Hammett counted to ten, then gave the knife a tiny jiggle, blood dribbling down the blade. Chandler stayed stock-still. Hammett pushed it in another millimeter. Chandler didn’t flinch.
Hammett was impressed. Granted, the tiny prick of a knife was a lot easier to block than a broken finger, or being tortured or raped, but it was a good start.
“OK, now imagine the wave again. But this time, it isn’t going out your elbow. This time you’re letting it go to your brain. You’re allowing yourself to hurt. Feel the difference between detouring the wave, and allowing it to get through.”
Hammett heard Chandler’s breathing speed up.
“You can’t stop a river. The water has to go somewhere. But you can deflect it. Now let the pain go further, up your arm, but allow it to exit your shoulder before it reaches your spine.”
She felt Chandler relax again. Her sister really did have terrific control over her body.
“Open your eyes.”
Chandler stared at her, but Hammett could sense her concentration was elsewhere.
“Nice job. You can do this with emotional pain as well. It’s harder, because a thought travels a shorter distance, so it takes more focus to deflect. Also, there’s a big drawback to doing this.”
Moving slowly, almost leisurely, Hammett raised her palm and slapped Chandler across the face. Chandler reeled back and blinked, obviously surprised.
“Normally you would have instinctively blocked my blow, but you were too focused on your finger. This technique diffuses pain, but leaves you open to attack.”
“Good to know,” Chandler said.
Hammett folded the Buck Knife and stuck it in her pocket. “Keep practicing and you can learn to balance pain aversion with awareness of external stimuli.”
Chandler nodded. Then, while examining her bleeding fingernail, she said something Hammett couldn’t have expected. “Thanks.”
Hammett stared at Chandler’s face, searching for signs of insincerity. She found none, and had to exercise great self-control not to smile.
Chandler was beginning to trust her. That would make killing her later much simpler.
“Want to grab some food? If I’m going to ball Harry again, I need some energy.”
“I don’t see how you can sleep with that guy.”
“He’s not so bad. And that fake hand of his is pretty cool.”
“But he’s such a pig.”
“Any port in a storm, sis. We’re on the run. That means we take whatever we can get, whenever it comes along. Because it might be the last time.”
“If my time is up, I don’t want my last time to be with a creep.”
“So you’re content with your last being Mr. Morality, who dumped your sorry ass? Is that what the breakdown was all about?”
Chandler didn’t answer.
“Say what you will about Harry, he’s not going to judge you. That’s what girls like us need. Someone who doesn’t live in a glass house.”
Chandler frowned.
“Admit it. I’m right.”
Her sister tilted her head to the side, just a little, giving in. “For someone so obviously psychotic, you have your moments.”
“Let’s go eat before we hug and start getting mushy.”
Hammett led the way. Partly because she was hungry. Partly because she was worried, if the syrup got any thicker, that she and Chandler would actually hug.
And that it might feel good.
Scarlett
“Losing the element of surprise is unfortunate, but not terminal,” The Instructor said. “But once the enemy is aware of you, increase the pressure.”
Scarlett wiped away some iodine and traces of motor oil, then dug the scalpel in deeper. The fishhooks in Rhett’s palm were deep, barbed, and a bitch to remove. Rhett had spared her any whining while she worked, but Scarlett had no sympathy for him. Thanks to his screwup, Fleming knew they were onto her. She’d also abandoned her vehicle, which would make her a lot harder to find.
When the last hook came free, Scarlett set about cleaning his wounds once more. Rhett was numbed with a local anesthetic, but he still winced when she dumped isopropyl alcohol on the oozing slashes. Then she unwrapped a gut suture and began to sew him up.
“You have a touch like an angel,” Rhett purred.
“Shh. Concentrating.”
“Just sayin’. Someone who treats a man that tender can’t hide her true feelings.”
“Is that right?”
“Certainly is. Some would say what you’re doing right now is an intimate act. Even more intimate than making love.”
Scarlett looked up from her stitching and put on a smile. “I’m thinking about performing an intimate act with your mouth right now.”
Rhett winked. “Do tell.”
In half a heartbeat, Scarlett held the suture up under Rhett’s nose. “How about me sewing your lips together? Because if you keep hitting on me, that’s what I’m going to do the next time you fall asleep.”
“Easy there, darlin’. Just being friendly.”
“We work together, Rhett. We aren’t friends. Remember that.”
“I surely will.”
Scarlett went back to sewing, and Rhett was quiet for the remainder of the procedure. When she finished, Scarlett taped over the stitches, then leaned back and cracked her neck.
“I was thinking,” Rhett said, “that the only way she could have gotten out of that mall was carjacking or calling a cab.”
“You call the police, see if anything was reported. I’ll take the cabs.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
There was only one taxi service in town with a shuttle equipped for wheelchairs. Scarlett spoke to the dispatcher and pretended to be Fleming, claiming she lost an earring in the backseat.
