Did he expect her to thank him for that as well? She couldn’t say another word. He would have to torture her and hear her screams, but she wasn’t talking because she didn’t have anything left.
Zhu seemed to know her breaking point. He slipped his arm behind her back, making her cry out as he put her in a half-sitting position. “You have to hydrate, Zara. You shouldn’t fear what will happen to you, your new life. Once you understand that you will do as I say, you will be given the equipment needed and you can research all you want. You will be able to discuss your findings with others who will be excited about your projects and aid you in finding the answers that are important. There will be plenty of money so you will have the best of whatever you need.”
She drank from the bottle and allowed the little slits in her eyes to close all the way. Her eyes hurt like hell anyway. He kept her drinking until she couldn’t swallow and the water ran down her chin. He didn’t wipe it away any more than he cleaned up her bloody body.
“Remember what I said to you about turning over. I will be very angry if I have to soak the sheets to get them off you.”
She made a sound in her throat to indicate she heard him. Pain swamped her. Enclosed her in a horrific cocoon. Her body refused to stop shivering, the tremors going through her, rocking her. She knew she was close to shock if she hadn’t already tipped over the scales. All the water she drank, even after the several times of humiliatingly losing her bladder in the interrogation room, meant she would have to find a way to crawl to the bathroom, and he knew it. Did spies get treated this way? If so, why would anyone voluntarily sign up?
She’d been in an orphanage and Whitney had all but bought her. She knew a great deal of money had exchanged hands because he told her all the time what a disappointment she was for the price he’d had to pay—how much he’d lost in his pitiful gesture of kindness. She had discussed with Shylah and Bellisia, her two best friends, what a horrible megalomaniac Whitney was, and she’d cried because she’d been considered so useless to him. It hadn’t mattered that she’d gone to the university so young and excelled. She couldn’t take pain. She was a baby when it came to the slightest wound on her. The lightest of blows.
Zhu pushed back her hair again and stood. She felt the movement rather than saw it, and it took everything she had not to cringe. She was blind and writhing in pain, unable to stay still, but every movement made her hurt worse. She couldn’t imagine the damage Zhu could inflict on a prisoner he truly wanted to harm.
She couldn’t imagine anyone defeating him. Anyone. She didn’t know anyone as strong as Zhu. What kind of man could stand up to someone so evil? She certainly couldn’t.
“No one will enter this room while I’m gone, not even Cheng. He knows you’re under my protection.”
She wanted to scream and throw things at him. She could only mewl a little in abject terror and total agony. His voice never changed. He had to be a complete sociopath. Her mind was in such chaos, for the first time in her life, she couldn’t think of a way out. She didn’t acknowledge she heard him. If he hurt her more, so be it. She couldn’t speak, only keening wails escaped her throat. An animal in pain. He’d reduced her to that and he’d said he was going to keep her.
Whitney had forced her to do his bidding, and now she was in Zhu’s hands. Something had to be terribly, terribly wrong with her. How could Zhu have the face of an angel? Not a fallen angel, an actual angel. He was beautiful. No one would ever take him for a monster.
She heard the door close, and she let herself cry. Sob. Tears poured down her face and mixed with the blood from where Cheng had struck her with his gun. The tears stung but she barely noticed. She thought to move, but her body protested, refusing to her obey her. She tried to think about soldiers, captured during war. They were tortured far worse than what she’d had done to her. If they could endure it, surely she could. But she knew she couldn’t. She couldn’t ever do this again. The only good thing was, the virus would kick in soon, a week, maybe two at the most. The bad thing was, when she died, they might find the SSD. Hopefully they wouldn’t figure out how to get the information out of it. Could she endure two entire weeks with Zhu? She wasn’t certain, but she made up her mind to kill him before she died, and then somehow, she had to figure a way to keep them from taking apart her body.
Zara wanted to curl up in a little ball and never move. She wanted a safe haven she never had to leave. Someplace where no one hurt her. Someplace where she could have a semblance of a home. She wanted to be someone else, anyone but Zara Hightower.
5
G
ino looked at his watch. 01:55. He put out his hand. Rock solid. It was a silly leftover habit from his childhood when Ciro checked to see if he was able to continue no matter the difficulty of what he was seeing or doing. In the beginning his hand had shaken a lot, but slowly, over time, he’d become completely able to control his nerves and even his heart rate.
The charter plane was small, and they were cramped inside with the power paragliders, but he took it as a good omen that they’d managed to get this far without discovery. Their gear had gone through customs with the heavy operating equipment the construction company had brought over. No one had noticed anything amiss. No one had suspected they were anything but workers for the company, not even the other personnel.
“Ready,” Ezekiel called. “Rubin, you’re up.”
Rubin had nerves of steel, or maybe he didn’t have any. His brother and he were from a poverty-stricken section of the Appalachian Mountains. They’d survived by hunting, killing with one bullet because they couldn’t afford to waste ammunition. After the last of their family was gone, they’d made their way to the streets of Detroit where they ran into Ezekiel and his two brothers. Ezekiel had taken them in.
They’d been teenagers and had no clue how to survive in a city, but they’d learned fast. Both were soft-spoken and had lazy drawls that somehow gave people false impressions about who they were and what they were capable of.
“Okay. Good luck,” Ezekiel said. “See you on the roof. Stand by … Go.”
Rubin went out without looking back, falling into the dark sky. Farther below, the city was lit up with so many lights, Shanghai blazed like a sun.
Diego followed his brother without hesitation.
Draden shook his head. “I hate this shit,” but he launched himself out of the plane.
Gino went next, making his jump smooth. There was the wind, a vicious hit on his body, but unlike Draden who didn’t like the drop, Gino had always relished the freefall. Moving through the sky, hearing the whoosh and then silence. A perfect silence. For a few seconds, he was part of the universe along with the stars and moon. The night. Part of the reason he loved being a GhostWalker was their creed was so true. The night belonged to them, and falling through the night sky was just a small part of that.
He hit his mark on the roof, but just barely. A gust of wind caught at him at the last minute, trying to blast him off target. It caught Ezekiel full on. He was coming in right after Gino hit, and Gino moved fast to clear a path. Gino and Draden caught at Ezekiel to steady him so the wind pulling at his chute and the weight of the power paraglider didn’t take him over the edge of the roof.
Man, that was ugly, Ezekiel said. Everyone good to go?
Each responded telepathically.
Two up, Diego said.
Three up, Draden added.
Four up, Gino reported.
Five up, Rubin reported.
Okay, drop the gliders here. Gino, keep your medical pack, you may need it.
Like he was going to forget that. The others had traveled light out of necessity.
There’s a camera on that door, Rubin, Ezekiel reminded Be careful approaching it.