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She stopped shooting, unzipped her parka’s inner pocket, and unrolled the small glass vial. It wasn’t very big, but it was big enough to scare her.
No choice.
She put the vial in her mouth, shoved it back with her tongue, and forced herself to swallow.
The vial filled her throat, an unyielding, burning obstruction, and she panicked, thrashing. Swallow, you stupid bitch, swallow! She kept trying, and finally, on the fourth convulsive gulp, the glassy weight slid down.
She felt it hit her stomach, and almost vomited it up. Almost.
Jane gave a shouted order, and Patrick yelled, “Incoming!” and grabbed Bryn to yank her down under the cover of the dash—but it wasn’t full grenades, it was flash-bangs that left her weak, blinded, and dizzy. She choked on what must have been tear gas, delivered along with the flash-bangs, and retched up bile and drool as it burned in her lungs.
Her instincts were to get out, fast, and she managed to claw her way free of the truck, somehow, and rolled into the cold snow. It burned on her face, but it felt good, too. So did the relatively clear air.
The stunning effects of the flash-bangs faded, but not before she felt the bite of handcuffs on her wrists, and zip-ties binding her booted ankles. She twisted and writhed, trying to break free, and as she rolled over on her back, she looked up to see Jane’s smiling, hated face.
Jane wiped snot and drool from her mouth and nose with a gloved hand and said, “Oh, Bryn. We are going to have such fun again, you and I. After I finish saying hello to my husband. ”
Bryn’s voice came out ragged and rough. “Ex,” she p
anted, and coughed from deep in her chest. “You fucking psychopath. ”
“It’s good to get these feelings out. Feel free to cry if you need to. This is the end, Bryn. I win. We win. From now on, everything changes. ” Jane gave her a calm, crazy, saintly sort of smile, and moved on to the others. Sharing her gloating in equal measures.
Please, Bryn thought. Her stomach churned, and her brain was flashing feedback, images of the last time Jane had held her prisoner. She didn’t need that. She needed to think. Liam and Annie, they were with Manny and Pansy. Still free. Manny’s paranoia would have triggered by now, and they’d be heading for safety. He had the cure. It wasn’t over.
It couldn’t be over.
But, as Bryn was picked up and carried like a still-struggling corpse to Jane’s truck, she had to admit that it felt that way.
The glass vial she’d swallowed sat heavy in her stomach. It was sealed, but the stomach acids could eat through the stopper. . . . And if they did, what then? If Thorpe was right, she’d just . . . die. Shut down.
It might not even hurt.
The guard with her was a square-jawed Hispanic man with a shaved head. He seemed too young to be doing this, but his eyes were ancient, and utterly cold as he shoved her into place in the back. She struggled, vainly. He ignored her until he’d filled a syringe from a bottle, and plunged the needle home. She felt warmth and chemical bliss spreading rapidly through her body, and tried to fight it.
Lost.
She felt cozy and calm by the time Joe was loaded in next to her, equally drugged. Then Patrick. Riley was last, dumped across their laps in a mumbling daze.
And then Bryn faded off into a sunset distance that wasn’t quite unconsciousness.
She never even felt the SUV drive away.
Chapter 23
Coming out of it was bad—nausea and a pounding headache, ashy taste in her mouth. A general feeling of overwhelming despair. That was partly chemical, of course, the despair, but the situation certainly didn’t call for optimism.
She was alone, in an empty room. No windows. It was smooth concrete, with inset lighting far above protected by thick mesh. One door with no interior handle, and no hinges visible.
The only design feature was a drain about three inches across. That was chilling. She remembered being in one of these types of rooms before when she faced decomposition; the drain represented easy cleanup when all the screaming was over. The only difference was that where the Pharmadene death chambers had been white, and fitted with observation windows, this was more like . . . a tomb.
It terrified her that she didn’t know where they’d taken Patrick, or Joe, or Riley. Dying was something she’d long ago accepted—however long and painfully it might come. But losing people . . . That was something she couldn’t reconcile. She’d lost a sister when she was young, and had never known what had become of her. She’d lost plenty of friends and people she trusted, since all this had turned her life into a nightmare.
But she couldn’t become used to it. The idea of never seeing Patrick again made her black and hollow inside. The idea that Jane would be the last face he ever saw . . .
I have to kill her, Bryn thought, with razor-sharp clarity. If I do nothing else ever again, I have to find a way to kill her.
There weren’t any weapons here. They’d stripped her and put her into a cheap paper coverall, in a deeply unflattering blue. Bare feet in paper slippers.
