Cherry Adair - T-flac 03 (29 page)

She'd be the first, Delanie vowed. Somehow. Some way. "At least untie me, I can't feel my hands."

Ignoring the complaint, Isabella rose, crossed the room, and returned with a glass of water. "You must be thirsty."

Mouth desert dry, eyes averted from the clear refreshing liquid in the glass, Delanie found she could barely breathe. "I don't want anything from you."

Isabella smiled. "You will want
everything
from me, my dear. I will become the water you drink. The food you eat. The very air that you breathe. Come, drink."

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Water trickled down her chin as Isabella forced the glass painfully against her lips. Alarm zapped through Delanie like tiny droplets of ice as she looked up into eyes that promised the depths of hell.

"
Basta
! We are wasting time." Isabella set the glass sharply onto a nearby table and yanked open a drawer. She removed what looked like a remote control, swung her chair around and sat down beside Delanie. "We will begin."

The lights went out, plunging them into pitch darkness. Brahms cut off mid beat.

The room filled with the overpowering scent of Isabella's perfume. Delanie believed she could even smell her own primordial fear mingled with the excitement of the woman sitting so close beside her. Unnerved, she stared into the impenetrable blackness.

Waiting.

Darkness and absolute silence.

"Pay attention,
chica
." Isabella's lightly accented voice broke through the thick oppression. Instantly a light flickered on the far wall to capture Delanie's attention, and an enormous concealed TV emerged from the floor. For a moment Delanie stared at the wide screen without comprehending what she was seeing—Bodies.

Naked bodies. Skin against skin.

Repelled, Delanie squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Panic slammed into her like a freight train. Oh, God.

She wanted out.

Now.

She could hardly breathe.

"Open your eyes,
querida
." Isabella laughed, and gave her arm a savage pinch. "You must watch."

"Go to hell." Isabella couldn't
force
her t—

Electricity shot in an agonizing ring about the base of Delanie's throat. Her fingers clawed the rope binding her wrists, trying to get free; the rope about her chest tightened as her body arched. It was over as suddenly as it had happened, leaving her shaken and chilled to the core.

She shot her chin up and hissed at Isabella between trembling, bloodless lips. "B-bitch."

"I told you to watch. That was just something for behavior modification." Isabella's eyes glittered in the flickering light. "Silly girl, I'm not going to hurt you. The shock lasts only a few seconds. I am quite annoyed that I had to replace your pretty necklace." A chilling pause. "Do what I tell you, or—" She repeated the demonstration.

The current zinged through the delicate membrane of Delanie's throat. It felt as if every tendon and bone in her body bowed. Bile rose in her mouth. Tears sprang to her eyes. She wanted out.

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O. U. T.

Now.

Isabella took her thumb off the control.

Immediate, blessed absence of pain.

Delanie drew in a ragged breath and held it.
Don't lose it. Do not lose it
, she warned herself, knowing instinctively Isabella got off on her terror. She tilted her chin and held the woman's reptilian gaze.

"I will continue until you obey me. The discipline is for your own good, my dear," Isabella said tenderly.

"Don't make me have to hurt you unnecessarily."

Delanie froze as the woman ran the back of her knuckles down her throat in a caress. "Pain can become pleasure,
chica
. Later we will explore how choking heightens the moment of sexual release."

Delanie swallowed convulsively as nausea surged, sinking into herself as Isabella resumed the tape. She went still, refusing to assimilate anything Isabella said. The only thing she could do was keep her mind blank and change her depth perception to make the screen blur.

It was impossible.

Her heartbeat threatened to choke her.

And God help her, Delanie knew this was only the beginning of the horrors Isabella had in store for her.

«^»

Kyle bounced a couple of times on the marble floor. The solid door closed with a final thump, and he rested his cheek against the cool tile. He listened to the triple click of the tumblers as Montero's goons locked him in, then departed.

They needed some work on their treatment of prisoners.

Montero had come unglued after the fax and phone call. Within seconds, Kyle had been out of his chair and sprinting across the brick patio, soldiers right on his ass.

His bound hands went to his throat. They'd put a necklace on him when he'd been unconscious, and the metal felt uncomfortably warm against his skin.

Brain sluggish, Kyle frowned into the pitch darkness. The rope binding his hands in front of him was neither tight nor hard to remove.

Too easy. He untied the bindings, tossed the rough hemp away, and quickly fingered the intricate lacing in his boots. They were exactly as he'd tied them this morning. Which meant he wasn't without resources.

Odds were the room was bugged. The damn necklace, almost identical to the one he'd removed from
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Delanie, was impossible to remove himself. So even if he managed to make it out of here he'd be fried if he crossed the sensor. And he didn't know where the sensor was. Hell.

A faint, barely there, sweet odor permeated the air.

Easing himself back, he rested his head against the slick, cold wall, his hands hanging over his bent knees, every sense alert to his environment, to any sounds outside the room. He flexed his tingling fingers.

Why hadn't Montero tortured him or killed him outright?

Hell. There
was
something worse than death. It all boiled down to one word.

Delanie.

He shifted, bracing himself on his flattened hands against the cool floor, wincing as something sharp punctured his palm. He picked up the small metal object, an earring by the feel of it, idly twisting it between his fingers before absently sticking it in the breast pocket of his shirt. One never knew what might come in handy.

Shapes materialized out of the darkness as his eyes adjusted, assisted by the trace of light from under the door. Thickheaded and lethargic, due no doubt to the blows he'd taken to the head, he rose to his feet to survey his cell.

An enormous four-poster bed took up most of the room. This was like no prison he'd ever been in.

What was wrong with this picture? He swung around as someone approached him slowly from the side.

He braced for combat—only to find himself confronting
himself in
a wall-size mirror.

Curiouser and curiouser.

