Shuddering, I pulled myself into a crouch as the warmth spread through me, so painful in its intensity that a gravelly wail escaped me. I wasn’t handcuffed anymore, or rather, the handcuffs now dangled from only my right wrist. My left wrist and hand were a mangled mess of bone and shredded skin, though they slowly pulled back together as I watched. I didn’t remember yanking my hand out of the cuff, but it was pretty obvious I’d done exactly that.

I took a deep breath—still a little raspy, but much improved. “I need more,” I croaked. “Please,” I added. “I’m…damaged, and still really hungry. I…I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

I heard a snort, wasn’t sure if it was contempt or disbelief, but a few more chunks dropped through the hole. I snarled silently as I scraped up everything I could from the floor of the container, but the snarl had nothing do with my more animal instincts and everything to do with the fact that I officially hated these motherfuckers with every fiber of my being for essentially making me eat off the goddamn floor and for doing all of this to me, and by fucking god I was going to make them pay somehow.

I took a deep breath and fought for calm. The one silver lining of going into total “monster mode” with the hunger was that I’d forgotten about the ace in the hole Ed had come up with. Good thing, because I wanted to save that for when I knew I could take maximum advantage of it.

And I could already tell that now was not that time.

I tried to see what I could through the air holes and realized with a start that I wasn’t in the van anymore. Couldn’t see much—just enough to let me know that I’d been moved while I was still out of my head. Some white walls. Several black-fatigued men who I assumed were my guards now. Four, maybe five. I couldn’t be sure.

Someone slapped their hand down on top of the container, and I let out a startled yelp.

“All right, sweetheart,” McKinney said, crouching down so that I could sort of see his face. “Here’s how it’s going to work. I open the container, you come out all nice and easy, I remove the shackles, then you get some time alone to clean up.” I saw his mouth spread into a hard smile. “If you do absolutely anything that looks like an attack or resistance, your guards will shoot you—with bullets and tranquilizers, and this time I’ll make you wait until you’re a rotted pile of bones before I give you what you need. Do you understand?”

I swallowed to work moisture into my mouth. “Yes,” I said, voice shaking slightly to make it sound like I was scared.

Oh, who the hell was I kidding? I was scared. Terrified out of my goddamn wits and second-guessing every decision that had led to this point.

Metal squealed as the front of the container swung open. I blinked as light flooded in, then shivered at the sight of the bloody streaks along the walls where I’d obviously tried to claw my way out. I crawled out as quickly as I could with my legs still shackled, but I stood too quickly and had to grab at the container as a brief surge of dizziness sent me swaying. I could feel the tension in the room go up a notch, and I was suddenly hideously aware that each man had a weapon trained on me.

I wanted to laugh. I weighed less than a hundred pounds, and they were acting like I really was a six-hundred-pound tiger.

The dangling handcuff slapped against my leg and my humor vanished. No, they were reacting with exactly the right amount of caution. I straightened as the dizziness passed, took stock of where I was. A public bathroom? At least it probably had been at one time. White room with tiled floor, an overhead fluorescent light that buzzed annoyingly, and an odd mixture of smells—fresh paint and old mildew. Along the walls and floor were ghostly outlines of plumbing that had apparently been ripped out and spackled or tiled over. One toilet and sink were left, as well as one stall partition and a lone shower stall with a curtain so new it still had that fresh plastic smell. Against one wall was a narrow bed, looking utterly out of place in the bathroom setting. As a holding cell, it made a certain amount of sense. No windows, a heavy door, and even a drain in the floor in case…

I shuddered and yanked my thoughts into a different direction. At any rate, this wasn’t quite the “secret lab” I’d been expecting.

McKinney approached with latex-gloved hands. I stood absolutely motionless as he removed the handcuff and shackles. After he straightened he placed them on the top of the container, but kept his gloves on.

“Now take your clothes off,” he ordered.

“The fuck I will,” I shot back.

He narrowed his eyes in a sneer. “No necrophiliacs here. No one here is going to rape you. But you will be searched.”

Necrophiliacs? The fuck? I made a quick scan of the other guards. All wore equal expressions of mild disgust and disdain. It threw me briefly for a loop—not because I wasn’t used to being regarded that way, but because I was. Yet this time it was for something that I had no control over, not for the way I acted or dressed or because of anything I’d done. It was weird and awful and humiliating, yet at the same time a sick relief coiled through me at the realization that, out of all the horrible shit that could possibly happen to me here, at least rape wasn’t something I had to fear. At least not right now.

