Hush (The Infected: Ripped to Shreds Book 1) (40 page)

"Right. In the floor, near
the back right hand side. Here, on the map you can see the rest of it. The door
codes are right next to them."

She handed the thing over, and
blinked since the man was gone. So was Tobin. A moment later he was back,
without
the Goblin. Mark smiled at them, his story talking about how scared he'd been
going in, carrying the light fellow with him, in his arms, like a child. They'd
subdued the people inside, with duct tape, and left Clark blindfolded with the
stuff. He needed to see, in order to use his power, it seemed.

Getting it first, she started to
jog.

"Good work. We need to get
in there, and... Um, medical help? Remember, leave Clarkson alive until we have
what he knows." After that she personally didn't care, if she were going
to be honest.

Really, she didn't to start with,
but no one seemed to be concerned with her that way. They were too worried
about what Level and Prime were going to do. The man was a child molester after
all. One that had really done it, too. There was no doubt of that, so very
little slack was going to be cut for him that way.

On the great freaking side, it
wasn't her problem. In fact, leaving him alive was probably the best thing for
her, since it would leave her looking good. Still, after that first warning to
the others about what people were secretly planning, she wasn't doing it again.
Making an enemy of either Prime or Level was a poor plan for her. So far they
weren't holding anything against her, with Scott actually understanding what
she was doing, and Lauren believing that she was just a better person than she
was, not wanting the man to be murdered like that.

Not that it was going to save him
in the end.

They moved into the facility hard
and fast, at a literal run. Then Brian took stock of the whole place and went
to get help. The hard part there was that they needed to get medical in, and it
was really possible that the doctors and nurses weren't really them. None of
those people were actually super powered beings, after all.

So, after about fifteen minutes
they had all the people out of their coffin box cells, and Director Turner was
there, along with fifty other people. At least it seemed like it. All of them
were Infected, too. Most were people that she'd met, at least in passing,
having been cleared already by her personally. Not that she wasn't going to do
it again, soon.

"We need to get these people
to a real hospital. Now." The words were half growled by Kiko Burrows,
with Proxy just nodding at her openly.

"Tell me where to go, and I
can get you all there immediately."

That got those two talking, fast,
and hard, and the bodies of the drugged victims were pulled away faster than
seemed possible. All the medical people were gone after five minutes, each one
staying with an individual. Brian had to call the President, but was waiting to
make certain that Mary Lawrence was both really her and going to make it. That
she probably had brain damage that would follow her for the rest of her life
was just clear to everyone that bothered to think of it.

That wasn't going to make Clark a
popular boy, very shortly.

Then, if the President wanted him
to accidently die, that
could
be arranged. She moved over in front of
the the man, who was still taped up. He looked a bit like his brother, which
got her to slap him suddenly. He didn't have a right to look like a good person
that she liked. Marcia had wanted to, but was afraid that she'd kill him.
Before it was time for that.

It got the woman to smile at her,
and nod.

"You do interrogations, too?
And here I thought that killing
innocent
men was your thing." The
words were relaxed, even though the woman wasn't.

As the man, taped to the solid
metal chair, tried to squirm and make a distressed noise, she shrugged.

"That's just my first mode.
I'm pretty sure I was a psychopath before that though. Just not the murderous
kind. Now I kind of have a taste for it, so even without that, I bet I can get
behind a bit of alternative fun. Even if I'm not forced to. You did say the
idea was for me to only kill the right people, didn't you? Anyway, Clark, Wally
sends his love." Then she slapped him on the other side of his face,
making his head whip to the other direction.

Turner laughed.

"Oh, right, I forgot that
you used to work with his brother. What was it he said when we thought Clark
here was dead?"

Cindy lied, but not by that much.

"That he wished he could
have done it himself. He meant it, too. In fact, I'm half tempted to let him and
Scott take turns killing you now. I wouldn't want that to stain either of them
though, so I guess that I'll have to do it? Anyway, I just need the questions.
We don't need him to be willing to give us the data or anything. Let's drain
him and then do whatever it is you want? You did say that I could murder some
people, as long as it was inside the rules? I mean, I know that wasn't a
promise, but it would make me feel like we were part of the same team.
Pleeease
?
You have a death warrant for him still, don't you?" It was right there
above the other woman's head, and she really
did
. He was an escaped
fugitive, and a class four. That was pretty much a death sentence, as far as
the law went.

Even if you were innocent in the
first place, escaping meant you were too dangerous to keep around.

Clark tried to save his life,
squeaking at them. Pitifully.

"I'll talk! I'll cooperate!
I just didn't want to die, so I ran when Bridgie came to get me. That's all.
Then I was given a job here, helping people."

Ms. Turner crossed her arms, her
face hard.

"Bullshit, Clarkson. Yeah,
you ran, but you know that keeping people prisoner here isn't helping them.
This
isn't
an old folks home. Did you realize who you had here? Burkes,
and Mary Lawrence? You had to know that keeping the First Lady hostage wasn't
going to work out for you, in the end. Even a dumbass like you should
understand that."

It was clear that he did know,
all along, so Cindy hit him again, hard enough to get a rewarding grunt. Then
she pulled one of the knives that Brian had lent her. She poked the large
thing, which had a nice ten inch blade on it that gleamed wickedly, into his
sternum, making him try to squirm away. Then she stopped, pushing him with pain
back into the chair.

