Skin Game (The Dresden Files, #15)(71)

I had tears in my eyes when the pain stopped, and I barely heard Sheridan rattling off her questions again. She also added a couple more, like, “How did you avoid detection?” and “How did you get out of your room?” I barely had time to answer, even if I’d wanted to, before the pain resumed. When it ended an eternity later, she came back at me with the questions. Then the cycle repeated.

During one of the brief respites, I managed enough coherent thought to understand her process. She was throwing different questions at me in the hopes I’d be so pushed to a breaking point from the pain that I’d blurt out an answer to something—anything. It probably didn’t matter to them at first. Getting me started talking was their goal, and I had a feeling that prisoners in my situation didn’t stop talking once those floodgates were opened. There’d be a strong urge to tell everything to make the pain go away. I was certainly feeling that urge now, and I had to physically bite my lip to keep from telling her whatever she wanted. I also tried to mentally focus on the faces of those I loved, Adrian and my friends. That worked a little during the lulls, but once the torture started again, no thought or image could stay in my mind.

“I’m going to be sick,” I said at one point. I didn’t know how long it had been. Seconds, hours, days. Sheridan didn’t seem to believe me until I actually started coughing and retching. It was a different kind of sick from the purging, which was medically induced. This was my body’s response to more than it could physically handle. Someone came to me from the opposite side of the room from her and undid enough of my restraints to turn me on my side, where I choked up what little was in my stomach. I didn’t know if they were fast enough to have a receptacle to catch it in and really didn’t care. That was their problem.

As the worst of the vomiting subsided, I could barely make out Sheridan speaking quietly with someone else across the room.

“Go get an ‘assistant’ to help us,” she said.

A male voice sounded skeptical. “There’s no love between any of them.”

“I’ve seen her type. What she won’t give up for herself, she might for someone else.”

The sound of a door indicated her colleague left, and as I was re-restrained and wiped clean, her words triggered an awful realization. Someone betrayed me! Sheridan had been specifically looking for me, which was how the spell had been unraveled. I’d been foolish to think making the salt ink would create some kind of bond between the others and me. The only upside to this was that I’d disabled the gas, as planned, but now what would the cost be?

That was as far as I could speculate because the torture began anew—and incredibly, it was worse. I didn’t get sick, maybe because my body couldn’t muster the effort, but I couldn’t stop my screams from filling the room. I hated myself for showing them that weakness, for admitting that they were getting to me … but it was all I could do not to tell them every secret I had during those pauses. I will not talk, I vowed. If I’m going down for this, then I’ll do it with them knowing they’re not as powerful as they think.

“Why do you make us keep doing this, Sydney?” Sheridan asked in that mock sad tone of hers. “I don’t like it any more than you do.”

“I sincerely doubt that,” I gasped out.

“And here I thought you were making such progress. I was nearly ready to reward you for your good behavior. Maybe a visit from your family. Maybe this.”

The tiny spotlight appeared on her again, and something in her hand shimmered. It was my cross, the little wooden one Adrian had made me, painted with morning glories. They’d tried to bribe me with it when I first arrived, as though one material object was all it would take to break me. Seeing it now made my chest ache—though that could’ve possibly been an aftereffect from the torture—and my eyes blurred with tears of sadness now, not pain.

“You could have it now,” she said congenially. “You could have it, and we could stop the pain. All you need to do is tell us what we want to know. It really is a lovely piece.” She held it up admiringly and then, to my complete and utter horror, she put it around her own neck. “If you don’t want it, I might as well keep it.”

I nearly told her it was made by a vampire but worried that might make her destroy it. So I stayed silent, letting my rage seethe within me—at least until the torture started again, and only agony seethed within me.

I lost track of time again until her colleague returned. This brought a reprieve from the pain, and a few new spotlights went on, including one shining uncomfortably in my face. The light also revealed the man hadn’t come back alone.

“Look, Sydney,” Sheridan said. “We brought you a friend.”

The man dragged someone up to my table. Emma. I nearly accused her of betrayal then and there. After all, she was the perfect candidate. She had her sister’s crimes to overcompensate for as well as her own. She’d gotten the salt ink from me already and had nothing to lose by turning me in, especially if she could convince them of her own innocence. She was also the only person who’d known for sure that I was out roaming the facility last night.

And yet … there was a terror in her eyes that kept me from making any accusations. Maybe she was the likeliest traitor, but on the off chance she wasn’t, I couldn’t insinuate she might be privy to any of my plans. “Who said she’s my friend?” I asked instead.