He held his breath as the security system scanned his card, matching his photo and coding to the computer scan of his face. The wait seemed overly long and Ryan itched with anticipation, waiting for alarms to sound or a heavy hand to clamp down on his shoulder. But a few seconds later, a green light flashed, and the elevator doors slid silently open.
He stepped inside, relieved to find the cubicle empty. He punched the button for Sub Level 5, forcing himself not to fidget, acutely aware of the dual cameras mounted in the front and back of the elevator, watching his every move.
The elevator moved smoothly downward, the lights overhead blinking their descent. Ryan breathed a sigh of relief, figuring he was home free. But then, the elevator slowed. The panel overhead indicated they were stopping at Sub Level 3. He was going to have company. He moved to the back of the stall, lowering his head.
The doors slid open and two men, engaged in a lively debate and dressed in crisp white lab coats, stepped on board. Both nodded absently to him but kept on with their exchange, arguing about some recent data recorded on a clipboard one of the men held. Ryan kept his nod brief and distant. He didn’t want to find himself pulled into their conversation.
One man stabbed the button for Sub Level 6 but then quickly pressed a finger on the Door Open button. He glanced apologetically in Ryan’s direction. “Sorry. Our colleague is right behind us.”
Ryan nodded politely, but clenched his back teeth hard enough to crack them. Damn, just his luck. The longer he was in their company, the better the chance that he’d be discovered as an imposter.
The man with the clipboard turned slightly toward him. “You new?” he asked.
Oh great, a conversationalist.
“Started a few weeks ago.” Ryan kept his tone flat, uninterested. Hopefully the guy would take the cue and realize he wasn’t interested in socializing.
No such luck. “What department are you in?”
Anxiety raced through Ryan’s veins. Now what? His gaze brushed across the computer printout sheet on the man’s clipboard. “I work in Research and Design.”
Both men groaned. “Oh, so you’re the one who tortures all of us with this crap.”
“Yeah, that’s me.” Ryan shifted positions and jerked his head toward the corridor. “You think your friend is coming any time soon? I have a few people expecting me downstairs, and I sure hate to be late when I’m one of the new guys.” He added a smile in an attempt to take the sting out of his complaint.
The quiet guy leaned forward and glanced down the hallway. He shook his head and the talkative one snorted in disgust. “The hell with him.” He took his finger off the Open button and hit the Down button. “Ya snooze, you lose.”
The doors slid shut and the elevator jerked slightly before starting downward.
“How do you like things so far?” the chatty guy asked. He had turned almost completely around, apparently more than a little interested in the new guy’s take on the job.
“Not bad.” Ryan shrugged. “No worse than any other job I’ve ever had.”
“What do you think of the security?”
I’ll let you know when and if I ever get myself and Tess out of here, Ryan thought ruefully. “Pretty standard.”
The two men exchanged amused glances. “Guess you haven’t been strip-searched yet.”
“No, can’t say I’ve had that pleasure.” A bell dinged, announcing that they’d arrived on Sub Level 5, and the doors slid open. “My stop. Nice meeting the both of you.” Ryan moved to get around the two men. He paused. “Uh, the loading dock… Where is that exactly?”
“Three levels back up the way we came.”
The door slid shut on the two men.
Ryan checked the corridor. Empty. A sign on the wall announced that the Holding Facilities were to the left.
Ryan turned. He was fairly certain they’d secret Tess away in some kind of holding area.
Within minutes, Ryan found himself faced with a double row of doors on either side of the long corridor. Twenty to twenty-five holding rooms stretched the length of the hall. To search them all would take precious minutes Ryan knew he didn’t have. Anxiety squirted through his blood.
Every minute he stayed in the subbasement meant another opportunity for Bloom and his men to discover his treachery. But he had to find Tess. Something told him that she was close. He couldn’t leave without finding her.
Each door had a tiny window. It was the only way to see into the rooms. A quick check of the first window revealed a narrow cell. The walls were padded and the floor was stainless steel. The room was empty.
His heart rate increasing and his breath coming in short pants, Ryan moved to the next door.
A THICK FOG SWIRLED around her and a chilling breeze brushed her cheeks. Tess lifted her head and sniffed. The smell of copper hung heavy in the damp air, and its presence sent a shiver of fear down her spine.
Steady, girl, she thought. You’re dreaming. Just one more nightmare to get through.
She took a tentative step forward and her heart leaped into her throat, almost choking her. Something wet and sticky pulled at the soles of her bare feet.
Don’t look down, her mind screamed. Keep your eyes straight ahead!
But she looked anyway, and a low moan slipped from between her lips. Spreading out beneath her lay a pool of red, a dark liquid carpet of something red and slick.
Her mouth went dry.
Oh God, please tell me that isn’t blood. Please don’t let it be blood. Hot tears stung the corners of her eyes and slid down her cold cheeks.
The smell of copper, thick and heavy, swept up her nose, and her stomach turned over with dread. Blood. Gallons and gallons of blood. It rose around her, covering her feet and sucking greedily at her ankles.
I’m going to drown in it, she thought. I’m going to drown in a sea of blood.