But my hands still shook as I lifted them to my shirt. Whether they looked at me with disgust or not, this was still a bunch of strange men who were going to see me naked.

“Don’t you have any women guards?” I asked, hating that my voice had a quaver in it. “Please.”

“No,” McKinney said flatly. “Take your fucking clothes off or I’ll shoot you and leave you starving.”

I stared at him for a couple of seconds, but it was clear he meant every word. I yanked my shirt off, trying to be angry and fierce about the whole thing, but it didn’t work. Not one bit. I couldn’t even turn away from the guards. They were all around me so I kept my head down and didn’t look at any of their faces ’cause I knew that if I saw anything other than disgust or disdain I’d fucking lose it. I pulled my bra off then kicked my shoes off and shoved my pants and undies down, kicked it all away and stood there naked with my arms clamped down by my sides ’cause I didn’t want to do that pathetic thing of trying to cover my chest and privates and all. And I tried my fucking damnedest to stay angry, and even thought about how much I hated Clive, and hated the fucker who’d drugged me and was gonna date rape me, and how much I fucking hated McKinney and these others.

But none of it worked. I could feel myself crying and saw the fucking tears plopping on the floor while I kept my head down and let that motherfucker do what he felt he had to do to search me.

“Towels and clothes are on the bed,” he told me when he finished. “Get cleaned up and changed.”

I didn’t respond and he didn’t wait for one. He left with the guards, leaving me standing naked and shaking in the middle of the white room.

Chapter 25

I finally forced myself to shower and change into the t-shirt and sweat pants that had been left for me, knowing that if I didn’t, McKinney would come back and do it for me, in as horrible and humiliating a way as possible. After that I slept for awhile—no idea how long—and woke up at the sound of the door opening. I didn’t move except to open my eyes and see a guard step in and set a tray down on the floor. I stayed where I was on the bed until he left and closed the door, and only then kicked the blanket off to see what had been left for me.

The tray was a plastic cafeteria tray that looked like it had been purchased at a public school garage sale. For that matter the food looked like it as well—rubbery pizza, lukewarm chocolate milk, and green beans swimming in an oily liquid dotted with something that was probably supposed to be bacon or ham. And—to my utter shock—brains as well. Two neat slices, like a couple of pieces of pound cake. I gave them a dubious sniff, but as far as I could tell they were the real thing.

I attended to some necessary bodily functions, then picked up the tray and brought it over to the narrow bed since I didn’t feel like sitting on the floor to eat.

I ate everything, including the nasty green beans, since I figured my parasite needed to save its efforts for other stuff instead of having to give me a boost because I was malnourished.

The door opened as soon as I took my last bite, confirming my suspicion that I was under constant surveillance. McKinney stood in the doorway with two other guards behind him. I couldn’t tell if they were the same ones who’d watched me get strip-searched earlier. They all looked the same to me. I need to pay attention to this stuff though, I told myself. If I ever got the chance to make a break for it, knowing the number of people I was up against would prove pretty darn useful.

“Let’s go,” he snapped.

I stood up, silently followed him out. I got a good hard look at the guards and did my best to memorize details about them. One had acne scars and a sharp cleft in his chin. The other had oddly perfect eyebrows, and I suspected that he had them shaped.

I wasn’t at NuQuesCor. That much I could figure out. Even with the smell of new paint, it was tough to disguise the fact that this was an old building. It also didn’t feel like it was very big. The hallway ended at a heavy door about thirty feet to my right, dead-ended at about the same distance to my left, and I thought I counted eight doors along its length. Not that I had much time to count, since we were only going across the hall.

McKinney gestured me in to the open door across from mine. I entered to see…a completely empty room. White walls and tile floors, with the same faint new paint smell over old grime. And only one coat of paint to judge by the thinner patches where nebulous patterns of graffiti peeked through. Another bathroom, this time with outlines of urinals on the wall—which reinforced my suspicion that this had once been a public place. There was no toilet, shower, or bed in here. Instead, one wall was almost completely filled with a big-ass window. They weren’t even bothering with two-way mirrors or any shit like that. Nope, apparently these people couldn’t care less that I knew they were watching. I glanced around, unsurprised to see surveillance cameras in every corner of the room. Whatever was about to happen, they intended to record it thoroughly.