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Rush resumes the feed, and we watch and listen.
“I can’t understand what you’re saying,” Ben says to Eve, pushing her hair away from her face. That’s one more offense that will cost him. He shouldn’t touch her at all.
Rush turns up the volume, and we hear her muttering something, but it’s hard to make out.
“Eve, you’re not making sense. What are you mumbling?” Ben continues.
Rush rewinds it, and he does something to the clarity, trying to make it easier to hear. While he fucks with the computer, Dash turns to me.
“She doesn’t know any of that shit. Imagine what he’d do with that info if he had it.”
“Doesn’t look like she’d have told him even if she did know,” Snake says idly.
“If he had the info, he would be coming right to us,” I point out icily. “I wish she had told him.”
“She knows?” Rush asks, halting what he’s doing as his eyes cut to me.
“She knows what we do, and she knows the cars are in the warehouse, but she doesn’t know where. She knows enough about what we’re fucking doing to have been able to buy herself some food, sleep, or peace. Possibly even freedom.”
Silence descends around the room.
“You barely fucking know her,” Rush finally grinds out. “And you told her something not even most of the guys know?”
“Most of the guys wouldn’t have covered my body with theirs if it was raining bullets,” I point out. “She’s tied to a chair, being starved, being dehydrated, and being deprived of sleep, but she’s not fucking saying a thing. She should have. I wish she fucking had.”
It feels like the anger inside me is trying to manifest into a physical form and emerge as a true monster. Guilt wars with fury, and everything collides.
“She’s saying something,” Rush mumbles, going back to his task.
We all move closer as he plays it back, isolating just her voice, and we finally hear what she’s saying.
“He’s going to kill you,” she whispers in a crackled, eerie voice. “He’s going to kill you,” she says again.
Snake hisses out a breath, and Rush turns the volume back down while messing with some keys again. He doesn’t say anything, but Dash does.
“Still don’t trust her?” he asks Rush.
Rush doesn’t respond as he plays the video again, and Eve raises her voice, making it easy to understand her this time.
“Fuck. You.”
She starts laughing in that smoker’s rasp again, while coughing violently at the same time. That kills me all over again. I have to fight to stand up.
That’s all I can take right now, so I lean over and pause it myself. “I’m going back to Eve. I’ll watch the rest later. Let me know if you figure anything out,” I tell them.
I glance over at Drake who is snoring loudly, and I walk back out, barely slowing down. All the guys move out of my way, and Sarah eyes me when I walk in.
Axle’s eyes find mine, and he frowns when he takes in my expression. I shrug out of my cut, pull off my boots, and gingerly climb in the small, uncomfortable-as-nails bed next to my girl.
She’s whimpering in her sleep, but the second my arms go around her, a sigh leaves her lips, and she relaxes against my chest as her head settles in. Axle doesn’t speak. He leaves the room, and I know he’s heading in to find out for himself what I just had to watch.
Sarah leans back in her chair, and Colleen takes the seat Axle just vacated. Eve sighs again, whispering my name in her sleep, and I concentrate on not holding her too tightly against me.
“Drex?” Colleen whispers, drawing my attention.
“What?” I ask, clearing my throat when I hear how thick my voice is.
“When you find them, I want you to live up to your name,” she whispers coldly.
No one wants Ben to suffer more than I do, but I don’t point that out. Instead, I just nod.
Eve’s voice draws my attention back to her as she sings in her sleep in her strained, hoarse voice.
“Up… Up above the world so high. Like a… diamond in the sky…”
Chapter 24
EVE
I’m not sure how long I’ve been out when I wake up, but I do worry that I’ve finally breached insanity. My eyes hurt against the bright sun that is filtering through the window. There’s no window in the basement.
Warmth… So much warmth is around me, but it’s not an uncomfortable heat. In fact, it’s comforting as it surrounds me.
Something stirs against me, and it takes me a second to realize someone is holding me to their body. I tense, but almost immediately I relax as the familiar scent engulfs me.
It’s not a hallucination. Drex is really holding me to him. When I lift my gaze to the arm closest to me, I see the telltale tattoos.