She sloshed through the viscous liquid, and up ahead, the mist parted. In the distance she saw a black man standing on an embankment. He motioned to her, waving at her to come closer.
Tess squinted, trying to see his face, but the mist seemed to hide him. He gestured again.
She waded deeper, pumping her legs through the heavy liquid as it swirled and sucked at her, threatening to pull her beneath its shimmering surface. She fought the tide.
As she drew closer to the man, his figure seemed to waver, the lines of his body disappearing and then reappearing.
Wait! Tess called. Wait for me! Don’t leave.
But the man’s body changed, morphing into something strange and ghostly. Tess stumbled.
Suddenly the man became something familiar. Something from her childhood. It’s Casper the Friendly Ghost, she whispered. Wait for me, Casper.
But he drifted upward, just out of reach.
Crying, Tess stood on tiptoes and reached for her childhood hero. He drifted higher.
Tess struggled to reach him and then tripped. Someone or something lay beneath the surface of the sea. As she watched in horror, a hand rose up out of the ocean of blood.
Whimpering, Tess scrambled to get away, but the fingers reached out and clamped themselves around her throat. She screamed as the hand pulled her beneath the roiling blood-red surface.
RYAN HEARD THE SCREAM of total terror. He knew without question that it was Tess.
He tore down the corridor, following the frantic sound.
His hands trembled with rage as he slid the security badge into the slot outside the steel door. “Come on! Come on!” he said.
He watched impatiently as the light shone a steady red until it finally blinked green and the door slid open.
He stepped inside the tiny cell, taking in the sterile white of the room and the single stretcher clamped securely to the floor.
A woman with a cloud of shimmering blond hair lay strapped helplessly to the bed. Ryan ran to her side.
When he touched Tess’s cheek, she opened her eyes, and Ryan watched as the confusion clouding the surface of those exquisite jade-
colored eyes disappeared. She stared at him, every muscle in that beautiful body tensing against the restraints holding her secure. And he knew the exact moment she recognized him, a single instant when her pupils constricted and she tried to lift her head off the cot.
There was a momentary flash of unmistakable joy, followed by a cold look of caution. He hoped the caution would fade and disappear, but it stayed. The fact that it stayed told Ryan that Bloom had been busy. He’d been pumping her full of nasty drugs, trying to destroy what little trust Ryan had managed to build in Tess.
No doubt the doctor had backed her into a corner and worked on the tiny wall she’d built around her faith. Ryan had a feeling it wouldn’t have taken much to topple it. Something told him that he was starting back at square one.
“Come back to gloat a little?” she asked, her voice hard, unforgiving. “To make sure you did the job right the first time?”
He put a finger to his lips and shook his head.
Her gaze immediately jumped to the camera overhead, and a tiny glimmer of confusion reentered her eyes. She wasn’t sure what he meant, but at least she understood that the room was monitored.
She lay back, but Ryan didn’t miss the reemergence of wariness in her gaze. She wasn’t about to believe anything he said, and Ryan knew without a doubt that Bloom had filled her ear with some kind of garbage about him.
Bloom wanted her vulnerable. Totally dependent. And in order to make sure that happened, he would have worked to destroy any lingering feeling of trust she felt for the one person who had tried to save her—Ryan Donovan.
He knelt down beside the bed and whispered in her ear, “A friend is sending a loop of video to their camera—it shows you sleeping. But if they catch on, we’re toast. So, we need to work fast. Nod your head if you understand?”
She nodded.
Ryan reached across and started to undo her restraints. Beneath his hands, every muscle in her body was tense and coiled to spring.
As soon as her arms and chest were free, she sat up and worked on her left leg while he concentrated on the right. Before he could help her with the IV, Tess yanked it out, throwing the needle and tubing on the bed.
“So much for following proper medical procedure,” he mumbled, digging into the pocket of his pants and pulling out a handkerchief. He handed it to her and she nodded her thanks, slapping it over the small puncture wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Ryan nodded and headed for the door. But he had barely gone two steps when something hit him from behind. Hard.
He stumbled forward two steps before he realized that Tess was on top of him, her arms wrapped around his neck from behind. She had clamped both legs around his waist, tightening them with excruciating strength. As he struggled to straighten, she jerked back on her arms, cutting off his oxygen.
“What the h—” He tried to turn around, but she clung to him with the tenacity of a tiny flea riding the back of the bull.
She leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “I fell for it the first time. I’m not so stupid I’d fall for it again. What are you up to?”
He tried to answer, but she tightened her arm across his windpipe. He thought about dumping her over his shoulder to get her off, but he didn’t want to hurt her. But he wasn’t going to be able to reason with her if he blacked out from lack of oxygen.
“I’m not part of this,” he managed to croak. He knew that their time was running out.
“I think we played this scenario out once already. What kind of sick game are you all playing?”
Feeling their time ticking away, Ryan bent forward and let gravity pull her body upward. She scrambled to stay pinned to his back, but Ryan didn’t give her a chance. He reached behind, grabbed her under one arm and gave her a hard yank, lifting her up and over his shoulder.
She sputtered and kicked, but Ryan ignored her, setting her down directly in front of him.
