Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(147)

“Why?” she asked, her voice quavering. “Why me?”

“Because you are so special, my pet,” he crooned. “Do you have anything you want to say to me, my lovely Lily?”

She brushed the tears from her eyes. “I have to . . . to thank you,” she said. “What a gift you’ve given me.”

King’s voice was soft. “I always reward loyalty and talent, Lily.”

She sniffed. “I love you,” she said. “Just you. Only you.”

“And you belong to me, Lily? Just to me?”

She looked straight at the camera, her eyes blazing with raw emotion. “Yes,” she said. The camera cut to her stark, graceful profile. “All yours,” she added. The video flickered, disappeared.

Bruno couldn’t breathe. He stared at the screen, eyes frozen wide. Hobart gave him a wide, unpleasant smile.

“Yes, Bruno, that’s right,” King said. “She’s the chosen one. She reminds of Magda, you see.” He chuckled. “Not a coincidence, hmm? She reminded you of Magda, too! That’s why it worked so beautifully. I’ll be so glad to have her in my bed again. She is delicious, isn’t she? So affectionate, so uninhibited. But duty called.” He rubbed his hands together. “Finally things can get back to normal.”

Bruno’s insides were a screaming hole. He fought the pressure. Hung on to himself. Who he was. What he knew. “That’s a lie,” he said, roughly. “You doctored that tape. You can’t f*ck with me.”

King looked over Melanie’s shoulder as she sprayed antibiotic ointment on his bitten hand and began to wind the gauze around it.

He shook his head with a sad smile. “I can, Bruno,” he said. “You see, there are things you don’t know about yourself. Things that I altered in you twenty-four years ago. Let’s see if the preliminary command codes still work, after all this time.” He grabbed Bruno’s chin and spoke a harsh, guttural word that Bruno did not recognize and almost instantly could no longer remember.

King stared at him, expectantly.

What? Bruno wanted to snarl, but then he realized, horrified, that he could not speak. It was as if the nerves had been severed. He tried again. And again. Panic burst like fireworks inside him. He began to sweat. Cold chills racked his body. He fought his bonds, panting.

King was chuckling. “They still hold! That’s wonderful. Listen to this, Bruno.” He declaimed a longer phrase, also in that thick language. “Now, try to move,” he urged. “Go on. Give it your best shot.”

Fuck you, Bruno wanted to scream, to shake his head, to spit in the guy’s face, but he couldn’t. He was physically paralyzed now. He sagged in his bonds, his head lolling to the side. “My programming and medications back in those days were relatively primitive but still effective. It was an intensive learning curve for you. You were strapped into the programming device in a hypnotic trance for ten to fourteen hours a day. Did you ever wonder why your physical reflexes are so quick? Why learning martial arts came so easily to you?” The chair was tilting from Bruno’s weight, which was sagging to the side. King shoved him upright. “It was DeepWeave combat tapes. Remember that fight at the diner? Did you surprise yourself that night?” He stared into Bruno’s eyes and giggled. “Of course you did.”

He waited for Bruno’s response. “Oh, how funny—you’re still locked! One moment. Let me think . . .” He blinked. “Wouldn’t it be funny if I couldn’t remember the code to free you? You’d stay like that forever. I could make you do anything at all, you know. Put a gun to your head, pull the trigger. Mutilate yourself. Stop breathing. The power of DeepWeave as I have conceived it is tremendous.”

Bruno stared at him. Air sawed between his parted lips.

King slowly pronounced a phrase. A racking shudder went through Bruno’s body. He tried to speak. A scratchy croak came out.

“Bruno, think back to your first encounter with Lily at the diner,” King said. “Remember Lily saying the phrase ‘you’re my champion’?”

Bruno coughed as he heard the words echo in his memory. Lily’s lilting voice. The image of her, bent over her coffee in that black wig, her lips vivid scarlet. That was his memory, private and precious, and he didn’t want it to be fodder for this guy’s crazed agenda. He didn’t want it soiled and dishonored. But he had to know. “What if she did?”

“It was a command phrase, Bruno,” King said. “Programmed into you years ago. I linked it to images of your mother. You were in a phase of development where you continually fantasized about rescuing your mother from monsters. And you dreamed about saving your mother from her attackers for years after her death, no? The perfect setup.”

Bruno’s jaw ached. He refused to answer. His only defiance.

“Knowing that phrase would trigger all those powerful childhood emotions, I arranged for those emotions to transfer onto Lily. And then, of course, you consummated your sexual relationship immediately.”

Bruno clenched his teeth.

“The sex act that I commanded her to perform with you reinforced the programming. From then on . . .” He tousled Bruno’s hair with his bandaged hand. “You were her slave. My poor boy.”

“That’s not true,” he said. “You’re lying.” But even as the words left his mouth, he remembered those words she’d spoken in the diner. How they made him feel. She’d spoken them again, in the cabin, he suddenly thought. On that wild, incredible night. Soaring emotions, searing sex, right after she’d pronounced it . . . like a ceremonial vow.