth.

  The new guy held a briefcase in his hand, and I fixated on it, my blood running cold. What was in that case?

  As the men approached, their bodies blocked my view from the hatch. I scooted backward, wanting to put as much space as possible between me and them. I didn’t think for a moment they were here for any good reason. I swallowed hard as fresh nerves danced in my stomach. Was this the man Hollan had brought here to deal with me? I’d hoped to have a little more time than this. Would they try to inject me here and now with the drug to make me talk? I had to figure out how to delay them and hope the guys would turn up at any moment. If they showed up, that would be enough of a distraction to stop Hollan’s new colleague from injecting me, but for the moment, I was on my own.

  The lock cracked back, then the door opened. I stood, rooted to one spot, trying not to tremble. I didn’t want Hollan to see I was afraid, even though I was.

  Hollan led the way, the new man at his side. His two goons lurked behind them in the doorway, ready to step in if I tried anything.

  “Hello, Darcy,” Hollan said with a cool smile. “I’ve brought someone to meet you.”

  “Well, I don’t want to meet him,” I snapped.

  “Now, now. No need to be rude.” He turned to the man at his side. “Obviously, this is the girl,” he said, before focusing his attention back on me. “Otto needed to see you before getting to work. Apparently, it’s important that he knows your size and weight.”

  I gave a bark of crazed laughter. “I’m not telling him what I weigh!”

  It had nothing to do with modesty—my weight didn’t bother me in the slightest—but I wasn’t about to start giving him figures for him to use.

  “It is no problem,” said the blond. I detected an accent. “I can make an accurate estimation by looking at her.”

  I scowled and hunched over, trying to make it harder for him to guess my size. I remembered I was supposed to be delaying things. Maybe if I could get him talking, he’d see I was a real person, not some experiment to be injected.

  “Where are you from?” I asked him, my eyes narrowed. “Russia?”

  He laughed, revealing perfect white teeth. “No, I am from Sweden. But thank you for the stereotyping.” His English was perfect, if a little stilted.

  My nostrils flared, and I pressed my lips together. “Considering the circumstances, I don’t think we exactly need to worry about being politically correct.”

  “No, I guess not.” He held my gaze, a smile tweaking his lips. The bottom one was fuller than the top. He had good lips, I decided. I knew it was a ridiculous thing to be thinking about when I was about to be injected with some kind of concoction of drugs, but there wasn’t a whole lot else to do. Besides, thinking he had good lips didn’t mean I liked the guy. I hated the son of a bitch for what he wanted to do with me.

  My gaze darted to the briefcase he still held. Did he have the drugs and equipment he planned on using on me in there?

  “We are not doing it in here,” he said, wrinkling his nose at the surroundings I’d been forced to inhabit. “I assume you have a better setting?” He looked to Hollan for an answer, who nodded in response.

  “Of course. We have a medical room. I assume that would be preferable.”

  “Yes, that would be better.”

  The man—Otto—looked to me once more. “Do we need a chair with straps on the arms, or will you behave yourself?”

  I spoke between gritted teeth. “I’ll behave myself.” I had no intention of doing anything of the sort, but he didn’t need to know that.

  He ducked his head in a slow bow. “Excellent. Shall we go through, then?”

  Otto spoke like a man offering to take someone from the dining room into the study for drinks and a cigar after a good meal.

  The two men who’d hauled me down here stepped forward and grabbed me by the arms. I yanked away from them. “I’m capable of walking.”

  They looked to Hollan, who shook his head. “No, keep hold of her. I don’t trust her.”

  I scowled as the men held me tighter, their fingers digging into the skin and bone of my upper arms, pressing on the bruises they’d caused the last time they’d been dragging me around. Bastards.

  Hollan and his new friend led the way, the briefcase swinging by his side. I was hauled along behind them. I was glad to be out of the horrible cell, but my mind spun at what was about to happen. The adrenaline coursing through my system made me dizzy and lightheaded, but I needed to focus and think clearly. Whatever happened, I couldn’t let him inject me. I had no idea how I was going to stop it, especially with four big men around me, but I had no choice. I had to find a way.

