“Or,” she adds, voice dropping, something darker leaking through, “I can take my time.”
The air in the room constricts, the walls closing in.
Cassidy smiles again but it doesn’t reach her eyes, dark and vicious.
I locate the nearest seat.
The doctor looks like he might be sick. The nurse already is, swallowing back bile attempting to come up with her shoulders shaking and uneven breaths painfully loud.
Cassidy takes her time. She drags her fingers across the table as she moves, a soft, rhythmic scrape that sets my teeth on edge.
“Such a small room,” she murmurs deviously, eyes drifting over the surgical machines and tools. “And still, there’s so much to choose from.”
Neither of them dares to speak.
Cassidy catches my eye, a silent cue. We lunge forward together, she takes the nurse, and I handle the doctor. Each fastening the wrist restraints before cinching the thigh straps.
They thrash, but they’re outmatched.
The doctor still fights the restraints, but it’s useless, and the nurse begins to sob, heaving in deep breaths.
With them confined, Cassidy crosses to the instruments she singled out, solid blade eye speculums, eagerly collecting them with excitement, relishing the choice.
She returns and sets them on the tray with a clink. Recognition lands, and both squirm on their tables.
Cassidy claps once, the crisp sound bouncing off the concrete walls. She lifts one of the speculums, turning it.
“Let’s start,” she croons. “I want you to pay attention.”
She strides over to the doctor first; he squeezes his eyes shut and writhes on the table.
I leap from my seat and put my Glock at his temple, “Hold still.”
He makes a small, desperate noise before submitting.
Cassidy closes the speculum jaws and pulls one of his lower lids as she inserts the bottom part of the speculum inside the eyelid and slides the top part under his upper eyelid to lock his eye open. Then she does the same to his other eye.
She moves over to the nurse and does the same thing. The nurse doesn’t struggle and lets it happen.
I drop my gun from the doctor’s temple and stroll back over to my seat.
Cassidy lets out a crazed laugh.
“Now you’re going to start talking.”
The doctor caves immediately, his throat works around nothing, sweat beading down his temple, “We just follow orders.”
Cassidy chuckles, “Everyone keeps saying that here.”
Cassidy snatches up the heart monitor cords from the floor and attaches them to the doctor and the nurse.
“Now I get to hear every little spike.”
She prowls closer, standing to the side of him as she plants both of her hands on either side of his head, leaning in.
“Let me help you,” she breathes, “You cut. You take what you’re told to take. You package it. No questions asked.”
His lips quake as he stares at her. “Yes.”
