Far below, I heard the rustle and soft “Oof” of Doug’s landing. I scrambled forward, hands grappling for the spot where the rough wooden boards veered off into the vertical descent that would take me to safety.
There! Flat on my belly I squirmed, hands outstretched. My upper body tilted downward at a sharp angle. Gravity was winning. I began to slide. Yes. Yes. Yes!
Hands closed around my ankles, ripping me backwards. My already sore head cracked against the lip of the entrance as Dupree dragged me from the chute. I hit the floor flat on my stomach. Air exploded from my lungs.
With one twist he flipped me over onto my back. His greasy hair hanging down on either side of my face, he fell on top of me. Yellow teeth showed in a leer as he pressed down. I tried. I tried to shove him off, but I was too weak.
Always too weak.
“Knew you’d be a hellcat,” he grunted, grappling for my wrists. “We are going to have us all kinds of fun. With Peters gone, I’m in charge, and oh . . . I’ll be seeing you on the regular.”
Light from oil lamps bounced off the ceiling. Dread and terror mixed and swirled inside my head as Dr. Alexander Carson stormed down the hall, trailed by the matron, two guards, and Nurse Hannah.
“Caught her, Doc,” Dupree panted as he rolled off me and jerked me to my knees. “I was just about to—”
“Thank you, Dupree,” Carson interrupted with a hale clap to the wiry guard’s shoulder. “You’ll make a fine sergeant.”
“Yeah,” I snarled. “You two make a perfect match.”
“The rest of you,” Carson said, ignoring me as Dupree and another guard hauled me to my feet. “Bring Miss Walton straight to the surgery suite. We proceed at once.”
Chapter 32
DRIFTING . . . DRIFTING . . .
Am I dead?
I thought the words, then decided to test my theory by speaking them aloud.
“Excuse me,” I said politely to the white-capped figures bustling around me. “Am I dead?”
When no one answered, or even acknowledged my existence, I decided it was a distinct possibility.
They’d strapped me to the table in the operating theater. Of course, since they’d forced some vile black liquid down my throat, nothing had really bothered me much.
A sharp jab in my arm. Fire flowed into my veins. Just like that—?the muzzy, comfortable state vanished.
I’m not dead, I realized as everything that had ever happened to me pulled itself into strident focus in my mind. I remembered everything. Everything I’d ever read, seen, heard blew into my brain all at once.
I’m not dead. I’m not dead. But oh God, I wish I was.
I felt it all now. The operating table a block of ice beneath my back. My hands and feet cinched tight. Leather restraint buckled across my forehead, and a thin sheet covering the shapeless hospital smock. The stringent odor of rubbing alcohol rose around me, making my eyes water as a series of uncontrollable shudders racked me from head to toe.
Whatever the doctor had just pushed into my arm began to sing through my veins. My pulse raced faster and faster until it roared with an unnatural speed. And I was suddenly and utterly wide awake. My eyes popped open.
“Ah.” Carson’s face loomed over mine. “I see you’re back with us. Apologies for the abrupt awakening, but I’ve found I get better results when the patient is hyper-alert. Cocaine works fine for now, though I am fiddling with other concoctions.”
Above my head, six huge Edison bulbs blazed to life inside a metallic hood. The brilliant lights blinded as the drug inside me made my muscles twitch and shake.
The surgical doors opened and a red-faced, uniformed guard dashed up to the table. The man’s jowls waggled as he gave his report.
“The mulatto boy got away, Doc,” he huffed. “Found the door to the laundry room wide open and tracks leading to the fence. The gate was locked, so he must’ve climbed over. But he had help, that’s for sure.”
Doug got away? Oh, thank God.
I beamed up at the now-livid Carson.
“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry about that.”
I felt Carson’s fists twist in the sheet that covered me. His jaw tightened as he glared at the guard. “That,” he said, “is disappointing, Mr. O’Neill. Quite disappointing.”
O’Neill’s mouth opened and closed. “I am sorry, sir. I don’t know how—”
“Just go,” Carson snipped. “You are contaminating my environment.”
The guard slunk out of my field of view. Carson stared after him. Then his gaze slipped down to meet mine. “The boy was incidental to the arrangement, and therefore of no consequence.”
It was the second time he’d mentioned an arrangement. One I assumed Celia had ordered her goon squad to set up. I wondered if Bran knew yet about his mother’s involvement.
Instruments clanked against metal trays as the doctor and his team set up. When Carson appeared again, he didn’t meet my eyes. My teeth chattered. From cold. From terror. From the drugs.
“Look.” I tried to take a deep breath, but the claustrophobia and clink of metallic instruments held my lungs in a vise. “Don’t do this. We have money. Lots of money. We can give you all you want. Please, just let me go.”
Carson spoke to the man across from him, his face set in counterfeit sincerity. “Poor thing. She doesn’t realize we’re only trying to help her.”
I heard a scrape as he selected an instrument. I struggled and fought against my bonds, but it did no good. I was trapped like a rabbit in a snare. And unlike the rabbit, with my head strapped in place, I couldn’t even gnaw off my own foot to get away.
“Dr. Perkins,” he said to the young bearded assistant on my other side. “Cover the right half of the patient’s face.”
A cloth came down, covering my right eye. When I screamed and tried to squirm, Carson nodded to his assistant, who jammed a leather bite plate into my mouth, flooding it with the taste of tannin. I ground down, weeping at the familiar smell of the stable. Of saddles and stirrups and freedom.
No. No! Please. Please, God help me!
Fat overhead bulbs glinted on the silver instrument as Carson’s hand came into view. An ice pick. Sharp. Lethal. Permanent.
My stomach lurched. Nausea rolled up. I was going to puke. I was going to choke on it and die right here before he could ever touch me.
Terror as pure and undiluted as glacial ice surged beneath my skin. I screamed through my gag, clamping my eyes hard shut, as if that would protect them.
“Hold her!” Carson commanded. “I cannot work this way!”
“Doctor,” the assistant said. “Perhaps sedation would be prudent for—”
“No,” Carson snapped. “Nurse. Hold her head.”
Rough hands came down on either side of my face. Thumbs dug into my cheekbones, stretching the flesh of my face so tight it felt as if it would split in two. With the back of my head pressed to the table, another set of callused fingers pried open my left eyelid. Carson took a breath and brought the pick closer. When cold steel touched the inside of my eye, next to my nose, I howled behind the chunk of leather.
His other hand appeared, clutching a small wooden mallet. Helpless, furious tears streamed down to soak my temple as cold metal pricked the tender inner corner of my eye socket. Carson nudged the eyeball away to fit the tip firmly into place.