  They dragged me down a corridor identical to the one I’d been through when I was brought to my cell, but in the opposite direction, moving toward the back of the building instead of the front. In my head, I visualized what I’d seen of the outside of the building, trying to place myself within the blocky wings. I pictured that we were walking down the right-hand arm of the U-shaped building. How many ways were there in and out of this place? There was the main one, which we’d entered through, but I assumed there would be at least one at the back, as well. These kinds of places always had rear entrances. I knew my chance at escape was miniscule, but I also considered the possibility that the guys were already here, and were lining up outside, preparing to storm the place.

  I knew I couldn’t wait for help, however, even if it was right outside. By the time they found me, it would most likely be too late.

  “Wait, please stop. I feel dizzy.”

  Stewart gave an uneasy glance from beside me. “What?”

  “I feel really sick. I think I’m going to throw up.” I allowed my legs to go loose beneath me, so both men had to hold me up. The way I slumped made them lean over me. I thought of the most revolting thing I’d experienced—finding a half formed baby chick inside a boiled egg I’d been eating when I was a child—and started to gag. My stomach crawled up my throat and I retched, the sound coming from my throat, rasping through the otherwise silent corridor.

  “Ah, fuck.” Bryson dropped his hold on me and stepped away. I was dangling from Stewart’s grip now, but I felt it had loosened, his revulsion taking hold. I twisted slightly and retched again, this time making sure I was pointed directly at his feet. Though there was nothing in my stomach to come up, he still gave a cry of disgust and jerked away.

  I took my moment. With a burst of energy, I straightened and took off at a sprint, back in the direction we’d come. Cries of surprise and annoyance followed me.

  “Get after her!” Hollan’s angry shout.

  I ran, my feet pounding the solid concrete floor. I didn’t hold any hope of finding an exit I could escape from, but this was about me buying time for the guys to arrive, not me trying to escape. I needed to find somewhere I could hide, but I knew Hollan would know the layout of this place better than I could ever hope to. My chances of finding anywhere for long were minute, but that didn’t stop me trying.

  I passed the cell I’d be
en kept in and veered off to the right. The area where I’d first been brought in was at the end of this corridor, and, though there was an exit, I hadn’t seen anything that would be a good hiding spot. No, I was better off taking my chances and hoping to find something different.

  Behind me, the sound of feet running met my ears. The men were taller than I was, with longer strides, and most likely faster, but I’d had the advantage of a head start. I passed the entrance with its glass booth, though the man inside only watched me run past, his expression a startled surprise. I kept going to the end, before veering off to the right and running down the second arm of the U-shaped building. Did Hollan have a phone on him? How many people were in this building? I’d arrived with four men, plus I’d seen the guy in the booth, and then there was the big Swede. I didn’t know if any of the men I’d arrived with had left again, but there was a good chance they were still here somewhere. The place was big enough for me not to have seen them since we’d first gotten here. Was Hollan calling for backup, and I’d find myself surrounded?

  Other doors led off the corridor, but they weren’t the metal cell doors of the parallel corridor I’d been kept down. They were glass and wood, regular doors. Panicked, my heart racing, I grabbed for the handle of one and twisted. To my astonishment and relief, the door swung open, revealing a dark interior. I threw myself inside and grappled for the door to slam it shut behind me. I let out a sob of relief as my fingers touched a key inside the lock, and, holding the door shut with my shoulder, I was able to turn it and the lock clicked into place.

  The sob escaped my mouth, and I fell away from the door, scrambling backward. They’d seen me come in here, I was sure. They hadn’t been that far behind. But then footsteps ran past. I heard shouts of ‘where’d she go?’ and ‘Darcy?’ as though I’d actually answer.

  I huddled into a ball, my arms wrapped around my legs. My entire body shook from fear and exertion as I stared wide-eyed at the door. They’d find me quickly enough, but I’d managed to do more than I’d hoped for, and had bought myself some time.