“Calm down,” he warned. “In case you missed it, I’m trying to rescue you.”
Her chest heaved and her breath came in short, little pants. She fell back a few steps and dropped into a crouch, her body with all its sweet familiar curves signaling that she was ready to defend herself should he step any closer. Her eyes regarded him with open suspicion.
Ryan knew they were in a standoff. But how could he convince her that he wasn’t part of this crazy plan to hurt her? To drug her and play with her mind? She wasn’t in any frame of mind to allow her to trust anything he said. And if he didn’t get her out of there soon, they’d both be sitting in one of Bloom’s cells.
“Tess, I promise I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to help.” He took a step toward her, but she stiffened.
He stopped, rethinking his approach. “Look, I know it’s hard for you to trust me, but we don’t have a lot of choices here. They’re going to figure out that’s a loop playing in the system soon and when they do, they’ll be piling in here pretty fast.”
“And then what? Do I get strapped to the table, pumped full of drugs again and then you come in and we start the rescue game all over?”
She’d stumped him with that question. Hell, Ryan knew he’d think the same thing if he was in her shoes. But he had to convince her somehow.
Pain shadowed her eyes. “Bloom told me what it was all about. The whole sick scene at your house. It was all an experiment to you. A chance for you to see if you could convince me that you were helping me. You recorded everything. Analyzed it.” The realization of what she’d said seemed to hit her hard and tears swam in her eyes. She choked and swallowed hard.
He shook his head. “Tess, listen to me—”
Her momentary weakness angered her, and she slashed at the tears with the back of her hand, wiping them along the side of her thin green pants. She bit down on her lower lip to keep it from trembling.
“Shut up,” she demanded. “You like doing that to people, don’t you, Dr. Donovan. You like getting them to trust you and believe in you. You like analyzing things and seeing how people tick. Well, you’re not going to fool with my mind anymore.”
She stepped backward another step and he could see her almost stumble. She’d been through so much, and Ryan knew she was more than just exhausted. She was wiped out, overwrought and drugged beyond anyone’s limit with a dangerous concoction of psychotropic medications. But he needed her to hold it together for a little longer. At least until he was able to get her out of the center.
He kept his voice soft, trying to recreate the bond he’d established with her earlier. “I know this is hard, Tess, but I’m asking you to trust me one more time. Just reach down inside and remember how hard we worked to figure things out. Would I have done those things for you, if I wanted to hurt you?”
She rubbed a spot between her eyes as if trying desperately to concentrate. “Your damn drugs are beginning to wear off and I’m thinking clearer now.” Her breath came in quick little hitches. “And I have a feeling that you’d do anything to get me to do what you wanted.”
“Come on, Tess, you don’t believe that. Think about what you’re saying.” He tried to move a little closer, but she immediately held up a hand, telling him to stay where he was.
Frustrated, he complied. Damn, the minutes were ticking by, and he wasn’t sure how much longer the loop Brian had sent to the computers would last.
“I want to believe you, I really do.” She put her palm against the side of her head, as if fighting against something going on inside her brain. “But I—I can’t.” She glanced at the table behind her and Ryan knew she was thinking about the possibility that she’d end up back there, strapped down and pumped full of drugs.
He wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. Tess’s face was flushed and her nostrils were flared. The air between them spit electricity.
She circled him, ready to spring if he made even the slightest move toward her. She had to know that she was no match for him physically, but she was willing to fight
if she had to.
Ryan knew he could subdue her with brute strength if necessary, but he didn’t want to resort to that method. She’d suffered that indignity once already. He had to convince her that she could trust him without physical intimidation.
Leaning forward, he grabbed her forearm and gently pulled her toward him. Her body tensed and air hissed between her teeth.
“Listen to me,” he said. “I want you—”
The door behind them clicked open and they both froze.
A nurse, carrying a small tray with a group of syringes aligned across the top, stepped inside. Alarm immediately sprang to her severe face. Her gaze jumped back and forth between Tess and Ryan, finally settling on him. “Who are you? And what are you doing in here?”
Ryan grabbed Tess’s wrists, whipped her around so that she was backed up against him. He crossed her arms on her chest and held her secure against him. “I found her trying to escape. Put down the tray and get the table ready so I can get her back into her restraints.”
Tess’s body was still for a brief nanosecond, and then she seemed to explode. “You lying, sneaking bas—” Her anguished wail cut at him, but Ryan ignored it, struggling to hold her.
The nurse’s indecision was momentary, but then she quickly set the tray down and leaned across the table, hurrying to untangle the restraints.
Ryan winced as one of Tess’s heels cracked into his shin. Damn, but she packed a wallop. She twisted her body, bowing it outward in a frantic attempt to get loose. She bent her head down and clamped her teeth into the meaty portion of his forearm. He grunted in pain, but simply dragged her along with him as he moved closer to the bedside table and the syringe tray.
As the nurse started to straighten up, Ryan pushed Tess away, grabbed one of the syringes and sank it into the nurse’s hip. The woman’s eyes widened with surprise, and she lunged for him, but he stepped back. She staggered a few steps and then fell. Ryan caught her before she hit the floor.
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