stop the man. I think he’s kind of sick in the ways he enjoys hurting women, but maybe that’s just me. You’re going to be eager to tell me everything you know to keep Yuri from getting started on her.”
Alex lay curled up on the floor gripped by pain and rage. He pretended to be gripped by neither.
Henry stood. “Alice will be in with your morning medication any time now. Last night’s dose will be wearing off by tonight, and this morning’s dose is being reduced. You’ll be clearheaded enough to hear Jax screaming and begging you to tell us what we want to know.”
Even if he wanted to, Alex couldn’t tell them what they wanted to know. He didn’t know what a gateway was or anything about it. He didn’t think, though, that they were going to believe that.
“You understand?” Henry demanded.
Alex, curled up on the floor holding his arms across the cramping pain in his middle, could only nod.
Henry seized Alex’s shirt and hauled him to his feet, then heaved him into the chair. “You sit there and have a nice rest. Alice will be in with your medication in a bit. Got that?”
Alex nodded as if he didn’t care.
Henry paused at the door to look back and smile. “You just got to love a world that comes up with Thorazine. Just think, I can pound the crap out of you and the Thorazine keeps you helpless to lift a finger to defend yourself. What a great world.”
After Henry left, Alex put his throbbing head in his hands, recovering, trying to clear his vision from the brutal kick. His neck muscles hurt so much that he could hardly move his head.
He let the anger rage through him. He held his hand out to see his fingers trembling. He knew that he needed to get them under control or someone might get suspicious.
He wanted the day to be over. He wanted to see Jax. She would still be drugged, but not nearly as much. He needed her to be more alert if he was to have a chance of helping her.
He hated to see her doped up with Thorazine and whatever else was in the pills. He didn’t know if they would stop the pills. Since his mother was on Thorazine he’d long ago asked questions about them. Thorazine, he had learned, greatly amplified the effect of whatever pills were taken with it.
Alex leaned back in the chair and drew deep, even breaths, trying to calm himself as he waited for his morning medications to arrive.
One more dose of drugs to dodge.
He was pretty sure that they wouldn’t bother with the evening dose, since the morning dose wouldn’t be worn off that soon and they surely intended to kill him that night after they got the information they wanted.
Except Alex didn’t have any information to give them. He didn’t know anything except that Jax had figured out what they were after. She hadn’t had time to tell him what that was.
Still, even that much information was dangerous to them both. That information in and of itself might be all they needed. If Alex couldn’t find a way to stop them, they would be able to get him to reveal that Jax knew what they were looking for, and then torture her to get her to tell them everything she knew. Alex’s grandfather had told him once that everyone had a breaking point and everyone would eventually talk under torture.
These people were obviously experienced at torture. They knew what they were doing. He couldn’t expect either Jax or himself to be able to hold out forever.
Alex knew that he couldn’t let it go that far. He had no option but to try to do something before it got to that point. He’d been awake most of the night trying to come up with something, but it was next to impossible to plan when he didn’t know exactly what it was that they were going to do. If they came to get him and first bound his hands or put him in a straitjacket before taking him to Jax, it would be all over. He needed them to believe he was drugged enough that he couldn’t fight them. He needed to keep up the act and put them at ease.
If they tried to restrain him, though, he would have no choice but to act.
If he had to fight them in his room first, he didn’t know how in the world he was going to get all the way across the ninth floor of Mother of Roses. He couldn’t break down the heavy doors. They were designed to keep mental patients from breaking them down.
If he could get keys he could unlock the doors, but not all the staff carried keys. Even if he managed to get his hands on a set of keys, he couldn’t simply stroll through so many locked doors, or through the nurses’ station, without being seen and an alarm being raised.
His head spun as he tried to think through the different scenarios. His thinking was beginning to become mired in panic.
Just then the door swung open. It was his morning medications. Except that this time it was Alice who marched in with a med tray. Alex sat limp, staring off at nothing.
Alice glared down at him a moment, then lowered the tray with the three cups. “Time for your medications. Don’t give me any grief. I have things to do, other patients waiting for my caring touch, so hurry it up.”
Alex nodded and took the cup with the Thorazine. He trapped the syrupy liquid in his mouth under his tongue as before, then added the pills to it. He spit the whole thing into the water cup after drinking down the water. He crushed the cup and threw it in the wastebasket with the first two.
Alice had watched him the whole time. Her gaze moved to the wastebasket. She stood for a moment, then tossed the tray on the bed and bent to retrieve the larger of the three cups, the one that had held the water and now contained the discarded drugs.
She looked in the cup and then angrily threw it in his lap.
“Nice try. You have ten seconds to drink it all down or I’m going to go get a couple of orderlies and we’re going to put you in a straitjacket.”
Alex blinked as he had when he’d been heavily drugged. “But I’ll need water to swallow this.”
“Clock’s ticking, Alex.”
He caught a glimpse of her other hand behind her back. She had a syringe.
Alex exploded out of the chair.
A brief, clipped cry of surprise was all that made it out before he broke her jaw.
He immediately grabbed her throat with both hands. He saw her hand with the syringe come up. He kept hold of her throat with one hand and with the other seized her hand and bent it downward until her wrist snapped. The syringe dropped to the floor, bouncing several times.
Alice couldn’t cry for help, not only because he was crushing her windpipe, but because her jaw was broken and hanging crookedly. Blood ran in strings from the side of her mouth, leaving a bright red stain that spread across the shoulder of her stark white dress.
Her back arched as she tried to get away, but Alex had her throat in a death grip. She beat her good fist against him to no effect as he took her to her knees. All the while she tried to lean back away from him.
Alex was lost in a life-or-death rage. He could see as well as feel his thumbs crushing her throat closed. He put every fiber of his strength into squeezing harder yet. He gritted his teeth, letting out a low growl with the effort.
Alice’s eyes bulged. She frantically swung her arm, trying to beat him back. Alex was immune to her impotent blows. She began turning blue. Her tongue swelled from her mouth as she desperately tried to gasp a breath, but it was impossible.
Alex followed her to the ground, straddling her as he choked the life out of her. He held her head against the floor, using his weight to help crush her throat. Her arms flailed weakly. Her mouth moved as if she was trying to say something, but her distended tongue prevented her from even mouthing words for which there was no air.
Alex let his anger rage at this woman who intended to be a party to torturing Jax. He wanted this woman dead. He wanted them all dead.
Alex had for so long been holding back his rage, his need to strike out and fight back, that it felt exhilarating to finally be able to let that fury loose.
He didn’t know how long she had been dead before he even realized it.
He finally sat back on his heels, catching his breath. With the back of his wrist he wiped sweat from his brow.
She was purple. Her eyes were wide open, staring at nothing. Her tongue bulged from her mouth, lying over to the side. Saliva and blood trickled out.
Alex raked his fingers back though his hair. He thought he might be sick.
He finally got up off the corpse. He saw the syringe and picked it up. The cap was missing. He realized that she must have popped it off with a thumb. He cast about and finally found the cap under the bed. He replaced it and
