The Countdown (The Taking #3)(21)

After a few excruciating seconds, he pulled it away and grinned like the sick bastard I was starting to realize he was. “We call her Lucifer. Lucy for short. Best damn cattle prod on the market. Better’n a stun gun ’cause you stay alert.” He was proud of himself, and he smacked a now inert Lucy against the open palm of his other hand. “Your tongue feelin’ a little looser yet?”

If I had better control over it, this would be the perfect time to use that telekinesis ability of mine. And I tried, the way Simon and I had practiced . . . to get mad . . . really, really pissed off, because I was. I was genuinely pissed that Ed had just jolted me with an effing cattle prod. One that he’d named no less.

But nothing happened. Maybe I was still numbed by the drugs, or maybe the electricity had short-circuited my brain. Either way, I couldn’t manage to throw one of those bricks that were lying all around us at Ed’s head.

Damn!

“Fine,” he stated, clearly taking my silence as a challenge. “We can definitely do this the hard way.” And I wondered when, in all this craziness, we’d been doing things the easy way. He lifted the pronged end of Lucy up so I could see it, and I swore I could smell my own flesh burning on it. “Tell me why you’re so damned important? Why is it we got someone so eager to get their hands on you? What makes you so special?”

I blinked, but this time didn’t hesitate. I didn’t want Lucy to find her way into my skin again.

“Me?” I rasped. Could I tell them I’d been abducted? And even if they were Returned, was it safe to admit I was a Replaced? Was that even what he was getting at? “I have no idea . . .”

“Don’t play dumb with me!” He was yelling now, getting right in my face.

He didn’t elaborate, just shoved the prod against my shoulder. Crashing against the metal chair behind me, my body went crazy stiff as pain jolted through me. Without meaning to, my teeth clamped on to my own tongue, even as I screamed at myself to release it.

By the time it was over, blood filled my mouth, and I could feel where my upper teeth met my lower ones. I’d bitten completely through my own tongue and suddenly the whole exposing them to a Code Red thing wasn’t something I had any control over. Blood was dribbling out of my mouth. I’d heal. Already the wound was sealing closed, repairing itself. If they got sick they’d only have themselves to blame.

But I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.

Ed was relentless. And ruthless. “Tell me, and it ends. When will they be here?”

“Please”—I choked on the blood—“I don’t . . . know . . .”

Wrong answer.

He hit me with Lucy again. Only this time he didn’t just zap me once, he waited until I’d finished convulsing the first time, and then added one more for good measure. Two jolts for the price of one.

I got the sick feeling he was just getting warmed up.

I was already panting, my skin damp with a layer of sweat when the second bolt of electricity released me. l lay back, my eyes rolling skyward as I prayed they’d just knock me out again. Please God, just stick another needle in my neck.

“Answer me!” he grunted, only this time he wasn’t waiting for an answer. I saw the prod coming at me already, making its way toward me, and all I could think was Is he really going to shove that thing into my face?

But then I heard her voice, and he did too because his hand froze right where it was, just inches from my cheek.

It wasn’t Blondie who’d interrupted him. There was another girl here with us, and I swear, even in my state of utter pain and confusion, I knew who it was. If anyone was watching the monitor it had to be going crazy, because my heart was beating a thousand times a minute.

But when she stepped closer, away from the shadows and into my line of sight, it tripled.

“Eddie Ray, stop,” she said, right before her perfect hazel eyes fell on me.

Right before she gave the signal, and Blondie plunged something into a line I hadn’t noticed before, one that must lead to somewhere beneath my skin, because suddenly my vision tunneled and everything faded away.

Natty.

Natty was here at the asylum. With me.

I wanted to add that to my mental file but it was almost too weird to believe. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes . . . if I hadn’t heard her voice . . .

But I had. She was here, all right.

So did that mean Thom was here too?

Last I’d heard of him, we’d all been at Blackwater. Just after Thom had betrayed us by sending word to the Daylight Division so they could attack us.

He’d turned traitor.

Or maybe he’d always been a traitor. I had no way of knowing since he and Natty had vanished right afterward. We’d never had the chance to interrogate him. To find out if Natty had gone willingly, or if he’d kidnapped her.

I’d known about the two of them—their relationship, the one they’d worked so hard to keep under wraps, so it made sense that if Natty was here, Thom might be too.

But there was that other thing, this strange niggling thing somewhere in the back of my mind. The name Natty had mentioned just now: Eddie Ray. That’s what she’d called Ed—Eddie Ray.

I’d heard that name somewhere before, I was sure of it.

That drugged sensation made everything fuzzy, impossible to process. But the information was there, waiting for me to dredge it up. I just had to be patient . . . to wait for it.