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He nods. “I would.”
“Any news?” Silas asks Mark, finishing his coffee and tossing it in the trash bin like a three-pointer. He misses, makes a face, and bends down to throw it away properly.
“Yeah,” Mark says, anger evident in the way his nostrils flare, the posture he assumes. “This thing goes all the way to the top, and has tentacles everywhere. When Galt and I tried to get you released, Drew, turns out NSA, CIA and FBI operatives were all part of the effort to help set you up.”
“I got the full alphabet thrown at me,” I say, impressed.
“Galt figures someone finds you to be very, very dangerous,” he adds, eyebrows up. “That’s high praise from him.”
“And you outsmarted them all,” Silas intones, voice low.
“We still don’t understand how the hell Corning has that kind of reach, and -- ”
Just then, Monica and Harry emerge from the room, eyes hollow.
Oh, no.
Mark stops talking and gives Harry a worried look.
Monica grabs my hand, and says softly, “You can go in now. Maybe you’ll have better luck than we did.”
What the hell does that mean?
Lindsay
I am turned slightly away from the door. I smell Drew’s aftershave before he even sets one foot inside the room. My stomach flip-flops.
Not yet.
Not now.
I’m not really here. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want him to see me like this.
I don’t want anyone to see me like this.
No. Scratch that.
I don’t want anyone to see me ever.
Too much of me has been seen. Too much of me has been stripped naked before the world, bloodied and bruised, my fury worn as my only weapon and exposed for consideration and judgment. John didn’t just kidnap me. He stole me. He stole me and delivered me to Stellan and Blaine and they took my humanity – again – and turned me into an animal.
Only this time, I was awake for all of it. Aware. Sentient and breathing and afraid and terrified to the point where I just can’t be who I was before.
He stole who I am and scraped it clean off me, like a car stripped of all its value, the important parts gleaned, the rest an empty shell no one wants.
A nuisance.
A pile of non-functioning junk.
The sound of Drew’s even breath makes me close my eyes and slow my own respiration. If I pretend to be asleep, maybe he’ll go away.
His scent gets stronger. I feel heat to my right, like he’s radiating it outward.
Even though my eyes are closed, I can tell when he’s next to me. He doesn’t touch the bed. A shadow changes the light behind my eyelids, and his heat intensifies. There’s more than simple warmth there. It’s a kind of compassion that takes on temperature, as if goodness can be calibrated to produce light.
I don’t deserve that.
I know he’s in pain. I know I should reach out, should heal, should work together with him.