“Can you have the driver look? Also, can you ask him which side of the street he dropped me off on? I can’t remember, and I need to tell my boyfriend to check the sidewalks.”
Within a minute, Scarlett had the fast-food restaurant where the cab had taken Fleming.
“Also, I called a cab a bit later,” Scarlett lied. “I might have left it in that cab as well.”
“I don’t know who you called, but we only have one record of a wheelchair pickup today.”
Scarlett hung up. “I’m driving this time,” she said.
Rhett held up his injured hand. “Fair enough. What’s the plan?”
“She’s in a wheelchair. She can’t be too far from where they dropped her off. We take a look, ask around, see what turns up. How hard can it be to find a cripple?”
Julie
“Do you want to see Chandler again, Julie?” the older man asked.
There was only one way she could answer that question, and even if it would have been smarter to lie, at that moment, Julie couldn’t manage it. “Yes.”
“Then stop trying to hurt yourself.”
Julie’s whole body trembled. Again tears flooded her eyes, but this time she managed to push them back.
No crying. That’s what Chandler would say.
“Let her go, Fossen.”
The guard in the space suit released her wrists and got up off the bed.
“Drop the screw, Julie,” the man said. His voice was still commanding, but now there was a note of understanding softening his eyes.
“Chandler…Where is she?”
“We’ll talk about Chandler, but not until I know you’re safe. Drop the screw.”
Julie ran her fingertips over the ridges, sticky with her blood. When it came to killing herself, she’d proven pretty inept. Her attempt to stop what these people were doing was an epic fail, and even now, she knew if they chose to rush her, she couldn’t do anything to stop them.
“Why are you being nice to me?”
The man’s pale lips twitched at the corners. “You’re a smart girl, Julie. And I have to apologize for not treating you better all along. The fact is, we need each other. If I can make you understand what is happening here, earn your cooper
ation, then everything will be better. For both of us.”
“And Chandler?” Julie asked.
“Especially for Chandler.”
“OK.” Taking a deep breath, she let the screw fall from her fingers.
The guard circled the bed and guided her to stand in front of the man in charge.
“Show Miss James to room 7. Make sure she can’t escape this time.”
“But Chandler, where is—”
“I’ll explain everything. Now, you need to go with Fossen and wait for me. I won’t be long.”
Julie nodded. She didn’t trust this silver-haired man, no matter how nicely he treated her. But if there was a chance she could help Chandler, she would play his game. At least for now.
“Thank you…sir.”
“I’m called The Instructor.”
An odd name, but Julie dutifully repeated it.
The Instructor looked away from her and nodded to the guard. “And Fossen? Get her a bandage for her throat and wrists. There will be some in the room.”
Fossen nodded and then guided her into the hall.
In the heat of trying to kill herself, Julie hadn’t thought about the fact that she was half-naked, only a flimsy hospital gown between her and total exposure. Now self-consciousness nibbled at the corners of her mind, and the waxed tile in the hallway felt cold on her bare feet.
Still, she felt stronger than she had since she’d been taken from the lighthouse.
When she’d seen the island burst into flame, she’d assumed Chandler and her sisters were dead. She’d believed she was all alone, and everything was up to her. Now that Chandler was alive, everything had changed.
Now there was hope.
Derek Fossen steered her into a room and flicked on the light once they were inside. She’d expected this room to be like the first one, cold tile and austerity, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. The floor was covered with plush carpet, and the walls were painted in a warm beige and adorned with artwork even Julie recognized as expensive. A nice sofa and chairs dominated the room, and a wood desk angled out from the corner.
She glanced up at her escort. “Are you sure this is the right place?”
“Yes.” He crossed to the desk and pulled some items from one of the drawers. Then he motioned to the desktop. “Sit here, please.”
Julie did as he asked. Her gown rode up a little, and the desktop felt cold on her thighs and bottom, and when the man leaned over her, she felt more self-conscious than ever.
With gentle fingers, Fossen swept Julie’s hair to the side. Then, using a series of alcohol pads, he cleaned the blood off her neck and wrist, his touch light even through the gloves.
When the pad brushed the cuts on her throat, Julie cringed.
“Sorry,” he said.
“It’s OK.”
He continued, even gentler this time, and Julie tried not to react, even when the pain brought tears to her eyes. Soon he’d cleaned her wounds and finished by taping gauze squares over the cuts.
“Is that better?” he asked.
“Yes. Thanks. Are you a doctor?”
“Yes.”
She’d assumed he was a guard. She expected security in a place like this, but she’d always thought of doctors as healers. “You’re in a biohazard suit. You obviously know what they’re doing with me.”
Fossen nodded.
“So how can you help them? Didn’t you take an oath to do no harm?”
“It’s complicated.”
“They’re going to use me to kill people.”
Fossen peered down at her, and even through the face shield she thought she read pity in his eyes. Then his face hardened again, bland and unreadable.
“There are a few magazines on the side table, if you want something to read.”
He motioned to a stack. Then, giving her a final nod, he left the room and closed the door behind him, a lock clicking into place.
