Page 36 of Talk to Me
“Actually,” I said in a hoarse voice. “He made a statement, not a question. The implication being I could accept or decline.”
Shaggy glared at me then slapped me again, this time the open hand of his palm knocking my face the other way. My neck popped and it was both painful and almost orgasmic. Oh, something went back into spot.
“Everyone’s a critic,” I managed to mutter, but it sounded raspy as hell.
“Get her water,” Mr. Cold ordered before he took a sip from the cup he held. Oh, the bastard had the coffee. I really wanted the coffee.
“She doesn’t deserve water.” Shaggy’s expression was nothing but contempt.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” Cold informed him. “Get her water. Now.”
With a venomous look in my direction, Shaggy stalked out of the room and left me with Mr. Cold.
“Miss Brady, you must have reached the same conclusion that we have. Yes?”
“That you smell like bad aftershave with clinical depression and a skin infection?”
His bland look was not amused.
Granted, it wasn’t my best work. Still, I didn’t want to die quick. Living wasn’t going to feel pretty. So…I needed to focus on not being here for a while. Sooner or later, they were going to make good on their promise of physical violence.
They always did.
He shook his head, then took a sip of his coffee. He walked behind me cup in hand and I concentrated on slow, deep breaths. I might not hear him or see him coming. So I needed to relax everything and slip away.
The mind was a wonderful thing. The code I was working on—it would be perfectly elegant. It would create the best environment…
A chair hit the ground in front of me and I blinked to find Mr. Cold had set up a chair and a table. He put his coffee cup on the table before he stripped off his jacket. Then he rolled up his sleeves.
I went back to my code. Line after line, if/then statements with perfect definitions ready to act. I liked coding, streamlining it, particularly when it would let me craft a tool or a setting or a world.
Maybe I needed to get out of the business and become a video game developer. The work paid well, and I doubted it came with torture beyond what I could do to myself.
“Open up.” A splash of water against my face pulled me back to the present and I found Shaggy leaning over me. A bottle of water in hand.
I stared at him. He had a burning cigarette in his other hand, and the water bottle in the other. It could be drugged.
Sniffing carefully, I tried to detect something alcoholic or medicinal around the rotting scent of me and them. The cigarette smoke didn’t help but it looked like water. I parted my lips a little.
A hand fisted my hair and yanked my head backward. Pain shot down my neck and pooled between my shoulder blades. I forgot about Mr. Cold briefly.
Lips parted, I wasn’t quite ready for the water they poured into my mouth. It was water. It soaked my parched and bloodied tongue. I inhaled some before I could swallow the rest. I fought the urge to cough. I needed more water, if I give into the reflex, they’d take it away from me. Chances were I wouldn’t get it again.
At least not for hours.
So I swallowed, and swallowed, until the bottle was empty. Only when they let go of my hair and Shaggy backed off a step did I give into the cough. My eyes were burning and so was my throat.
But that water had been like ambrosia.
“Good,” Mr. Cold said, almost petting my hair. “I like when you cooperate, Fallon. May I call you Fallon?”
Oh, that was a question. “No,” I told him. “You can drop dead though.”
“Bitch,” Shaggy said, but all Mr. Cold did was yank my hair again and haul my head backward. He locked his hand under my jaw, forcing my mouth closed. I could breathe through my nose, but that was about it.
“Hit her in the stomach.”
This was going to suck, Shaggy didn’t hesitate. His fist plowed into me and I fought the gag sending the water back up my throat. Was he going to drown me this way?