They began to strap my right arm to a board, an immovable board, and I figured out where this was going. The scent of medical alcohol stung my nose. A needle pricked my skin below the elbow.
“Where are we going?”
“You?” a gruff voice answered. “To sleep. Then you get to see Ted, and he said to tell you he is really looking forward to seeing you and your girl again.”
Ted. Of course it was Ted.
He laughed. “You are so fucked.”
Something cold flooded into my vein and the sterile bliss of drug induced oblivion took me away.
CHAPTER 20
ISAK
The blur of what happened focused in and out, scenes sharpened and faded. Men talking. Walking on tiles. An elevator. A room, a very blank room and pale walls, and then… Red beside me on the floor, sleeping with her head on my lap.
I faded into full consciousness slowly, with the distinct awareness of the lessening in my blood of the Keppra drug.
They’d taken my supplies. I blinked at the door ahead of me with the handle being the one solid thing. The door itself was some sort of glass. Meters away it stood, across the bare floor.
I looked down and saw that Red was stirring on my lap, her eyelashes moving, then her body. That part was real, if blurry.
I shook my head and tried to focus.
This was a room with nothing in it, except us and what we lay on. Even the power points had been removed. The cream paint on the walls had damage, and dust showed where furniture once stood, but all we had were cushions and a quilt that spread across our part of the floor. Red levered herself into a slewed sitting position and blinked at me. She swept back those long locks with a shaking hand.
My heart, I swear it pined with sadness and regret. I wanted to hold that unique emotion, but it slipped away.
“You’re awake?” she said quietly.
“Yes.” Obviously. Then I noticed the camera mounted in the high corner of the room. “They’re watching, recording.”
“Yes.”
“Have you seen anyone?”
“No.” Her frown lines came and went repeatedly.
Worry was to be expected, considering.
“I’m going to fix this.” A repeat of earlier words? I couldn’t remember much, except that the ambush had happened and the helicopter. I struggled upright, stood with my back propped to the wall, and a guard appeared outside. He spoke into a mic pinned to his shirt, and never took his eyes off me.
“They’ll be coming soon.”
“Can you do… anything?”
I reached out, searching for susceptibles – for those women I would have collected casually in the past. We were at the top of a tower of several floors and my consciousness descended through them and found them empty… empty… empty.
“They’ve cleared this place of people, of females.” I pushed myself off and walked to the door on jelly legs.
“I saw some. It’s a resort tower by the sea. On the Gold Coast of Queensland, I think. There were beaches. Signs. The bag on my head was removed when we landed on the roof.”
Neglectful of them.
The glass door swung open, and the guard was there, gesturing for us to leave.
“Out! The boss is here.”
After I emerged, the door was shut behind me, and I was spun and handcuffed. Four guards, all in dark buttoned shirts and black pants, but not armed, curiously, or not with anything more lethal than what looked to be tasers. They wore holsters for guns, but those were empty. This had to be Ted’s doing.
His daughter snatching a gun from his man must have stuck in his head. Guns? Hah. He had no idea what I could do.
None.
Then an outer door opened, revealing Ted framed in it with a corridor behind him. Two men entered with him. More of his little army.
The new guards shut the door then stood beside it.
“You.” I smiled.
“Me.” He stayed where he was, arms relaxed at his sides, but his fingers twitched and curled. “I’d kill you now if you weren’t potentially useful. Beat you to death with a chair then skin you while you watched.”
“Thank you. The feeling is mutual. Though if dead I wouldn’t feel the skinning.” Amateur.
Ted grunted. “We already have tissue and blood from you. I have a patron. He’s seen the bit of a vid one of my men took of our last encounter, knows you can make women do stuff. That drug you need for your abracadabra stuff will be given to you tomorrow, if you agree to show us your… skill on a young woman I’ll give you. Here in the room.”
I shrugged. Noncommittal seemed less likely to trigger him.
“This will be taped for my patron. Refuse and first your companion, then you, will suffer physical damage.” He grinned. “I have a script to say or this would just be do as your fucking told. We are going to learn how you do it, and we are going to replicate it.”
Again, I shrugged.
Fucking asswipe. Even as I listened to his speech, I was searching, stretching. The fourth floor down was empty too, though I could feel a few males. They were mindless ghosts compared to how I registered females.
I could not use them, alas.
Go farther down. My face was growing hot, and probably red from the pull on my mind.
“You look a bit wasted, man. Poor fucking you.” He stuck up a finger. “Before I go get some beauty sleep and have a lovely meal, I need to show you what we are capable of. Get her.”
A guard opened the glass door. He vanished inside.
“No!” I blurted that through a thick throat, almost growling it. Whatever this was, it involved
