His eyes remained black as pitch, cold and bestial. “Yes, but it would have been a tactical error.”
Whatever he meant by that, one fact burned through her mind: Caine had sat there and watched Josiah beat the shit out of her. He’d let her think she was about to die. He could have stopped it, but he’d sat there impassively, watching it like a spectator. The betrayal burned. She rushed at Caine, shoving him hard in the chest.
“You watched me get tortured when you could have stopped it?” she shouted. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Did you not see him drowning me? I thought I was going to die.”
Caine’s voice was low and controlled, and he grabbed her wrists. “Stop shouting, if you want to get out of here alive. You’re supposed to be a soldier. That’s what you signed up for when you joined the Brotherhood, even if you joined the wrong side.”
Seething, she ripped her wrists from his grasp, just barely restraining herself from snatching another wooden fragment from the ground and ramming it into Caine’s neck. “Half my ribs are broken. Josiah ripped my shirt off like a sex offender. He punched me in the face, kicked me into a wall, prodded my bullet wound, and practically drowned me. You’re just lucky I didn’t give up any real information to him.”
“I was planning on killing him, so that wouldn’t have mattered.”
“I see. But apparently the state of my broken bones wasn’t enough to move you off your ass. How much would you have let me endure?”
“Did no one ever tell you that war could be a bit uncomfortable? General Loring seemed to think you were familiar with the interrogation room, so I can’t imagine that its unpleasantness is news to you.”
“Agent Endicott. I’m ordering you to report your status immediately. Your video monitor has been disabled.”
His words stung, and tears pricked her eyes. He’d wanted her to get hurt. “I get it. So that was revenge.”
The black in Caine’s eyes faded. “No, that’s not it at all. The point was—”
An alarm sounded, and Caine’s eyes flicked to the door. “We need to go.”
She pointed to the circular scanner. “We can’t get out without a retina scan.”
“What about Josiah’s eyes?” Caine asked. “I’d be perfectly happy to cut one out and aim it at the thing.”
She shook her head, grabbing two shards of wood from the ground. “The scanners sense small movements. They won’t work for an unconscious eye. We need to wait until the guards come in here. We’ll kick the shit out of them and steal their clothes.”
“Fine.” Caine walked over the spotlight hanging from the ceiling. He reached up, crushing the light with his hand, and darkness fell on the room. “They’re coming,” he whispered. “Stand against the wall.”
A buzzer sounded at the door, and a guard kicked it open. Four guards rushed in, guns ready. Rosalind threw one of the stakes for the door, jamming it open slightly. Pain screamed through her chest. She was in no condition to fight.
“Agent Endico—” A guard’s words were cut off by the crunch of bone and the sound of a gun hitting the floor. Only a faint stream of light illuminated the room, and she struggled to see in the dark. Bodies whirled around her, and the room filled with the sound of fists slamming against flesh. Someone unleashed a hail of bullets, but a cracking sound cut the assault short. The sound of a bone snapping, maybe. After a few moments, silence descended.
“Rosalind?” Caine said. “I’ve disabled them.” He handed her a bundle of fabric. “Put these on.”
Her breathing came sharp and fast as she pulled off her boots to change her clothes. It was a small mercy she could get out of her piss-soaked pants. “Did you kill them?” she whispered.
“Of course.”
She slipped out of her clothes. She was now an accessory to the murder of four humans—people who had once been her colleagues. “You couldn’t have just knocked them unconscious?”
“They signed their death warrants when they volunteered to work in torture chambers,” he said.
She’d worked in one of these rooms by Josiah’s side, an instrument of misery.
The walkie-talkie crackled again. “Agent Endicott, we sent reinforcements. Please let us know your status.”
She buttoned the new uniform as Caine began speaking into the walkie-talkie. “This is Agent Endicott.” It was an exact replication of Josiah’s voice. “The reinforcements have arrived, but you didn’t need to send them. I have everything under control. The interrogation continues. Lux in tenebris lucet.” He dropped the walkie-talkie.
“Please report to the head offices, Agent Endicott.”
“Are you ready, Rosalind?” Caine asked.