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Forty-Four
Camille
I hadno idea how long I was out. Twenty minutes, an hour. I knew it couldn’t have been much longer than that because, wherever I was, behind my eyes, I could still see a faint light, which made me think twilight was waning.
Groaning as I pried them open, I felt the bitter beat of drums in my head, the slice of pain that felt like my optic nerve was being cut in two, and I let them focus on their own time, peering around my vicinity as I tried to judge where I was.
My brain wasn’t so fried that I didn’t remember what had happened, so I had to assume that Abramovicz had brought me back to the compound.
“Victoria!”I whispered under my breath, fear throttling me as I remembered she’d been dragged away first.
“I’m here, Cammie,” came her soft, fearful reply, the words more of a whimper than the ballsy snap I was used to hearing from her when she wasn’t drowning in grief and guilt.
I twisted around, damning my head for the ache battering me, and in the meager light, found her, huddling in a corner. Legs pressed tight to her chest, sandwiched into the narrow space, she practically oozed terror.
Scraping my knees as I crawled toward her, I whispered, “Are you okay?” My body protested the move, but it had to get with the program, so better to start now than never.
She blinked at me. “I should be asking you that. You’ve been out of it for ages.”
“Did they get Inessa?”
“I don’t think so. They never brought her with you.” Her bottom lip quivered. “I only knew you were alive because your boobs wobbled.”
Despite the situation, I let out a rusty laugh. “You been checking out my tits, baby sis?”
She giggled, her cheeks turning pink, but she hid her face in her lap, and whispered, “Cammie, I really thought you were dead.”
I closed my eyes a second, but shoved back my pain as I moved to her side, and lifted an arm to hold her as best as I could with her position.
“Brennan will come for us,” I reassured her. “We won’t be here for long.”
“You don’t know that,” she whispered miserably.
“I do.”
“They k-k-killed the Irish guards,” my baby sister whimpered, turning her face into my throat. “When they hauled me out of there, I saw them.”
Grief filled me at the losses the Irish had incurred because of us, because of Inessa’s whim, but I whispered, “That won’t stop Brennan.” Resolve filled me, strengthening my voice, because Brennan wasn’t simply a Five Pointer. He was my husband.
He’d said I washis.
I had to have faith in that.
I knew he’d also said that he’d keep me safe... that hadn’t worked out, but it was impossible to keep someone safe in our world. The only way to ensure that was to never leave the apartment.Ever. And even then, if the vantage point was right, there was always the possibility of a sniper shooting.
Unaware that my brain was churning, she just sniffed, and because I couldn’t sit here, twiddling my damn thumbs as Bagpipes would say, waiting for whatever Abramovicz was going to toss our way, I asked, “Where ishere, Victoria?”
I peered around the darkening room and found that we were in a complete and utter blank canvas. No toilet, no sink, no furniture. Just the floor, the gray walls, a window that confirmed night was approaching, a bare lightbulb overhead with no wall switch I could see, and a door.
Talk about hospitable.
“I think we’re at the compound in Bushwick.” She tipped her head to the side. “If you listen, you can hear the steelworks. This one runs twenty-four hours a day.”
I did as she said, and could definitely hear something. I’d never have said it was the steelworks though, but it was the only info we had so I took it as gospel.
“Shit. I don’t know that place at all. If we were at home, I’d know of two ways to breach the perimeter.”
She shot me a look. “You do?”
