Wasn’t this the time she was supposed to take herself straight to hospital? She stared at the cell door.
Oh well, there wasn’t a lot they could do anyway apart from monitoring her and keeping down the pain. Though that sounded good right now.
The lock clicked, and she braced herself for company. She wasn’t sure she could face more of Ash right now. But when the door opened it was Ryan, and she almost started bawling again, it was so good to see him.
“Hey, how are you doing?” he asked.
“I’ve been better.”
Ryan stepped into the room. He held a small silver key in his hand and she stretched out her wrists in relief.
She was rubbing her arms when a second figure appeared in the doorway accompanied by the waft of freshly brewed coffee. She recognized the young, red-haired man she’d seen at the reception desk that first day.
He searched around for somewhere to put the tray, failed to find anywhere, and placed it on the floor by the cot. Then he reached into his pocket and brought out a small glass bottle.
“Ash said you could use some painkillers. They’re the strongest I could find.”
Faith stared at the bottle, then up at the small camera in the corner. “Is he watching?”
Ryan nodded. “Him and a few others.”
“Oh.” She supposed it was unavoidable. And he’d noticed she had a headache and done something about it. He couldn’t hate her that much. “Thank you.”
She took the bottle into the bathroom, took two of the tablets, and washed them down with water from the tap. When she went back, Ryan was alone and he was holding out a mug of steaming coffee. She took it, cradled it in her hands, and went and sat on the cot.
Ryan was silent while she sipped the drink. The painkillers acted almost immediately, the headache waning, but also the throb of her shoulder and various other parts of her body faded. She sighed in relief. Finally, when she could put it off no longer, she put the empty mug down and faced Ryan. “So?” she said.
“Did you arrange to meet Tara that night for the express purpose of abducting her?”
Just like Ryan to get straight to the point. “No.”
“You had no idea that was going down.”
“No. They must have had my phone monitored. They picked up the call from Tara and decided to act on it. I’m guessing it was spur of the moment.” She thought back. “I think my boss was being hassled by his superiors about getting results and decided to act.”
“So when did you know about Tara?”
She bit her lip, glanced at the camera, and shrugged. “From the moment I was shot. Though it didn’t come back to me until I was in the hospital. I recognized the shooter. He’s one of the guards at MI13.”
Ryan frowned. At a guess, that wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear. She didn’t care; she was past lying. If they didn’t like it they could…well they could do what they liked. It hardly mattered now.
“And you didn’t think to mention that little fact when you spoke to us that night.”
Some of her self-pity dissolved to be replaced by a spark of anger. It felt good. She jumped to her feet and jabbed her finger in Ryan’s chest.
“Fuck off, Ryan, you sanctimonious prick,” she snarled. “I’m not the one who left the force to work for God knows who. I don’t know what Christian Roth is, but I’m guessing it’s something dodgy.”
He grinned. Then the smile faded. “You still don’t know what he is? Or are you so stubborn that you won’t admit it? Can’t you accept that you were wrong? That the monsters do exist?”
At his words, panic clawed at her mind, held her in a viselike grip. The wall rose up inside her head, dark, tall, and forbidding, and behind it were all manner of horrors. She shook her head trying to dislodge the sensation, then realized she didn’t want the wall gone. The wall kept her safe. If she ever saw behind it…
She repeated the mantra from her childhood.
The monsters don’t exist. The monsters don’t exist.
“Faith?”
She clamped her eyes closed and saw fangs and blood. So much blood. Her mind skittered away from the thought as it always did. “I can’t. It’s like there’s a wall in my head. The monsters don’t exist.”
Ryan shoved his hands in his pockets. “Okay, we’ll leave it for now. Tell me what happened next.”
“When I went into work the next day, I admitted I knew it was them and told the colonel I had no problems with it. That I’d do what was needed to get the job done.”
“And would you?”
She thought of Tara strapped to that table. “No. There are lines you don’t cross. Not ever.”