Right Through Me (The Obsidian Files #1)(77)

The line between her stifling dream and waking reality was blurry for a long time. She wavered, reaching toward consciousness, then collapsing back into nightmares again. Then the movement stilled. That buzzing hum had stopped.

She was in a car. It had stopped moving. Full consciousness forced itself upon her, and along with it came horrible images of whatever might be in store for her.

Someone dragged a smothering blanket off her head, and hit her face. She tried to cough, but couldn’t, with the gag in her mouth. The man’s face was slack and grotesque at that angle, his chubby cheeks and the bags under his eyes flushed and dangling. Metal glinted in his dental work. He had a black goatee. “Wake the f*ck up!”

She was in the trunk of a car, arms fastened behind her. The upside-down man’s hands hooked her armpits. He dragged her out, flung her against the side of the car.

She would have slid to the ground, but he pinned her there, and swatted the back of her head. “On your feet, you lazy cunt.” He cut the ties on her arms. She cried out with pain when the numbness wore off and stumbled to her knees.

The bigger man kicked her in the buttock, the toe of his boot shooting a bolt of pain up her spine. “Get up, bitch,” he growled. “I ain’t carrying you this time.”

She tried, but her balance was shot. Whenever she was kicked or shoved forward, the dirt roadway tilted up and whacked her hard in the face.

They were on a deeply rutted, unpaved road carved through a thick evergreen forest. The tangled bottom branches were packed so tightly that the boughs seemed black and lifeless in the dim light of dawn.

The huge guy grabbed her arm. “Move it. Stupid whore.”

She was shoved and kicked all the way down the overgrown driveway until a building hidden in the woods slowly came into view. It was a shabby prefab box set on cinder blocks. No porch, just temporary aluminum steps in front of the door.

The bald man rapped on the door. “It’s us,” he said. “Open up.”

The door opened. Caro was heaved inside, cracking her shins against the bottom of the door frame before scrambling onto her hands and knees. Four pairs of jackboots were ranged around her on the dirty linoleum. She fought to control her terror.

One of the four men grabbed her under the armpits, heaved her to her feet, and shoved her before him through a dim corridor that stank of mold.

In the back was a room with a window showing a dark wall of trees. There was a wrought iron bed. The mattress was covered with a sheet of heavy plastic. She closed her eyes and hung onto her guts.

She was flung onto the bed. She’d lost her coat, at some point. The plastic covering the mattress felt damp and cold against the small of her back.

“Get out of here. Leave us alone,” the bald goateed man said to the man who had dragged her.

He waited for the big, thick-featured guy to leave, and then smiled wide, flashing metal in his eyeteeth. He pulled up a chair to the foot of the bed and straddled it backwards, facing her. “Good morning, Caroline.”

It took her several tries to get the words out. “You work for Mark Olund?”

The man’s close-set black eyes narrowed slightly. He didn’t reply.

Caro massaged her own wrists, and tried to flex her numb fingers. “I don’t have what he wants,” she said.

“Not my problem. I was paid to pick you up and keep you here until he comes for you, which will be soon,” he said.

“But—”

“Nothing you say will change that. Keep your trap shut and don’t annoy me. When he gets here, you’ll give him whatever he wants. You’ll give him everything you have. Count on it, bitch.”

She stared at the flat emptiness of his eyes. Her ears roared. That nightmare was coming due. She’d tried so hard to outrun it, but it was here.

She had no idea if she could open Lydia’s safe at all. Caro had urged the woman to change her training image sequence to something new and private. It was sloppy and dangerous to leave an interface coach with potential access to goods and secrets that others would kill to have. Changing the sequence protected everyone.

But Lydia had been reluctant. What a freaking idiot.

“They say you killed a colleague of mine,” the guy said. “With a boxcutter. Hard to believe that a dumb cow like you could pull that off. Did you wait until he was f*cking you? That makes some men stupid, but not me.”

He bent down and kissed her, clamping his hand over her nose and thrusting his tongue into her mouth. It was muscular and slimy and huge. He slid it to the opening of her throat. No air.

She’d almost blacked out when he lifted his face.

“You know what? I can think when I f*ck,” he confided. “When Olund’s done with you, I’ll show you.” His grin showed his eyeteeth before he attacked with another vile, smothering kiss. This time, he grabbed her crotch, groping and squeezing. Her muffled shriek was lost against his mouth as his long tongue thrust into her mouth.

She bit down on his tongue with frantic force and clawed wildly at his face.

He yelled and tried to pull away. She bit down harder. Hot, coppery blood flooded her mouth. He whacked the side of her head and freed himself, but she kept on moving. She slid off the slippery plastic and onto the floor. Sprang to her feet.

He dove after her with a shout. She bolted through the communicating rooms, bare feet pounding. Two men in the front room turned startled faces toward her as she ran at them, screaming. One of them stumbled back. The other tackled her.