Julie perched on the edge of the sofa, pulling her flimsy gown over her legs as best she could, and prayed she was ready for whatever came next.
Fleming
“You don’t win a battle playing defense,” The Instructor said. “When attacked, attack back.”
Fleming lay on the air mattress, wonderfully sore, while Bradley made sandwiches using their meager rations. He brought back two, and Fleming realized this was the second time in three days that a lover had fixed her some food. But Bradley wasn’t like Tequila, who’d fed her, and probably bedded her, almost as a professional courtesy. This young man hadn’t seen and done the things Fleming had. He still had an innocence about him, a naïveté Fleming found both refreshing and sad. Soon enough, life would kick the stuffing out of him, like it did with everyone eventually.
The sandwich was bologna, cheese, mayo, and tomato slices on sourdough bread. Bradley sat on the mattress next to her as they ate, running his fingers over her hips. They eventually trailed down to her legs, running across the deep trenches of scar tissue.
“Does it still hurt?” he asked.
“Only when I’m awake.”
“How did it happen?”
Fleming lost her good mood and reached down to push his hand away. “That’s a bit personal, Bradley.”
“More personal than what we just did?”
“In a way, yes.”
“I want to know everything about you.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Because you’re a spy?”
“Yes. And more than that. I’m a private person.”
“Have you ever told one of your boyfriends what happened to your legs?”
“Not in detail.”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
He reached for her legs again, and Fleming grabbed his finger and twisted it back, pinning his face to the mattress.
“No means no.”
“I like you a lot, Fleming.”
“I like you, too, Bradley.”
“All of you. Including your legs.”
Fleming wasn’t sure how to reply to that. She released him, and once again he placed his hand on one of her scars.
“Does rubbing hurt?”
“Bradley…”
He began to stroke her ruined leg, slowly, softly. Fleming tried to remember the last time a man had touched her there, and she realized no one had since the accident. There had always been an unspoken agreement to keep hands off. The men she’d been with had either found her legs to be as disgusting as Fleming did, or they’d been too polite, or too focused on other parts of her body.
“Are they always bruised like this?” he asked, still rubbing.
“No. It’s been a rough few days.”
“Am I hurting you?”
He wasn’t. Not physically. But this was somehow more intimate than the sex they’d just shared.
“We need to finish eating and get some work done.”
“Let me give you a massage first.”
“No. I need to etch the circuit board.”
She tried to sit up, but he put a gentle hand on her chest.
“You’re my first,” he said. “I’m just one of many to you. I want to do something no one else has. Let me rub your legs.”
Jesus. He was like a puppy dog with his eager determination.
“Fine,” she said, sighing. Then she closed her eyes and waited for it to end.
Bradley started at her toes. Her feet looked perfectly normal, not like the mottled lunch meat between her ankles and hips. Bradley rubbed her soles, her heels, stroking between each toe, and Fleming realized how much she missed foot massages. All too soon he moved up to her calves, his fingers probing the divots and bumps in her flesh, not hard enough to hurt very much, but making Fleming aware of every pin, every screw.
“I can feel metal,” he said, almost excited by the discovery. “Do you set off metal detectors?”
Fleming frowned. “Yes.”
“Cool.”
“No, Bradley. It isn’t cool. You know what’
s cool? Being able to walk.”
“If I can accept who you are, why can’t you?”
Fleming didn’t know how to answer that. Bradley continued to knead and prod and rub his way up her legs, violating every crevice.
“Are you ticklish?” he asked.
“I used to be.”
And then the insensitive son of a bitch dug his fingers into Fleming’s inner thighs and tried to tickle her.
Fleming was so surprised he’d try something so obviously stupid that it overrode her natural instinct, which was to punch him in the head. By the time she recovered from the shock and was making a fist, a noise burst out of her mouth that was both unexpected and foreign.
Laughter.
He’s actually tickling me!
Fleming opened her hand and tried to push him away, overcome by giggles, her whole body shaking in those wonderful/terrible involuntary spasms that she hadn’t felt in what seemed like a lifetime. Fleming had hated her legs so much, she could hardly believe they were the cause of her amusement.
After a few seconds, Bradley moved his hands higher, to her belly, and then abruptly stopped.
“Whoa. Are those stitches?”
Fleming, still in the throes of laughter, looked down at the incision in her stomach where the tracker chip had been removed.
The tracker chip…
“Bradley, get me my computer.”
He must have sensed her seriousness, because he immediately obeyed. Fleming once again used the back door to access the Hydra database. All of the Hydra sisters had been given a GPS tracking chip during training without their knowledge, attached to their duodenums. It had allowed The Instructor to keep track of his operatives.
Now Fleming wanted to know if he’d done the same for Hydra Deux.
After searching through code for five minutes, she brought up a page that seemed promising. Sure enough, superimposed on a map of North America, seven blips registered. One was in Texas. One in Mexico City. Two in Toronto. One in Baraboo. And two in DC, roughly twenty miles away.
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