He stood very still, alert for any sound. What he heard made him scowl, and accounted for his lethargy.

Gas.

No wonder his bindings had been so ineffectual. Carefully walking on the balls of his feet he followed the barely perceptible hiss. Using his hands and sense of smell, he searched the room. And found the tiny nozzle cleverly tucked beside the frame of a painting on the far wall.

Anesthetic?

Poison?

Nope. By his symptoms, the tingling fingertips, depressed vision, and increased hearing, Kyle deduced it was nitrous oxide. He sure as shit didn't feel like laughing. The N2O wasn't going to kill him, just keep him sufficiently loopy to be ineffectual. Or so they obviously hoped.

With the sensitivity of a safecracker, his fingertips traced around the edge of the painting. The nozzle came directly out of the wall. No way to remove it without asphyxiating himself in the process. A turn to the right and the hiss became louder; a turn to the left reduced the sound. He'd have to be satisfied. There was no way to turn the damn thing off completely. He adjusted his breathing to accommodate his environment.

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Damned if he'd turn on the bedside lamp—someone was probably on the other side of that mirror observing him. Kyle moved around the dark, well-appointed room like a caged animal. He couldn't make out color, but the textures were rich, luxurious.

A narrow table held a plastic jug. He picked it up. Water. Nothing in it as far as he could tell after he'd swigged down enough to moisten his throat. His frown intensified.

Further down the table he fingered… medical supplies? A small plastic bottle, cotton, bandages.

Hmmm.

He paced to the door. Twenty-three steps.

First things first. He unbuckled his belt and turned the buckle into position to finesse the lock on the door, but the insidious need to sit down and relax made him want to jog to get his energy level up. Which would require more oxygen.

He stared at the belt in his hand blankly.

Door. Lock. Yeah, right.

He had to get to Delanie and make sure she was safe. Had to contact his people and—get this damn lock picked.

He forced himself to concentrate. What did Montero expect?

He expected him to make a break for it.

Kyle dropped his belt onto the table by the door. Hell. He didn't feel like running around the jungle dodging Montero's goons for hours. Especially not with this dog collar on. He might as well bide his time.

If he could stay where he was until tomorrow noon, he'd be able to get out of here and head straight into the fray at the hacienda.

Yeah. He was here for the duration. Hell. Face it, he could use the rest. Delanie was safe and sound in the bomb shelter. She'd be good until tomorrow when he went to pick her up.

He started back toward the door for another lap, lungs aching with the desire for a deep cleansing breath.

When they'd caught him, the soldiers had stripped him of his more obvious weapons, but they hadn't taken everything. He had more than enough equipment on his person to be ready for almost…

He scowled, losing his train of thought for a moment.

—anything.

Christ. The stuff was effective.

Feeling the ache of a new bruise on his upper arm, he gripped it between his fingers and gave himself a good pinch. Hurt like hell, and lessened the fuzz around his brain.

Delanie. Tomorrow night this would be over and they could sit down and discuss—

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Kyle's musings were sliced off by a high, piercing scream that froze his blood and sent his pulse into overdrive like nothing else could.

«^»

Delanie's shrill, agonized shriek cut off as swiftly as a hot knife through butter, then silence. Thick.

Oppressive. Gut-wrenching, fill-in-the-blanks-yourself silence.

Palms sweating, mouth dry, Kyle tried not to imagine what they'd done to make her scream like that.

Unfortunately, he couldn't control the images racing through his mind.

Fueled by fear and rage, feeling helpless, he started to pray. Quick disjointed promises. It'd been a while.

She was still alive. He knew it in his gut.

He also knew Ramon Montero was a sick son of a bitch, so the quality of her life was the thing.

Every sensory system on red alert, Kyle grabbed at the door handle, rattling it uselessly before slamming his shoulder against the solid wood.

Then again.
Bam
.

Please, God…

Again.
Bam. Bam. Bam
.

God. Please—

He pressed his forehead against the solid door beside his clenched fist.

The scream had come from close by. Possibly the room next door.

He grabbed the belt from the table and fumbled for the lock-picking device, his fingers made clumsy by the N2O and urgency. He slid the thin metal between the door and jamb.

The tumblers clicked.
Snick. Snick. Snick
.

Resisting the urge to bust through the door, he eased the heavy wood open just a crack to see what he could see.

Satisfied, he stepped into a wide, empty corridor, inhaling deeply of the fresh air as he paused to listen.

Footsteps sounded. Two men headed this way, carrying something heavy, judging by the cadence of their gait.

Kyle slipped back into the room and shut the door, positioning himself against the wall. Timing was
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everything.

He relaxed into a state of ready alertness as the footfalls stopped outside.

A key scraped. Scraped again. The door flew open. A stream of light from the hallway fell across the bare floor, illuminating the room.

Kyle had eyes only for Delanie as two soldiers tossed her unceremoniously at his feet like a sack of garbage.

Before the door had closed, Kyle lifted her rag-doll limp body onto the mattress, leaning over to click on the light beside the bed. Something alien and terrifying shimmied down his spine as he looked at her stark white face.

Delanie's eyes were open.

And fixed.

Exhausted shadows highlighted the gauntness of her skin and the bruise on her left cheek. Her sightless eyes appeared black in the subdued lighting, empty.

Around her neck was a familiar gold necklace.

A primordial groan rose in his throat. "Christ, what the hell did he do to you, jungle girl?"

No response.

The knowledge that Montero had laid his filthy hands on her… had hurt her in some way, would torment him into his next life.

He picked up her flaccid wrist, feeling the weak pulse, his own heartbeat all but choking him. Her chest, under thin blue cotton, barely moved. A hand waved close to her eyes elicited zero reaction. Kyle framed her face in both hands. Her bone-white skin felt cold, clammy.