Page 39 of Inflict

Connor went back to the liquor cabinet and grabbed two heavy, unopened bottles of vodka. They’d do the upstairs, surely. He was so focused on his task, of soaking the hallway carpets upstairs in vodka, that he passed by several opened doors without bothering to look inside. After all, bedrooms were full of things like curtains, linens and mattresses that didn’t need any extra help going up in flames.

He’d been so focused, in fact, that he only noticed her as he headed back to the stairwell.

Maybe it was the white she wore that caught his eye. Maybe it was the blonde curls hanging down her back, with the hint of red undertones shining under the hallway light, spilling into the room.

Connor didn’t know what exactly caught his attention and made him stop, but there she was. Quiet as could be, kneeling down on both knees at the foot of the bed, her back to the door and her head tilted down just enough to make it look as though she might be in prayer. Except she couldn’t be praying, because her hands rested limply at her sides, unmoving like the rest of her body.

He almost wondered if she was alive for a second.

Her back barely moved.

Her shoulders rarely lifted.

It was as though each breath she took was careful—measured. As if maybe she could be so quiet, so stone-still, that she wouldn’t be seen at all.

Connor blinked. “Lass.”

The bandana still tied around his mouth did nothing to muffle his call, but the girl didn’t move a single muscle to say she had heard him. There was no way she hadn’t heard him downstairs for the last hour, not to mention before that, when Mikhail had come at him with a feckin’ bat.

What was this woman doing?

“Lass!”

Nothing.

Irritation bubbled in Connor, if only because this job was meant to be quick and easy, and suddenly, it felt like neither of the sort. His father’s orders had been clear: kill the Russian, keep any souls that could be sold.

Connor still thought that was odd, seeing how Sean had known Mikhail was separated from his wife, and had no other children living in his home. Yet somehow, Sean had made a point to be clear there could be someone else inside.

Had Sean known about this woman?

Connor stared at her for a minute longer, wondering to himself if he was even using the right word. She seemed wee for a woman—skinny, fragile, and all too delicate. Even in the darkness where she rested on the old carpeting, bathed in a bit of light from the hallway, he could see her figure. Of which, she barely had any. The bones of her shoulders protruded through the thin fabric of her white dress, and even her limbs were thin like sticks.

Stop overthinking, he told himself.

It wasn’t his job to give a shite.

He simply had to get this finished before daybreak.

“All right,” Connor said in a grunt, dropping the empty liquor bottles to the hallway floor before heading toward the girl. Inside the bedroom, with him standing damn near at her side, she still didn’t react to his presence. There was no feckin’ way she didn’t know his arse was standing right beside her. “Get up, lass.”

Her eyes were open, but her mouth was firmly shut. No smile, no emotion, and no recognition in her profile as to who was speaking to her. Even when he reached out and pushed her wayward curls back over her shoulder, she didn’t flinch at his touch.

Nothing.

It was as though he didn’t exist to her.

He hated that he recognized this.

He hated that he knew why she was acting this way.

The girl was trained—like a pet, she knew her place.

Connor was not her owner, and she would not react to his orders.

“The Russian—Mikhail—is dead downstairs, lass,” Connor told the girl, not bothering to soften his tone for her. It wasn’t as though the words could be said in an easier way. “That means whatever he’s expecting to see from you, it don’t matter. This’ll be a hell of a lot easier on us both if you just listen for the next while, all right?”

Finally, she turned to look at him.