She was fairly certain she’d gone a nice shade of green. She managed to nod his way. “I’m good. Do you think I could get some clothes soon?”
He grinned. “I was going to ask you why you were in a robe. Are you one of the girls Tony brings in? Robert’s going to love you, but you have to stay away from Victor. He’s my brother and I care about him, of course, but he’s not great with women.”
She bit back a groan. This was what it was like to talk to Theo. He seemed almost normal one minute and then he forgot what she’d told him not ten minutes before. The only thing he seemed to keep a firm grasp on were his orders. He hadn’t left her side once. She’d even tried to ask for things like a bottle of water to see if she could get a minute or two alone, but he wouldn’t move.
“Maybe you should stay close to me,” Theo said, his voice grim.
“I will.” She was definitely going to try.
The plane rolled to a stop and Mia’s stomach took a dive. They were here. She had no idea how long it would take Case to reevaluate and reorganize the operation, but she was sure he would be here as soon as he could. It was up to her to stay alive until then.
That’s all she had to do. Stay alive.
“Tony wants us to gather our gear and get ready,” a dark voice said.
She looked up and it seemed as though Victor had gotten over his motion sickness. He loomed over her, his eyes staring down.
Theo stood up. “I’ve got my bag. I’ll handle the girl. Why don’t you grab the computer equipment?”
“The geek’s getting that,” Victor said dismissively. “He’s going to take care of the plane and then grab all his crap. I don’t know why we haven’t killed him yet.”
“Because none of the rest of us can do what he does,” Theo replied simply. “Mother wants him alive. He stays alive.”
She saw Hutch move through the plane’s wide hold. He was thinner than she remembered and there was a hollow look to his eyes. He stared at her for a moment before grabbing a bag and turning his back.
What had he gone through? Something horrible, certainly. It was like his light had gone out and he was a husk of his old self, walking around.
She wanted to call out to him, to say something, but Victor was watching her like a rabid lion waiting to pounce.
“Stay away from the girl.” Santos strode from the front of the plane. He had a shoulder holster over his bulky body and Mia could see the big gun nestled in there. It looked like Santos was ready for a fight since he also had an AR-15 in his hands. “I told you she’s off limits. She’s worth more alive than dead. A lot more. If you touch her, I’ll cut off your balls and feed them to you.”
Victor’s body went rigid. “Yes, sir.”
Theo turned and offered her a hand up. “I’ll find something for you to wear.”
“But she’s so pretty like that.” Robert was armed to the teeth, too. He settled a light jacket over his torso, but she’d seen the guns he was wearing. “And I’ve heard it’s pretty hot where we’re going. Although it might be fun to dress her. I think she’d look good in blue.”
Dear lord, now she was going to be Robert’s Barbie doll. Still, she was surrounded by men with guns who might or might not know what they were doing. She gave him a smile. “Blue’s my favorite color.”
She was going to have to depend on Theo and Robert’s better natures. Victor didn’t have one and Santos would kill her the minute she wasn’t worth more alive than dead. And she wasn’t sure what was going on with Hutch. He seemed so different. She would do anything she could to save him, but she wasn’t going to count on him.
“Stop playing with the girl. We need to move. It looks like our contacts are here. Victor, finish securing the plane. We paid enough for it. It will be good to have a way out of here if we need it. Especially now that we have a pilot. I think Mr. Hutchins has been properly trained.”
“A few years of torture will do that to a guy,” Hutch muttered under his breath as he walked by.
So they’d done to him what they’d done to Tennessee Smith. The drug in small doses made hours seem like days, made the smallest pain into something monstrous. One of the potential future uses of the drug was in prison systems, to ensure criminals did their “time” but to keep crowding to a minimum. The prisoner would experience the time as if it was going by, but would come out of the drug’s influence to find only weeks had passed.
Hutch had gone through that. There was no telling how much pain he’d experienced.
“Let’s go and meet Dr. Gibson,” Santos said. “She’s off limits, too, but you can do what you like with the villagers around the clinic. I know you boys need to blow off some steam. Just wait until Mother gets here in a few days. She’ll wipe the girls’ memories so there won’t be trouble.”
Awesome. Now McDonald was wiping the memories of the victims of rape.