Page 17 of Savage Escape
It was just... she was done.
First with Nathan, the only good man she knew, getting tossed into her cell. And now with this problem Kyott pulled out of his ass. A problem she, and only she, had the answer to. It was frustrating and disheartening.
Which to any other person on the surface of the planet may have been a flashing neon sign reading, ‘Quit your goddamn bitchin’ and pointless efforts and get on with your pathetic fucking life!’ from said Puppet Master, but to Caden, it was another challenge. Another fight she had to win.
But maybe that wasn’t true anymore. Caden was always fighting for something. But now... what the fuck was she fighting for now?
She had nothing left.
“Quinn, pay attention.” Kyott brought her back to the conversation with a deep cut to her underarm. “All you gotta do is tell me where he is and I’ll let ya go back to your cell. Hell, maybe I’ll even think about hiring ya on.”
It took a long moment to find her voice and beat back the waves of white-hot pain smothering her nerve endings.
“You do have a position to fill now, don’t ya? Seeing as how Liam’s... well, he’s not gonna be jumping outta his grave any time soon, is he?”
Her intention was to remind the fuck-wad why she was in the chair and then maybe he’d finally get the job done. But it did not have the effect she was intending. The man only smirked and let out a short incredulous huff like he found her amusing. Apparently not a whole lot of love in the Kyott family.
“Ya got some balls on ya, you know that?” The flat side of the bloody blade hit her cheek a few times. “For a woman who’s said to have survived well—fuckingeverything—you don’t seem too keen on staying alive.”
Well, mother fucking hallelujah, give the man a prize.
“Is that—” He jerked back like he’d been stuck and the knife went with him. “Is that what this is for you, Quinn? You wanna die? That’s it, huh?” He gave a sadistic little chuckle and patted her cheek with the knife again. “Well, how ‘bout this? You tell me right now where he is and I’ll kill ya. As messily or quickly as ya’d like—I’ll kill ya.”
The ‘he’ in that sentence was the son of a rather dangerous man she’d worked for six months back. She’d acted as the kid’s bodyguard while they moved base camp and again when Harrington decided his son needed a more secure and secret location. The ‘he’ was eight, named Trevor, and liked Oreos on his pancakes.
“How ‘bout it?”
Caden was many things, a killer chief among them. What she was not, in any way, was a snitch. Especially where a kid was concerned. She did not kill innocents. Sure, there was the random beat down should said innocent come between her and her job but never kill. Despite his parentage, Trevor was an innocent.
It wasn’t a big mystery why Kyott was suddenly so interested in Harrington. They were always comparing dick sizes and trying to out evil the other. The fact that Kyott was now going after Trevor either meant Harrington had done something similar or he was making a play for the scum-bag crown.
“What do you think?” She couldn’t catch a break.
After a moment of what looked like contemplative concentration, a smirk curled his lip and he moved within head-butt range.
“Wrong answer.” With that, he stabbed down, impaling her forearm and then the wooden arm of the chair before leaving it there and turning back towards the table. White hot searing pain jolted up her arm and smothered everything else.
It was moments like those that Caden dearly wished she’d been tossed into a vat of toxic waste at birth; telekinesis would be mighty handy. Unfortunately, Caden was not a mutant, and the knife was not gonna magically unsheathe itself from her arm and plunge into Kyott seven or eight times. So Caden focused on breathing. On drawing breath and letting her exhale be her release.
Inhale.
Exhale.
He turned back around, syringe in his hand, and flicked it a few times, looking rather smug. Caden guessed that it was either some kind of poison or sodium pentathol. Her money was on sodium pentathol though, seeing as how he was interrogating her. Poison wasn’t a thing a man like Kyott would spend any kind of time on if there was a gun readily available.
Inhale.
Exhale.
There was a pinch on her neck followed by a cold burn under her skin and the merc bit back a growl; she hated being drugged and the loss of control that came with it. She’d beendrugged before, of course, a few times, but only ever twice before with sodium pentothal—the Truth Drug. In Caden’s seasoned opinion, it wasn’t so much the Truth Drug as theTalkDrug. All she had to do was talk and keep talking. It wouldn’t take long to infiltrate, considering her body mass and the lack of sustenance in her belly.
Kyott, looking ten shades of pleased with himself, moved back to the table and positioned himself against it so he could watch as the drugs kicked in.
“Oh, here, I’ll take that back.” He grinned sheepishly and leaned over to pluck the knife out of her forearm.
Inhale.
Exhale.