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FIFTEEN
Garrison
I knewmy time to interrogate was coming when the screaming had faded into an occasional dull whimper of pain. A few minutes later, Talon came striding out of the basement room in the old warehouse we’d stopped by, wiping his hands across a tan towel that had been stained red.
This was how we did interrogations. Talon broke the fuckers apart, and I pieced them back together just enough and in just the right way to get the answers we needed. If they hadn’t already spilled their guts to get Talon to stop. The odds were about fifty-fifty.
This guy was one of the more resilient ones.
Talon nodded to me. “He’s ready for you.”
I glanced behind me to where Dess sat beside Julius, leaning back in her chair and appearing unfazed by the entire situation as he finished bandaging her shoulder. Blaze eyed his laptop, trying and failing to find out exactly who had access to the camera within the factory. He swore at the computer under his breath.
“Gave you a tough time, did he?” I asked Talon with purposeful bravado. The man was fucking good at what he did, but that gave me an extra ego boost when it turned out my skills were the ones that’d get us what we needed.
“He’s stubborn, but he’s weak and out of it now,” the other man replied. “Threatening him only made him clam up more.”
That was useful to know. Some people coughed up the information we needed in the face of someone physically intimidating. Some responded better to psychological threats. Others needed a more nuanced approach. It sounded like this guy belonged to the last group.
As I stepped into the room, I was already formulating a strategy in my mind. I walked in with a slight slouch and a hesitant expression on my face, watching our captive’s reaction from the corner of my eyes. Sometimes after a battering, what an opponent responded best to was the chance to exert some kind of power over another person. That meant looking meek and nervous, but not so much that he couldn’t get any satisfaction out of lording it over me.
The man was slumped in the chair we’d tied him to. We’d bandaged the wound on his stomach, because we didn’t want him bleeding out before we were done with him, but little rivulets oozed from the shallower wound on his leg and other minor cuts that Talon had added to his collection, in between the mottling of bruises. A few fingers dangled limply, broken, and the guy’s lip was split.
He raised his head slowly, swaying, at the sight of me. When I let myself make eye contact, it was only for an instant before jerking my gaze away. At that show of uncertainty, he managed to draw his posture up a little straighter.
Ah ha. He thought I was someone he might be able to gain an advantage over, and he liked that idea. I’d just keep playing to that tune.
I wandered over to the torture table laid out with Talon’s instruments—mostly various types of blades, his favorite tools. “Always on clean-up duty,” I muttered to myself. “As if I want to be around all this blood and crap.”
I sighed and turned to look at the man again, as if I were sizing him up. At the same time, I shrank in on myself a little. But I spoke, making it sound like I was forcing out the offer despite my nerves. “It doesn’t have to be that way, you know. We could both get something out of this.”
The man studied me warily. “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice rasping.
I twisted my mouth at an uncertain angle. “This doesn’t have to end with them killing you. If I could show I got something out of you—something they want to know—then they’d see that I can be more of a part of their stupid crew. And I’d make sure you get the chance to escape.”
The man scoffed weakly, but a glimmer of hope lit in his face at the same time. I’d presented him with a picture of a man who didn’t like killing and hungered for more recognition, and he’d lapped it up. “I’m supposed to believe that?” he asked anyway.
I shrugged, walking around him but careful to move closer to the weapons than to him—to show that I didn’t want to be near him and risk myself. I didn’t want him to think I was outright afraid, but I certainly didn’t want him to believe I was fully comfortable, either.
“I don’t have any interest in cleaning up another corpse,” I said, with a shudder I didn’t have to fake. The gore of our killings did actually make me a little queasy, even if I stomached it for the sake of the job. “So really, it’s all a favor to me. But I can’t let you go if you don’t give me anything. Then they’ll kill me.”
The man blinked at me, his eyes going momentarily bleary. Talon had left him in quite a state. He couldn’t focus or think clearly, and I knew that if I pushed the right buttons, he’d slip up and give something away.
He shifted against his restraints. “I can’t tell you anything, man. I’m at the bottom of the information chain. No one even told me why we were going after you and the girl.”
“I guess you could start by telling me who this ‘we’ is? What group are you with? Who sent you on the job?”
When he hesitated, I grabbed one of the short, serrated blades off the table and walked toward him. His mouth flattened and his nose flared, and I could tell Talon was right. He wouldn’t say a word if I was threatening him with a weapon.
That was fine. I hadn’t picked it up to do that.
“I can show you I mean what I’m offering,” I said, coaxing just a hint of a quaver into my voice. Bending down, I sawed through the rope that bound his left wrist. With a few quick jerks, the cord fell away. I jumped back, out of range of his reach.
The man turned his hand over, staring at it in disbelief. He swayed again and sucked in a ragged breath.
“I told you I don’t want you dead,” I said in a pleading tone. “Just tell me what you know.”
I set the knife back on the table, but at the edge as if I anticipated needing it soon to finish releasing him. The man considered it and then me. His jaw worked.
