The Girl Who Dared to Endure (The Girl Who Dared #6)(10)

Maddox withdrew her hand, revealing a half-inch-long incision, and handed the long silver cutter out to me. I took it automatically, knowing she needed to move quickly.

“Yeah,” I replied, my stomach flopping around with anxiety as each second dragged on. If she woke up while we were doing this… I shook it off and answered Quess’s question as he handed the net, now clean and glistening with sterilizing liquid, back to Maddox. “I’ve got the guy who cut my throat.”

Quess froze, but Maddox remained focused as she slid the net into the incision with a pair of tweezers, using them to push it all the way into Sadie’s neck. As soon as she was satisfied, she handed me the tweezers and pulled out a silver canister. A press on the top spilled some pink foam onto her fingertip, and she gently smoothed the mousse over the wound. It would be healed in a matter of minutes.

“Talk about it later,” she said as she got off Sadie. “Quess, how is this going to work?”

“Prop her up against me,” he said, and within moments the three of us were lifting her onto her feet, Quess’s large arm around her waist helping to brace her. Her head rolled forward as we worked, and he reached over and gently positioned it against his shoulder so that it seemed she was sleeping against him.

“I’ve got her on a sort of loop,” he told us softly, shifting her weight a little bit. “Right after you left and Maddox got back, I gave her a quarter pill, and we staged a new arrival scene without you, saying you’d been called away, and then I guided her through things. The sedative made her dopey, but she was able to follow along and jump to the conclusions we set up for her. I gave her a half of a pill forty minutes later, and every thirty minutes after that, restarting the loop in her mind so that there was still a ten-minute sequence of her arriving and interacting with us. Hopefully, this next one won’t eat too much into that time, so she has at least some memory of being here.”

I nodded in wordless agreement. Our entire plan hung on this one thing, and if it didn’t work, Sadie might remember too much and figure out that something was up. If she put everything together and realized that we had pulled one over on her to raid her quarters… then nowhere in the Tower would be safe for us. Summoning up a deep calm, I took a few steps back and waited for her to wake up. Maddox moved to join me.

It only took a minute for Sadie to give a soft little groan, and her head shifted, nestling into the crook of Quess’s shoulder. “You smell nice,” she slurred, and I reached out and grabbed Maddox’s forearm before the statuesque woman could think to move.

The muscles under her skin were tight, but as I glanced at her, I saw her giving me an annoyed look that told me I was overreacting. She wasn’t going to screw this up.

“CEO Monroe?” Quess asked, and something about his tone implied that he’d said it once before and was both nervous and embarrassed to have to do it again.

Sadie murmured something incoherent against his neck with a little snort. Quess cleared his throat and repeated, “CEO Monroe?” in a firmer voice, but there was an undercurrent of panic to it.

Her head rolled up, and she blinked at Quess blearily. “Wha—”

I nodded at Maddox, and we resumed our walk over. “CEO Monroe,” I said loudly, putting a note of disapproval in my voice. “Knight Commander Worthington. How is the investigation going?”

Quess took a quick step away from Sadie, and I was surprised to see a flush forming in his cheeks. I gave him an internal nod of respect for taking his role that far, and then returned my focus to Sadie.

She, however, was considerably less embarrassed, given the displeased curl of her lips. “You’re back,” she said haughtily. “I’m surprised you even bothered to show.”

I kept my face expressionless but was grateful to see that she hadn’t remembered the first time she arrived—when I’d been here to greet her. “My apologies,” I replied, keeping my voice as empty as possible to tell her I wasn’t sorry at all. “I was dealing with a potential undoc situation.” It wasn’t technically a lie, which was why I probably shouldn’t have said it, but it was worth it to watch her eyes narrow into slits.

“I see,” she said primly. “Well, Knight Commander Worthington and I are still conducting our analysis.” Her tone was dismissive, and she even went so far as to turn her back to me, but stopped mid-motion when Quess cleared his throat and gave her an apologetic look.

“CEO Monroe… we finished the analysis, remember? Is that headache still bothering you? Or was the medicine I gave you too strong? I’m so terribly sorry…” He held out the pad, his eyes brimming with uncertainty, and I almost gagged at Sadie’s positively feline response.

“It’s fine, Sam,” she said soothingly, but there was a greasy undercurrent that made me sick. Enough was enough.

“Sam?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “You’re on a first-name basis with the Knight Commander I put in charge of maintaining our servers and computers?”

“Internal server police,” Quess corrected softly, and I speared him with a look so fierce that for a second, I thought his recoil was real. It wasn’t, of course, but even if it had been, I would’ve gone for it anyway.

“Care to correct me again, Worthington?” I growled menacingly, and he quickly shook his head.

“No, ma’am.”