Marcia looked at her like it was
part of the plan to get the needed data.

Cin sucked both of her lips into
her mouth, hiding her glee. Poorly.

"Oh, um, sorry. I was just
having some fun. He knew. All the names, and while he didn't know why they were
here, he was the one in charge of it all. He really doesn't know who is really
behind it." Then she poked him again. Smiling as she did it.

Her boss... Laughed.

"Ah, Clark. Things have
changed since you've been gone. The only thing that's the same is how much
everyone hates you."

He tried to bluff, the words
written above his head.

"You can't do this. Torture
is illegal."

It really was.

Cindy poked him again.

"Did you not get the part
about how I'm a serial killer? That wasn't a joke. We're working on treatments
for it, but it's totally a first mode thing, so it will take at least another
few months. If it doesn't just kill me. You even look enough like my favorite
kind of target that this will be fun. I also know everything you do. From what
you think of when you jerk it, to what you had for your last meal. Salisbury
steak. No dessert. You really should have had some. Now, the thing here is that
there
isn't
a good reason for us to keep you alive really. You don't
know enough to lead us to anyone. Unless you met someone that you haven't told
us about? If so, get that info out, because Director Turner here is planning on
taking you out and burying you twenty feet down?
After
she lets me
torture you for a while. She really,
really
, doesn't seem to like
you." It was all true, and the awkward man, Wally's brother, didn't have
anything to tell them.

Not that would keep him alive.
She backed off, and looked over at Marcia, who was pretty much willing to let her
do whatever helped her get her jollies just about then. For real. Including
some things that she'd never even thought about doing.

Of course she'd never had a man
tied to a chair like this before either. It was all pretty tempting.

Leaning in she kissed his cheek,
getting a raised eyebrow from her boss.

"Are you going to rape him
first? We'll need a strap-on for that."

Cindy smiled and shook her head.

"Nope. Nothing that fun for
him. You might want to leave and clear the area here. Come back in a few hours?
After the screaming stops?"

Clark scrambled, mentally.
Searching for something he could promise, or give them, to keep himself alive
and relatively unharmed. Nothing really came to him. Everything he'd known
about was old news, now. Worse, he was smart enough to understand that he had
no real secrets from the new, very scary, woman. Worse, Marcia Turner had been
called the
Director
. That couldn't go well for him.

She looked at Cindy, and nodded.

"Make sure you cut his cock
and balls off. He can die choking on them. It's less than he deserves, but
prison is out." The thing there was that Turner was mainly not serious. It
was a great idea though.

Cindy smiled, and looked around
for some rope, or string. There was some wire, for some reason, over in the corner.
The thick kind that was used in fencing, even though there hadn't been anything
like that outside. She got the spool, and carefully tied a line of it around
his pinky finger on his left hand.

Then she cut it off at the first
joint.

The screaming was loud, and
incredible. Rewarding on a level that she'd never gotten to experience before.
Panicked and pained. Moist at the same time, and it kept going a lot longer
than she would have thought.

When he quieted down, moaning in
pain, she slapped him again.

"Did you think we were
kidding? You molested a little kid. No one in the world is going to come and
save you, Clark. No one in the world would
bother
. Not even your own
family. You've been holding our people, and the First Lady, torturing them in
isolation, using drugs. Now, we can do this in one of two ways. Slow and
painful, or fast... And painful. If you beg hard enough, I'll end this
quick." She was lying, since it was far too much fun to waste her chance.

Marcia, to her credit, was hiding
the fact that she was feeling a little sickened by what was about to happen.
Not that she wasn't going to let it go on. This saved her from having to do it
herself. Part of her even wanted to watch, but she didn't need more nightmares,
so she waved at Cin and forced a smile.

"I'll clear the area. Give
me five minutes. Then we'll clean up the mess. He died trying to escape."
Because torture really was illegal. Even if you had a death warrant.

Especially since there was no
reason for it at all.

She waited for the building to be
cleared, the other, far more innocent, bad guys being taken outside. Then she
played her new game with her friend's hated brother. The whole time she listed
off his sins and failures. The list wasn't a short one.

Slowly, over the course of hours,
she turned him from a man into a collection of parts. Before he died, as she
was about to end him forever, as he choked on his own genitals, she whispered
to him.

"It isn't about what you did
really. I just did it because I could." Then he died, a knife in his
throat. That was her signature, after all. It ended his life, the sound dying
for the last time.

Then she got it. Her code name.

"
Hush
. Sleep
now."

She was covered with blood, and
some other things that had leaked from him as she'd worked and played. On the
interesting side of things, she was able to read about his death, in black and
white, just like she could with anyone else. She was so focused on the text
that she didn't understand at first that he was dead, and that she could still
read the words clearly. There was no updating, but she could still thumb
through it, finding different points, and pieces of information.

She dropped it after a bit, but
brought it back after that. There was no sign of it fading. Not even a bit.

That got her to smile, then go
and collect Marcia, her murder buddy.

It occurred to her then that she
might be able to survive at the IPB after all. The idea was interesting
suddenly. Oh, she couldn't take out everyone she wanted to, and might not even
be able to enjoy it as much all the time. Still, the occasional Clark being
tossed her way might just let her get by.

Going out she got some help in
burying the body. They went deep with it, since Level and Marcia did most of
the heavy work. They only stopped at seventeen feet, because they were about to
hit water.