Page 27 of Silver Lining (The Diamond Trilogy 3)
Were you shot?
In the back. It’s all very Roman.
She’d touched me then, her touch lighter than air. Holly had no idea who I was. She had no idea what I’d already done to her. No idea what I would do. Her fingertips circled the wound. I heard the hitch in her breath. And what did she say?
You can’t die.
I’m serious.
So serious, and all for a small wound. If Holly saw me now she wouldn’t know where to put her hands. There are too many cuts and bruises. Too much blood. A smile twists the corners of my mouth and Blue Shirt notices. He doesn’t like it. He stomps one foot down on mine, and damn it, I don’t have my own pair of steel-toed boots. At least one toe breaks. Maybe more.
“So Prisoner A—that’s me in this example, fuckface.” Grinding pain splinters off from my foot and drives into my chin. “Prisoner A betrays Prisoner B in order to earn himself a better deal.”
“Go ahead,” he says, laughing his demonic laugh. “You aren’t getting a good deal, though.”
“Yes, well, that’s a flaw in your plan. You’re not incentivizing me to speak.” The word incentivizing comes out jumbled. I’ve taken quite a few punches to the mouth. “You’re only punishing me for not speaking. It’s only half as effective.”
In light of my explanation the three of them decide to work as a team. One of them pulls my head back, exposing my throat. The second one lines up a boot with my other foot. And Blue Shirt goes for the heart.
The electricity is a nice touch, it really is. It lights up every muscle in a sick parody of the way I feel when I’m with Holly. With my head back like this it’s impossible to move through it. You can’t die, whispers Holly from somewhere else. Oh, sweetheart, but I can.
When it’s over my stomach is twisted inside out. Blue Shirt tops it off with a blow across the face. A tooth comes loose. I cough it out before I can choke on it. “Prisoner B, though. She has the same idea. She betrays A so she can get a better deal.”
“Your girl’s going to sell herself to get free, is that right? And leave you hanging here by your wrists while we fuckin’ electrocute you? Yeah. Yeah, I could see that happening.”
Someone has their fingers in my hair and there’s no way for me to leverage myself back to the ground. I am suspended on the back two legs of the chair. My neck could snap at any moment.
“And that’s how—” My own cough interrupts me. It’s soaked in blood, soaked in salt and metal, and it’s the taste of something gone very wrong. It’s the taste of imminent death. It would be dramatic to even think it if it weren’t so true. “That’s how they both end up with the worst possible outcome. That’s how they both end up being tortured by the dark side of the Army until they fucking die. You want to talk? Let’s talk about that.”
12
Holly
The man in the room with me folds his arms over his barrel chest and taps his fingers over his elbow. He does this every time he stops to consider me, which is often.
My head aches from crying, from screaming, from the flashbang in the basement. My back aches from the metal chair. My ankles hurt from the chains. And of course my side still aches from the bullet wound, but none of it hurts as much as my heart.
I’m connected to the metal table in front of me by two lengths of chain. I think this is meant to convince me that the people who brought me here are not all bad. Same goes for the day-old sludge in the Styrofoam cup I keep cradled in my hands. It’s something to hold on to.
The man stops tapping his fingers and takes a chair on the other side of the table. He looks like he belongs here, in this concrete room. I belong anywhere else.
I belong with Elijah.
I have a sinking feeling that he could be close. That should make me feel better, because if he’s close then there’s a chance I can get to him.
But if they have me chained to a desk, what are they doing to him? This could be one of a hundred concrete rooms all used for varying and terrible purposes. My pulse pounds. Would it be better or worse if I could hear his voice right now?
“Elijah North is a traitor.” The man on the other side of the table drags a fingernail across the pitted metal surface. “That much we already know. We’ve been tracking his movements for some time, but it may come as a surprise to you. I understand you were… close.”
