She gritted her teeth. “What do you want to know?”
“Oh.” He frowned as if puzzled. “I thought it was obvious.” He leaned in, careful not to touch her. “I want to know your limits.” His nostrils flared again. He pulled back, sinuous as a cobra. Then he struck.
His right hand shot down across her, ripping off the electrodes at her temples. His left hand gripped her mother’s hair. He pulled her head back and stuck the electrodes to the skin of her temples.
Her mother didn’t even try to fight him. She stood almost serenely beside Lena.
“Mama, please. Do something. Fight back.” The buzz in her head quieted with the electrodes gone from her temples, but the current still burned into her from the others.
Lucas grinned. “Fight back? Against the three men in the room? How should she do that?” He flexed his hand in her mother’s hair, moving her head with the tightening of his fingers. “She’s not like you. She’s not strong, is she?”
“Strong enough to keep me hidden from you assholes.” She swallowed. She looked back up at the ceiling above her. Perhaps if he couldn’t see her into her eyes, he couldn’t see her fear. He couldn’t enjoy it.
He laughed softly. “It’s up to you, Lena. If you want to help her, you’re going to have to show us what you can do.”
A soft curse came from the corner. “You’re a fool, Lucas,” Reyes said. “What do you think is going to happen if you piss her off enough to break free? What if your little set-up there can’t hold her?”
Lucas rolled his eyes at the interference. He didn’t bother to turn to Reyes. “It’ll hold. It always holds. And we always get what we need out of them.”
“We? Them?” Reyes demanded. “What the Dust are you talking about?”
The Ox straightened his shoulders. “Enough, Alex. You’re not cleared for that. Not yet.”
“I’m not, but this asshole is? Bullshit! He’s my junior, and he should be in an interrogation room himself,” Reyes flared. “I bring her down for this idiot and save everyone’s ass, and yet I’m the one standing here without clearance to know what’s really going on? Everything I’ve done for Councilor Three? Are you shitting me?”
“This clearance doesn’t come from the Councilor.” Hernandez stopped and shook his head. “Enough.” His soft voice held a thread of menace. “Get on with it.”
Lucas’s face reflected his calm anticipation. “Lena, I’m going to hurt your mother now. You should pay attention.” He reached his free hand out and unstrapped her head, working the buckle with a sawing motion that pressed the metal and leather into her skin. He flipped the straps apart, and the metal buckle swung out and rang against the edge of the bed. “There you go. You’ll be able to see everything now. That’s much better.”
She refused to give him the satisfaction of lifting her head. She urged the Dust along her body. It didn’t swarm to do her bidding like it usually did, but it wasn’t the sluggish mirror of moments ago, either.
Lucas nodded to Hernandez, released her mother’s hair, and stepped back from them both. Her mother lunged forward to put one hand on Lena’s chest, over her heart. Her other hand gripped Lena’s hand right below the strap holding her to the bed. Lena had enough time to note both of her mother’s hands were shaking, little tremors from deep within before the current running through her roared from a trickle to a torrent. Her mother’s hands tightened, spasming, as the loop of energy between them began. The electricity burned across her nerves and into her mother through their skin contact. It burned through her mother and into Lena.
Lena’s head twisted against the bed as her neck arched. She set her teeth, and her body tightened, straining against the restraints. But the Dust had collected at the electrode points. It offered some meager protection, even without her focus.
Her mother had no protection.
It stopped. The pressure of her mother’s hands disappeared. She slid bonelessly away. A grunt of air escaped as she hit the floor, followed by the hard thunk of her skull on the tile. Lena gasped in a breath, then another. She tried to call out to her mother. A croaking sound came from her throat. She pulled a breath in through her nose and swallowed to try again.
“Mama.” She raised her head. To her right, unmoving on the floor, her mother’s back and side curved. The edge of the bed hid her head. “Mama!” Her mother’s bloom pulsated, the painfully bright then dim flicker of a light about to go out.
Lucas stood a foot away. He didn’t move. He watched Lena, a curious satisfaction written upon his face.