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Wet stone beneath her,Bree flinched. Little detonations went off throughout her body. She remained prone, letting the static play out. She wanted the empty darkness where she could hide in ignorance, where she was safe. She forced her eyes open and took in the square room. Nothing in it but a table and two chairs, some kind of pulley system overhead, and a round barrel in the corner. There was a drain in the middle of the floor with dark stains that iced her blood.
At least she was fully clothed, including her boots, the stretchy black suit, her microfiber vest, and her knit cap, but they had taken her gloves. Her hands were like ice.
Carefully, she inched back on her hands and knees, then sat upright, her back against the wall. She felt empty as she shivered uncontrollably, her arms and legs trembling with intense leftover charges, gritting her teeth until it passed. Her heartbeat was irregular, the numbness receded from her mouth and tongue.
She pushed her freezing hands into her hair and held her throbbing skull. “Tasers suck so bad.”
She remembered nothing except trying to get to the subway to lead them on a chase and distract them from even looking for the Volkovs.
This was a strange place for the KGB to bring her. She expected to wake up in some prison behind cell bars, not this open room with one high window behind her and on the opposite wall, two doors, one small and secured with a padlock, the other, a pair of tall, steel-reinforced wood doors.
She leaned back, relaxing her arms, wishing she was with Blitz, wishing she’d had a chance to explain to him. She hated that she messed up. She could only hope she hadn’t ruined everything.
She had no idea how long she’d been there, feeling the disorientation and frustration in dealing with her own fate.
Then, suddenly, the outer doors scraped open, shadows breaking behind the figures moving past the entrance. There were three men, two she recognized: the man who had caught her and the driver of the car.
All had Slavic features, attractive, big, and burly, the third man in a T-shirt, his biceps bulging, and he didn’t seem to be at all cold. That alone made her heart skip a terror-filled beat. Two of them had dark, piercing eyes, the third laser blue, all filled with purpose. She dubbed them Captor, Driver, and Biceps.
In Russian, Driver ordered her to stand. She didn’t want them to know she understood, so she looked at them with confusion.
Captor walked closer to her, and she shrank back, part of it an act, the rest as real as it got. Her body still shook from the aftershocks.
“You do not speak Russian?” he said in English.
She shook her head.
“Stand up,” he said.
“Let’s stop with this shit and beat her until she tells us whether or not she knows about the missiles and our attack,” Biceps said. “I volunteer to rape the information out of her. She’s quite lovely.”
“Shut up! I’ll handle this my way. If we beat her, we might kill her, and rape is a last resort. We do that and she’ll never say a thing. I don't want to explain it to Leonid that we killed her and learned nothing. Do you?”
Biceps backed down, but Bree was reeling. LeonidOlenska?Missiles? Attack? On who?Theyweren’tKGB. They wereZ Militia. Oh, God, that was worse. At least with the KGB, she might have had a chance of survival. But now, there was no doubt. The moment she talked. She was dead.
It’s a good thing she had no intention of talking. This was the end of the line.
I’m so sorry, Blitz.
“What is your name?”
She said nothing.
“Why did you take the Volkovs? Who are you working for?” She met his gaze, and he made her feel the blood in her veins, the beat of her heart in her throat.
She stared straight ahead.
“You are an American spy.”
Bree focused on the far wall. She was in over her head. She’d received no FBI training that would help her resist torture, so all she could do was defy them in her own way. Whatever techniques CIA operatives received, Bree definitely felt the lack of it.
“Secure her.”
Biceps walked over to her and grabbed her arm, dragging her to one of the chairs. He pushed her down into the chair and zip tied her wrists and ankles to the wood with a grunt of satisfaction. The plastic cut into her skin.
A fourth man walked in. He was carrying her tactical vest. They had taken both her weapons. He set the vest on the table with a plunk that reverberated against the walls, her pistol and knife visible in the pockets. The locket dangled from his fist. He dropped that on the table, too, along with her meager, stolen subway money.
He kept asking questions over and over. She was protecting her teammates and the lives of the Volkovs, Isabelle, and Aleksei who had the courage to take this step. She could do no less, especially when it meant that anything she gave them would be treason. Even to save her own life.
