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She could do this. She had to.
Jane was gone a long time, but there was no way to accurately gauge the clock. Bryn tried counting pulsebeats for a while, but her attention wandered, drawn by distant querulous talking, or banging, or—shockingly loud—screaming. If there were nurses in this place, they didn’t check on her, and Bryn wished rather pathetically that she’d taken the opportunity to use the toilet before letting them strap her down. Boredom was a strain, because there was nothing to stare at other than the single, fluttering spider’s web, and the motionless arachnid. Why there? Bryn wondered. It didn’t seem like a great hunting spot. But then, spiders were surprisingly smart for their size. The little creature probably knew something Bryn didn’t.
She tried working the restraints, because it seemed like the prudent thing to do. After all, in any decent action movie, she’d find some weakness in the old bed, or a protruding screw, or something…but all she managed to do was chafe her skin raw and introduce an annoying creak into the metal bed frame.
The light had faded outside, and the world be
yond the high glass slice of view seemed black—so black she couldn’t even make out the entirely superfluous bars.
Nothing to do. Nothing to think. Nothing to plan.
Bryn wasn’t good at waiting. The last time she’d been confined like this, she’d been in the white room, with that ominous drain in the middle of the floor and its easy-wash surfaces. Shambling from corner to corner, touching walls, counting steps, while the nanites in her bloodstream degraded and turned toxic and her body began to turn on itself.
This was better, she told herself. A nice, comfy bed. And so far, she didn’t need a shot.
That’ll change, the cold, cynical part of her brain declared. She’ll hurt you, maybe kill you. You’ll need that booster. And you won’t get it. And we’ll be right back in the white room, rotting, falling to pieces.
No. She’d been in the white room for days, long days without treatment. Here, it would be over—one way or another—in less than twenty-four hours. She’d survive. Whatever Jane brought to the party, she’d survive. And Bryn was going to make it her personal mission from God to see that Jane got paid back, in full.
The spider moved suddenly, skimming over the soft, strong field of its web and leaping on some tiny creature with the bad sense to tangle itself up. Bryn was too far to see the details, but she could well imagine. Here she was, thinking she was the spider, when in fact she was the fucking fly, trussed up in a tight cocoon for draining.
Jane was the spider.
And right on cue, Jane opened the door.
She was preceded by a metallic rattle of wheels, and a cheery, “How you doing, Bryn? Hungry? I thought you might be. I brought you a little something. ”
She was expecting, well, instruments of pain. Steel cutting tools, that kind of thing. But as Jane whipped the covering sheet off the tray, she saw…green Jell-O and a spoon.
“Wow,” she said. “You’re serious about your torture. Green Jell-O. ”
“You’re going to need your strength,” Jane said. She pulled up a chair and sat down, spooned up a bit of the gelatin, and guided it to Bryn’s mouth. “Here’s the mama bird, feeding the baby bird. …Open wide. …”
There was utterly no point in resisting; cooperating would at least get her a little something in her stomach, and it would be humiliating to spend the rest of her captivity smeared with fragments of the stuff. So Bryn opened her mouth, and Jane tipped the spoon. It went on like that, with Jane trying out bits of probably half-remembered cooing from her own mother. Choo-choo trains. Airplanes and airports. The glee Jane took in it was unholy, really, but as soon as the spoon clinked against an empty bowl, the fun was over. Jane put the bowl aside and shoved the cart out of the way with her foot, then sat back and crossed her legs.
She still had the spoon, and Bryn watched her turn it over and over nimbly in her fingers. “So,” Jane said. “Do you have any idea the damage a spoon can really do? Scoop things, obviously. It’s best for eyes, but that’s so obvious that it hardly even needs a remark. But it’s also great for damage to the soft palate inside the mouth. If you’re energetic, you can drive it all the way up into the brain and start scooping out things there, too. ”
Bryn’s mouth had suddenly gone very dry, but she forced herself to respond with a tight, sarcastic, “Tease. ”
Jane laughed. “Oh, I like you. You really do think you’re a hard-ass, don’t you? Been there, done that? Well, you haven’t. Not like I have. ” There was a flush in her cheeks, a sparkle in her eyes. Jane, Bryn realized with a cold little devastation, was a true sadist—and not the kind with a convenient safe word. She was a sociopath in the truest sense. “I get paid for answers, and most people don’t have the…resilience you do. So this is pretty interesting work for me. No taboos. ”
“Just tell me what you want to know and we can get this over with,” Bryn said.
“What, now? I hope you’re not going to let me down, Bryn, and get all girlie on me. C’mon, woman up. ” She gave Bryn’s arm a friendly shake. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you a sample question, and you can decide whether or not to answer it. ” She paused—a dramatic pause—and then said, “Boxers, briefs, or boxer briefs?”
“I don’t wear any of them,” Bryn said.
“No, no, no, the question is, what does Patrick McCallister wear? Come on, Bryn. I know this is an easy one for you. ”
Bryn smiled back at her, and it felt wild and fierce. “Ask him yourself, bitch. ”
“You think I have to ask?” Jane said. The smile disappeared, and what was left in her eyes was dark and endless. “It’s just a simple question, Bryn. C’mon, you can tell me. It’s just us girls. ” There was something behind all that, a trap Bryn didn’t understand and didn’t want to even try to guess. Something to do with Patrick.
And she wasn’t going to go there.
“Fuck you,” Bryn said. “Ask your question. ”
Jane tapped her lips with the rounded end of the spoon, then said, “What did you find at Graydon when you went into the building?”
