Coldbloods (Hotbloods #2)

But he strode away without the slightest pause.

On my hands and knees, I crawled over to the stone wall and leaned against it. More useless tears spilled down my cheeks as I thought of Navan, of how much they’d already hurt him and what they were going to do if I didn’t talk. I closed my eyes and saw it—them stringing him up in more chains, lashing his bloodstained, broken body with knife-tipped whips, laughing as he groaned. I saw them gathered in a circle and kicking him until his hunched-over form didn’t have the strength to tremble anymore. I saw them spitting in his tormented face and jabbing his already ripped-up torso with spears, mocking him for trying to protect me. I lay there, my vision blurred with horror, until I grew too tired to cry.

It was in this dull, fuzz-sighted haze that the door of my cell opened and then shut.

A coldblood had entered. He had a tall, stooping form, which was topped with a severe buzzcut colored with spots of gray. His mouth was a cruel, thin-lipped gash, and yet… the hazel eyes behind his golden spectacles looked kind.

“I need you to tell me what you know, so that Navan won’t be harmed,” he spoke up in a low, gruff voice.

I didn’t look at him. He came to sit beside me, the navy cloak he wore billowing out as he did so. “Believe me when I say that I’m not your enemy. I want Navan unharmed as much as you do.”

I turned my head slightly to cast the coldblood a derisive look. “If you work with these coldbloods, then you’re my enemy.”

He frowned. “No, no. You’ve only seen their bad side. Renegades have to be harsh and strict in the beginning—otherwise, they’ll never get anywhere. We’re all working together for a good cause.”

I said nothing. I wasn’t exactly in the mood for talking, let alone arguing with a coldblood. And as logical and convincing as his words sounded, he was just trying to butter me up. This coldblood was probably just like Ezra—except he introduced his good face before his bad one.

Scanning me with cold eyes, he said, “Do you really want to see how far us coldbloods are willing to go to get what we want?”

His words sent a chill down my spine. Tears pricked at my eyes, but I angrily blinked them back. So what if this lying coldblood had been just as heartless as I’d feared? Was it really that much of a shock that he’d just been pretending to be decent? But if he had been alluding to more of the nightmarish torture I’d been imagining for Navan…

“I apologize,” he was saying now. “I didn’t mean to frighten you, only to stress the seriousness of the situation. My name is Lazar.”

Now his eyes had gone kind again, but I wasn’t buying it. He’d revealed himself to me—he was cruel, just like all the other coldbloods here. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to play the game.

“So, Lazar,” I replied, glaring into his eyes. “Why do you care what happens to Navan?”

He frowned. “Why would I be here talking to you if I didn’t?”

I scoffed. “Because Ezra or whoever else sent you. Because since they’d tried intimidating me for information, they figured why not try to nice-talk it out of me.”

Lazar shook his short-haired head. “I can assure you that’s not the case. Anyway, just tell me what you know—and why you were traveling with a Fed agent,” he continued, “and everything will be fine. You two will be reunited, and Navan won’t be harmed.” Seeing my emotionless face, Lazar clasped my shoulder anxiously. “Please, Riley, don’t test Ezra. I’ve seen for myself what he’s capable of.”

I jerked away with a shiver. Lazar was doing it again—trying to manipulate me. Even so, what if he was right?

But then I thought of the silver-haired coldblood, how he’d kicked Navan for almost no reason at all. Saving Navan from Ezra’s wrath was no guarantee that he’d be saved from the other coldbloods. Besides, telling them everything I knew would give away the one advantage we had—that of the Fed’s involvement. Well, only if those investigating Fed agents hadn’t been captured and interrogated already.

“Would you prefer I left you alone?” Lazar finally asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“As you wish,” he said, rising with a sigh. “But please at least consider my words. Ezra will stop at nothing to get his way. I know him.”

Lazar lingered for a minute, searching my face for a response I wouldn’t give him. Then, with a disappointed frown, he turned and left, shutting the door behind him.

I glared at the door, trying not to imagine what they’d do to Navan as a result of my refusal to cooperate. They wouldn’t actually inflict any permanent damage on him, would they? I reminded myself that they wouldn’t, not when they were planning to use him as a pawn. Then again, once that strange, higher-up coldblood had found out that Navan was Jareth Idrax’s son, he’d referred to him as a “bargaining chip” in the coming conflict with Queen Gianne. Bargaining chips didn’t have to be fully unharmed, or even whole, did they? All Navan would have to be was alive for his father to want him back. In the meantime, that meant the coldbloods could do just about anything they liked to him…

My head spun with horrible images of Navan twisting with pain, until I could take it no longer. I closed my eyes and tried to doze off, or at the very least, lose myself in that peaceful place between sleep and consciousness.

Resting my head against the wall, I couldn’t fall asleep, but I had no way of knowing how much time passed. It must have been quite a few hours, because I became more and more aware of the hunger in my stomach, and how parched my mouth was.

By the time the door opened again, I felt too feeble to even look and see who it was.

“I’m here to show you something.”

Surprised at the cool, feminine voice, I looked to see a coldblood woman standing by the wall. She had braided, ashy hair and heavy-lidded eyes.

She placed what looked like a small TV in front of my face.

“Watch,” she commanded.

The screen flickered to life. On it, Navan was in the same chair as before, surrounded by uniformed coldbloods and Ezra. I closed my eyes.

The woman pressed her cold hands to my face and wrenched apart my lids, holding them open.

“Watch.”

And so, trying in vain to twist away, I did. As Navan sat on the chair, behind him some coldbloods had hooked up a cord to a metallic cylinder in the corner. Ezra had the other end of this cord attached to Navan’s arm with a clamp. He looked at the camera and smiled.

“Time to play.”

At his last word, the cord—and then Navan—rippled with electricity.