Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(10)

She reached under the bed, plucked the small, supersensitive sound gulper she’d attached to the bed frame with gummy adhesive. She activated its power source only on the days that Howard’s daughter came to visit, when it would transmit its signal to the laptop humming away in the duffel bag in her staff locker. Its job was now done.

She pulled out the stretchy Ace bandage. Howard began to stir as she wrapped it quickly and firmly around his arms at the elbow, trapping them together. Still, he didn’t cry out.

He did try to yelp when she popped the plastic ball into his mouth, but by then, it was too late. Pop, the gag was in place. She pulled out the long, sharp shard of broken glass that she’d stowed under his mattress long ago, and sat on him. She grabbed one of his hands, pressing his fingers randomly over the surface of the glass. He struggled hard, mewling and flopping, but she was five foot nine, a hundred and fifty-five pounds of rock-solid, gymtoned muscle, though she appeared quite slender. Far heavier than frail, wasted Howard.

She smiled into his terrified eyes. “Poor Howard,” she crooned. “This is your lucky day, you know that? I’m going to help you finish what you’ve been trying to accomplish for years. Aren’t you happy?”

His eyes rolled frantically. He shook his head.

“Aw,” she murmured. “Well, I’m sorry you feel that way. If only you’d kept your mouth shut, hmm?”

His struggles were so weak. It was so easy. She was up to more challenge than this. The shard bit deep into his flesh, a long, vertical gash into his pallid, clammy skin, and she’d angled his arm so that the hot black-red arterial gout aimed toward the floor. He fought, as best he could, but his blood pressure dropped fast, and his strength with it.

Blood pooled under the bed. She watched it spread. So fast. Wow. This was by no means her first time, but somehow, it was always like the first time for her. Something about the combat programming, maybe, that revved her for the kill. It made something dark inside her swell, breathless with delirious excitement. Her heart boomed heavily against the cage of her ribs. Her thighs clenched, released.

She kept her finger on his pulse as it slowed, reminding herself constantly not to squeeze too hard. She mustn’t leave bruises.

When it was over, she slid off, careful not to step in the puddle. Pleased with her own frosty poise. White coat, pristine. Sneakers as pure as an alpine ski slope. Only the latex gloves were slippery and red.

Except that she was sweating, profusely. A glance through the open bathroom door at the mirror over the sink confirmed that she was red, hot, her face shiny. She’d have to wait a few moments before she was presentable. Very bad. Mhe needed to have her programming sequences tweaked, or her meds. She’d have to tell King. The thought made her wince, but keeping secrets would be a far worse infraction.

In her training period, overexcitement had always been her downfall. She’d risked being culled for it on every single cull day. King always concluded that her other gifts compensated for that glitch.

God, how she hoped he’d continue to think so.

Zoe peeled off the gloves, tucked them in the bag she’d prepared for them. Took off the rest of the plastic, folding it carefully. Put on fresh latex to peel off Howie’s gag, fish out the ball, the Ace bandage.

She closed his hand carefully around the bloody shard, pressing his fingerprints over it again. Dropped it gently into the dark pool.

She peered out the window one more time, seized with sudden tension when she did not see Lily Parr in the garden, or Cal’s cab.

Could Cal have possibly already come and gone away with her, while Zoe was busy with Howard? She certainly hoped so. She peered down the road, wondering if she should call . . . No. She had to concentrate on her part. No distractions. Distraction would be her downfall.

She pulled the door shut, quietly stowed her bag, and poked her head into the nurses’ station. “I’m running down to grab coffee and a muffin from the bakery cart,” she said to her colleague, marveling at her own perfectly casual tone. “Want one?”

“No, I’m good,” the woman said. “See you in a few.”

Zoe unlocked the ward, exchanged some flirtatious comments with the guard, and called the elevator. God, she was good. Now, a shot of simple carbs to calm the jitters, slow down her heartbeat, and it would be time for the fun part. The discovery, the trauma, the blood.

Too bad she couldn’t tape the show somehow, for King’s benefit.

She had to fight not to giggle, imagining it.





Lily was foul-tempered and footsore by the time she got on the uptown West Side express train. Her stupid impulse du jour had reminded her, in itchy, crawling detail, why she didn’t do nature. She’d misjudged the time it would take to walk to the Shaversham Point train station by two endless, plodding hours, and arrived at the train station stumbling with exhaustion, chilled to the bone, shoes slimed with mud, and creeping, itchy sensations under her clothes. Ticks? Spiders? Ick.

By some pathetic crumb of luck, she’d burst out of a thicket next to the train tracks just as the last NYC-bound train was about to leave. She practically decapitated herself diving for the open door and spent the trip taking notes about Howard’s revelations, jotting them on the laptop to fix the details in her mind. She left three messages on Stark’s voice mail during the trip, and two more during the exhausting cross-town walk through underground tunnels to the uptown West Side trains. Too busy to call her back? Damn doctors.