“I already know it was the girl. I even know her name. Who is she? A girlfriend? A contractor? You’ve put her in danger, you know. A big fat red target on her pretty forehead.”
That doesn’t move me. Maybe that makes me a cold bastard, but I’ve been in this line of work too long to have any softness left. I clench my teeth as another blow rattles my brains.
“So, you don’t care,” he says, spreading his hands wide. “This is the problem, working with professionals. They do their job, but they don’t have any fucking weakness.”
“Thank you,” I say, and another blow lands on my jaw. Fuck.
I think I lost a tooth on that one. One of the ones in the back. A molar. It kicks around inside my mouth, rubbing against my tongue, but sharp and smooth, before I spit it out. It reminds me of the tooth fairy in Holland Frank’s book.
Will she come and collect this tooth from the stone floor?
Or maybe not, since it won’t end up beneath any pillow.
Adam sighs. “I went through all the trouble of collecting the girl. She’s no good if you don’t tell me where to find the diamonds. She won’t help at all—”
“Leave her out of this.”
The words slip out before I can stop them, and I immediately curse myself. No weakness. I can show no weakness. It’s not only pretend. I can’t have any weakness. And somehow, this random woman in my cell has become mine.
Adam gives me a terrible, knowing smile. “You like her.”
No, I don’t. The answer sits on my tongue, but it won’t help. He already knows. I clench my teeth together, bracing for a blow that never comes. I can’t afford any weaknesses. That’s not only to protect the mission. It’s to protect the innocent.
If I care about her, Adam will use her to get to me. He’ll hurt her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Holly
I wipe him as gently as possible, but he still grunts in pain. There’s blood all over his face and bruises down his body. Adam threw him back into the cell with some antiseptic wipes and bandages. There’s something disturbing about attending to a man who’s been tortured, making sure he lives long enough to be tortured again.
I’ve always known that I was lucky, that I was raised in a family where I had enough food and clothes and love to go around. My career writing books has paid for a comfortable life. I have a bed with a down comforter and an AC unit that actually works. I knew that I was lucky, but I never fully understood what it meant to be hungry. What it meant to be cold. What it meant to be bleeding without any access to some freaking Advil.
“We have to get you out of here,” he says, sounding delirious.
“I appreciate the sentiment,” I say, using the last wipe on his brow. “But we established that there’s no way out. Besides, you need to get out of here more than I do.”
“There’s a break in the perimeter at the other end of the bars.
I stand up. “What? No, there isn’t.”
“It’s low, in the wood between the bars and the stone. Wood’s rotted.”
Excitement beats heavy in my chest. I half-walk, half-crawl to the corner and brush my hands along the bars as I cross them. “I feel it. I feel it. Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?”
“There’s not much space. Unless you’re actually a tooth fairy, you won’t fit through.”
I find the rotten wood, and my heart sinks. He’s right. There’s even a space where the wood’s fallen away completely, but it leaves only inches. Maybe a foot. I’m not actually a tooth fairy. No one could fit through here. “It’s almost worse. Having hope.”
“That’s why I didn’t tell you,” he says, his voice low with regret.
“Then why tell me now?”
He groans. “It’s the only way out.”
He must be delirious.
I sit down against the thick wood frame, my back against it. “The tooth fairy. One of the people on her route is a boy, a teenage boy. Old to still be putting teeth under his pillow. And he looks different. Tall but very skinny. She wonders if something is wrong with him.”
“Is there? Something wrong with him?”
“Yes. He’s dying.”
A sharp intake of breath. “Does she talk to him?”
“One day he leaves a note under his pillow. It’s a suicide note. She can’t bear the thought of him trying to kill himself, so she writes him a note back. The next night he writes her another note. She writes back. There’s no tooth. She shouldn’t even go in his room when there’s no tooth, and she definitely shouldn’t be writing him notes.”
There’s a shuffling, and in the faintest shadows I can see him. My eyes are adjusting. It makes me wonder if I’ll have night vision by the time this ends. “What do the notes say?”
“He tells her the things he wishes would happen in his life, even though he knows he’ll die before any of them come true. She tells him about the things she’s afraid of.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“This isn’t about me,” I say, tears springing to my eyes.
“Fine. What’s the tooth fairy afraid of?”
The young tooth fairy is afraid of being different, but that’s not what I say. “She’s afraid of dying in this cell. She’s afraid her family will never know what happened to her.” Tears stream down my cheeks. “She’s afraid that you’ll die first, and she’ll be alone in this cell.”
A shuffle and then North is beside me. He places a reassuring hand on my shoulder, and I burst into messy, pointless sobs. “Easy,” he says, though he doesn’t seem to expect me to stop crying. It’s just what he says to soothe me, apparently. “Easy there.”
He pulls me close, and I resist for only one second, two, three, before burying my face in his shoulder. Strong arms embrace me. I breathe in the scents of metal and musk. I must be smearing tears all over his bare skin. It’s probably mixing with dirt and with blood, but that feels right for this place. Macabre, like he said. I cry out my fear and my anger—God, so much anger. Every woman lives in fear of that white van and that black hood. I cry for every moment I spent in fear, every self-defense class, every bottle of mace in my purse. For nothing.
“What do you wish would happen in your life?” I ask. He tells her the things he wishes would happen in his life, even though he knows he’ll die before any of them come true.
“I don’t wish for things.”
“Ever?”
“Not often. I doubt I’ll be leaving this cell alive.”
“Where are we, anyway?” I ask, peering into the dark. “Some kind of prison?”
An ache strikes my heart. I miss my Keurig coffee maker and my toothbrush. Simple things. They were easy to take for granted, but I miss them now. There’s a typewriter ornament that London gave me for Christmas. I hang it on the lamp on my desk year-round.
Will I ever see that glossy pink typewriter again?
“A church, actually. It was converted to a prison during the French Revolution.”
“It feels wrong to keep people in a church. I guess Adam isn’t a religious type.”