Right Through Me (The Obsidian Files #1)(78)

She staggered at the contact. Hit the floor hard, the guy landing on top of her. Gasping for breath, screaming and clawing and squirming. The other guy piled on, too.

Too many of them. Too much rank, stinking dead weight. She was immobilized, but she was possessed. She could not stop shrieking and twisting.

Another blow to her head stunned her. Her vision swam back into focus to see the big, thick-faced guy who had kicked her down the driveway rubbing his jaw. Angry.

“What the f*ck was that about?” he demanded. “Why’d you hit me? Asshole!”

“I told you, dipshit. She’s not supposed to be harmed. Olund’s orders.” The man with the goatee again. “That kick would have knocked out all her f*cking teeth!”

“Don’t think she’ll need teeth where she’s going,” the third man observed.

“That’s not our call. Shut up, you asswipe moron. Olund wants her intact for whatever he has planned, and if she looks like hamburger when he gets here, he’ll kill us. Here, help me. Get her legs. And hang on tight. This bitch can kick.”

She started screaming and flailing again as the three of them hauled her back into the bedroom and flung her onto the bed. This time, they jerked her arms up and immediately fastened them to the iron bedframe with a zip tie, yanked brutally tight.

The three men stood there, panting. The goateed man had flecks of blood on his lips, his cheeks, his chin. Her fingernails had left angry stripes down his cheeks, and his eyelid was bloody and reddened. As their eyes met, his lips stretched in a horrifying smile, showing bloodied teeth. He moved forward, holding up his knife.

She couldn’t shrink back, just cringed away as he slid it into the fabric of her layered Tshirts and sliced through necklines with a twist and flick of the blade.

He then tore the shirts open all the way down, wrenching them wide.

All three men stared at her bared breasts. That fixed, hot, mindless stare.

The knife tip was cold, tracing and then piercing her skin at the collarbone. Then again, and again. She clenched her body, and made no sound as the knifetip dug in. A trickle of hot blood made its way slowly down her chest. Then another.

“You scratched me,” the guy said softly. “Now you have to bleed. Whore.”

The big one licked his heavy lips until they gleamed wetly. “Nice tits,” he said. “Can we, uh . . .”

“No,” the goateed man said. “Olund said no damage.”

“It wouldn’t damage her.” The big guy’s voice was sulky. “Not much, anyhow. Besides, you’re cutting her. Fucking hypocrite.”

“Maybe after, when Olund’s done. If there’s anything left.” He dipped his finger in the blood pooling in her navel. “I’ve seen that guy work people over,” he told Caro. “He knows all about pain. And he’s got something special planned just for you.” He wiped the blood off his mouth with his sleeve. “I just hope he lets me watch.”





Chapter 22


Noah peered through the trees, teeth gritted. He had an arsenal of guns and he practiced regularly. Even with extensive mods, marksmanship was a perishable skill. Not one he could let slide, considering Obsidian’s looming shadow over their lives.

All his effort and paranoia did him no goddamn good at all right now. He’d been too out of his head when he left his house to think to to bring a weapon.

He wanted to kick his own ass, he was so disgusted.

Ransacking the SUV for anything useful turned up only a tire iron and a coil of climbing rope. Sisko and Zade had raced to equip themselves after his frantic call, but they still hadn’t showed.

One single unarmed man. That was Caro’s whole cavalry. Fuck.

The sig of the guy circling the house showed him to be the human equivalent of an attack dog. An inflamed red-orange glow in the area of the belly and groin pulsed like a lava lamp, and a dull yellow haze hung around his head. His chest area was blank. No energy at all, just a cold dark sinkhole.

He’d seen sigs like that before on some of the Obsidian researchers. Their colors were even worse. Like pus or gangrene. For some reason, that project had attracted brain-eating sociopaths.

Mark’s sig had gotten just as ugly by the time they’d parted company. Midlands had changed Mark. It had killed his humanity.

Men with sigs like that could do unspeakable things to Caro before Sisko and Zade caught up with him. The urgency that assailed him wouldn’t let him wait for back-up.

He slid the tire iron into the sleeve of his leather jacket and edged closer. He’d have to thin them out. Get his hands on a gun. There were two men in the front room. He read their thermals through the wall. Caro’s would be instantly recognizable if he saw it. He itched to identify how many of them there were, what room she was in.

But not yet. Better to get rid of some guys in the front. Improve his chances before he got anywhere near Caro.

He studied the man pacing not thirty feet from him. Tall, massive. His face was thick, his eyes dull. Not a take-charge type. He might hesitate before shooting Noah in the throat, for fear of f*cking up.

He’d hold back, if only for an instant. All Noah needed.

Cut plastic cuffs lay on the ground behind one of their vehicles. They had pulled her out of the trunk of the car and cut off her bonds.

Seething rage got the better of him for a moment. He fought it down. He could not let rage run the show. His enhancements gave him an edge, but he was alone, unarmed, outnumbered. No margin for error.