stepped in. “How are you feeling, Hays? We haven’t given you anything for the pain. Why should we?”
McGill glowered with outright hatred. “When I think about how I fucking trusted you all these years. The deceit you showed is astonishing.”
He leaned close-and then Owen McGill spat in my face. That ended any remaining hope that I might still be dreaming. The sentiment hurt and the spit shamed, but it also pissed me off, big-time.
“What the hell are you saying?” I yelled, struggling to break free. “Have you both gone crazy?”
“There’s nobody crazy here,” Moore said grimly. “Just two honest cops-and a dirty traitor who will soon be facing the slow death.”
“I’ll say it again:
“I don’t know who you’re working with,
“Lizbeth!” I raised my voice suddenly. Where was she? Were they holding her too? “What have you done with my wife? And my girls?”
Moore very coolly replied, “Lizbeth and the poor girls are in a safe place. She fainted in my arms when she found out the truth. Then she went home and tried to scrub her skin off-because she had touched you.
“And your daughters… they’ll have to go to a new school to try and escape the stigma and shame. Didn’t you ever think about what this would do to them? What kind of monster are you?”
Moore stared coldly at me while his words sank in. My wife, my beloved partner in life, she was going along with this? And what would happen to April and Chloe? I didn’t want them hurt by vicious accusations against me, no matter how ridiculous and untrue.
“I don’t know how you managed to pull this extensive masquerade off, Baker, but we’re going to find out.” Moore continued his rant. “The doctors want to watch you one more night to make sure you’re strong enough for a full interrogation. Then you’re coming with us, and believe me, you’re going to tell us everything you ever did, from the minute you were born.”
Having said that, Moore lit up one of his famous cigars, his
“And if you make it through the interrogation, you can guess what’s coming next,” McGill sneered. “A very slow death. It could take… years.”
That’s when McGill reared back and punched me hard in the face. The sudden pain made me feel like my skull had been split.
“That’ll have to do for now,” he growled. “There’s plenty more where that came from. Trust me on it. I can’t wait to break every bone in your body, skunk.”
They turned and stalked out of the room, leaving me rigid with horror, my face aching. I’d seen humans interrogated by Elite experts-reduced to lumps of screaming, gibbering flesh. But that was nothing compared to what McGill promised would come next:
I heard Jax Moore bark at some subordinate agents out in the hall: “No mistakes. Keep a close eye on him-he may be human, but he’s a slick, dangerous sonofabitch. Remember, he’s had augmentations. Probably why he was able to fool us for so long.”
My head was pounding with so many questions. I
But I shoved all that to the back of my brain. The only thing that mattered right now was getting out of here. But how could I? The Agency believed I was a traitor.
I tested the restraints. A metal-enforced jacket bound my upper body and held my arms tightly across my chest. Shackles pinned my wrists and ankles to the bed frame. They were too strong even for me… the world’s strongest
Right.
Chapter 23
This was the finest hospital in the world-and long ago I had learned this axiom from my mother and father: greatest strength is also greatest weakness.
How could I work with that? There had to be a way out of this. But what was it? What could I do now?
Late that night, the highly sensitive cardio monitor near my bed let out a sudden
A second later it bleeped again, then started into a rapid-fire alarm pattern, while the line leaped in erratic peaks.
A guard stepped into the room-his face hard and wary. Not a shred of sympathy.
“What’s going on here?” he barked.
“My heart,” I gasped. “Racing like crazy. Won’t stop. Feels like it’s going to explode.”
The guard looked at the cardio monitor, then didn’t waste any time-he wheeled around and ordered his partner, “Get the doctors the hell in here! Do it. Now. He’s having a heart attack-a big one!”
That was one thing I had in my favor. They wanted me alive, not dead; they had questions that needed answering… about how I got to be me.
I revved my heart rate even higher than the 300 beats per minute I’d already reached. I was pushing 350 when the team of emergency medical personnel burst into the room.
I writhed and grimaced in fake agony, though I actually was in pain. “Can’t… breathe,” I moaned. “There’s an elephant on my chest. Help me! Please!”
Chapter 24
“What the Hell happened?” one of the doctors yelled at his staff. “You’ve been monitoring him from central control. The skunk was doing fine five minutes ago.”
“Don’t ask me-I never wasted any time learning medicine for skunks,” another doc said. “We’d better get him out of that jacket though. Take him to a trauma room. He’s up to three sixty!”
“Whoa, no you don’t,” one of the guards said and stepped in. “Our orders are not to let Hays Baker leave the room for any reason. That’s not happening. Unless he’s in a body bag.”
“He’s about to stop breathing for good. How’s that for a reason?” the lead doctor snapped. “You can explain it to your boss, unless you’d rather explain that you’re the one who killed him.
Reluctantly, the guard stepped back.
Next, a pair of burly orderlies wheeled a gurney alongside my bed. They started to release the restraints.
I had never thought I would harm another Elite. But I’d never had Elites threatening to put me to a slow death either.
I kept up the act, but my muscles were tensed and ready to spring. The instant the shackles were unsnapped and the metal jacket pulled from my arms, I reared straight up out of the bed. I punched the nearest orderly and felt his nose break against my fist. He stumbled back in pain. I caught the second orderly with a chop across the neck, trying not to hurt him too badly. I was also careful to keep the orderlies between myself and the guards’
