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“Excuse me,” someone said as they brushed him aside.
He barely caught his balance before he was hit by another person hurrying by him. This time, it was a nurse in scrubs—Georgina, the redhead from upstairs.
“In the house,” he heard someone order. “Right on the floor.”
All he could do was get out of the way, and he met Lydia’s eyes as she shot by him, the medical types hovering around, molecules circling a gravely damaged nucleus. As he watched helplessly, he had a thought that the guard was clearly strong enough to carry the load on his own, but Lydia wasn’t letting go of Gus’s shoulders—and she stayed with him as they followed orders, putting him out flat on the black-and-white marble tile.
Hitching up his strength, Daniel doubled backinto the house, but he had to pause on the threshold to catch his breath.
It seemed fitting that he watched the assessment happen from the periphery, and as a stethoscope was pressed around the bloody chest, Daniel did his own review of the injuries. Gus had been beaten in the face and head, and there were two-pronged burn marks on the side of his neck, across his abdomen, and along his thighs.
“He’s coding—I’m using the defibrillator.”
The statement was calm, the doctor who was in charge moving quickly but with deliberation as he pulled over a small red box logo’d with a white heart and an electrical charge symbol.
More duffle bags were brought to the resuscitation as the chest was cleaned quickly by C.P. Phalen’s nurse, and pads were stuck to the skin up high by the collarbone and down under the pec. Oddly, the discarded, bloodstained gauze bundles were what came into sharpest focus. They were like blooms fallen from some demonic bouquet, and depending on what square of marble they landed on, they were either offset by a loud white background or consumed by a black one.
“Clear,” the doctor said firmly.
All hands were raised, including Lydia’s, and there was a little whine as the charge was gathered—then the torso jumped as the electric shock was delivered.
Daniel looked at Lydia. She had been forced tothe sidelines, too, but she wasn’t going far. Sitting on her knees, her bloodstained hands were palms- up on her thighs, as if in prayer, and her mouth was parted as she breathed hard. In her pose, she reminded him of the saints in the Catholic tradition, suffering in their piety, sending up an entreaty for aid in their crisis—
“You in or out?”
As the question was presented, Daniel glanced to his left. The guard who’d come up to him was his own height, but had seventy-five pounds of muscle on him, easy. With a square jaw and confrontational stare, it was like he’d been ordered out of the Military Stud handbook.
“I used to be you,” Daniel said numbly.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Enjoy your health while you have it.” Daniel moved himself forward. “And I’ll be going in, thanks.”
As the door was shut behind him, he noted the whirring sound of the lock being engaged, and then the clapping sound of footfalls on the stairs made him look up. C.P. was racing her descent, her face as white as her sculptures, Gus’s fleece like a part of her as opposed to a piece of clothing as she clutched it to her silk dressing gown—
Later, Daniel would wonder what made him do what he did. Maybe it was the impotence that was riding him, the urge of a former operative to comeout of involuntary retirement and insert himself as a way to be relevant—but he liked to believe his actions were because he wanted to do good, and for sure that was part of it.
Moving faster than he should have been able to, he rushed over and snagged the woman’s arm at the base of the steps, forcing her to stop.
Phalen yanked so hard, she nearly took them both off their feet. “Let me go—”
He leaned in and spoke with urgency. “You gotta change the lock coding system.”
“What?”
“To this place and the lab. Everything.” He squeezed her forearm because his voice was not as strong as he wanted and he didn’t know how else to communicate the importance of what he was saying. “Even if you have a system in place that cycles in new numerical sequences, you need to switch it immediately, and cancel all the pass cards—better yet, just lock us all down.”
“What are you—”
He lowered his tone. “Gus was interrogated. And there is no way he didn’t give things up. It’s not about willpower or allegiance or how strong his mind was. No civilian can withstand that kind of sensory assault, and he was worked on for hours.”
C.P. opened her mouth. Closed it.
“Trust me,” Daniel said softly as a tear escapedher eye. “Maybe your men are already working on it, but you need to assume that this property and the lab are no longer secure. I know that you are worried about Gus, I get it. But he’s under this roof now, too. You want to give him the best chance to survive? Make sure that nobody—or nothing—gets in here.”
There was a long pause—or perhaps it was just a nanosecond.
“Fucking hell,” C.P. whispered.
