Page 86 of Tough Justice

“Here we are,” he said. “Home sweet home.” He turned off whatever road they were on. The car lurched and dipped repeatedly, as if they were driving over rough terrain. He brought the car to a stop inside a large building of some kind. He shut off the engine then came around to her side, opened the door, and began unbuckling her seat belt.

She tried swatting his hands away but could barely lift her arms. “Don’t touch me.”

Despite her feeble protests, he hauled her from the seat to a standing position. Her knees began to buckle when an arm came around her back, steadying her. What was wrong with her?

The pinprick in her neck. “Did you drug me?”

“You gave me no choice.”

“No choice? How dare you?” She tried clawing at his face, but she still couldn’t completely control her limbs. Even if she could, he held tightly to her left arm, effectively pinning her other arm to her side with his body. “Let me go. Please, let me go.”

“I didn’t plan on bringing you here. This was all your fault.” He propelled her forward, keeping a tight arm around her so she didn’t stumble. “For sticking your nose where it didn’t belong.”

A wave of nausea made her vision swim worse than it had before. Her head lolled backward against his shoulder. All she wanted was to lie down and wake up to find none of this was real, that it was all an awful nightmare.

“Don’t move.” He leaned her up against the outside of the building.

She sucked in the cool night air, hoping some of her faculties would return. Slowly, she slid down, landing on her butt.

Metal creaked as a door closed somewhere nearby.

“Up you go.” He lifted her back to a standing position, urging her forward. His arm around her waist was the only thing keeping her upright.

She couldn’t say how long they walked. The ground beneath her shoes felt soft, like grass. A wisp of wind caught her ponytail, swishing it against the side of her face. They kept walking for another minute or so then stopped in front of a small building.

Through her blurred vision, she watched him insert a key into the door and pull it open. An earthy, musty smell wafted to her nose first, followed by a weird chemical smell, one that sent out a loud warning to go anywhere but inside that building.

Tori pushed as hard as she could, breaking free of his grip. She fell to the ground, hitting the side of her head. As if her vision wasn’t messed up before, now she didn’t know which was up or down. Vertigo was a bitch. She opened her mouth to scream, but the only thing that came out was the last of her dinner as she vomited.

“There’s no place for you to go,” he said from behind her. “Please, don’t try to get away. You’ll only get hurt, and I’d hate for that to happen.” He hauled her to her feet then picked her up and carried her inside.

The only thing she could make out was a glaring light as he carried her down a staircase that seemed to go on forever. Like, to the center of the earth. With every step, the musty, chemical smell intensified. The light grew brighter at the bottom of the stairs. She blinked repeatedly, trying to focus her vision. The surrounding walls seemed rough, not like the inside of a finished basement. More like an underground tunnel.

As he carried her past a clear plastic curtain hanging from the rough-hewn rock ceiling, she glimpsed tables with glass bottles, vials, and small propane tanks, and the blurry images of three men behind one of the tables.

Their faces were strange, like they had cannisters sticking out from their chins. Face masks. This had to be the infamous laboratory where the latest iteration of gray death was being made.

They moved past the curtain, past a row of bars that reminded her of a jail cell, only the surrounding walls were more cave-like.

She felt, more than saw, her body being lowered onto something soft. Another wave of nausea hit her, forcing her to close her eyes. “You’re who Deck is looking for.” Whoever you was.

“You were never supposed to know. I really am sorry about this.” He skimmed her cheek with the backs of his knuckles. “You’ll feel better once the sedative wears off.”

She lashed out, trying to knock his hand away, but her arm felt like a fifty-pound weight. “Deck will come looking for me.”

“Perhaps. But he’ll never find you.”

Her vision unfuzzed just enough to see him pluck the cap off a syringe. “No!” A feeble spurt of adrenaline shot through her system but not nearly enough. She tried sitting up, but the world spun violently, forcing her to grab the edge of the cot or plow headfirst into the floor. He loomed closer then stuck the needle into her arm. The rock walls began to ripple like a dark curtain whipping back and forth in the wind.

“We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

The last thing Tori heard was what sounded like a gate clanging shut, locking her in.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Deck pulled into a parking space outside the entrance to the ER, one reserved for police vehicles. In the weeks since he’d been IOD—injured on duty—his K-9 SUV had been repaired, bullet holes and all.

“Back in a few, boy.” He gave Thor a quick scratch under the chin when a flash of pink caught his eye. Deck leaned over and tugged out Tori’s sweater. She must have left it in the SUV the night they’d been shot at by T-Lo and his boys.