Wildcard (Warcross #2)(56)

This time, when the door opens, he sits up straight and stares sidelong at Taylor.

“How do you feel today, Sasuke?” Taylor asks him.

Sasuke is quiet, his child eyes regarding her with a look of suspicion beyond his years. His hands are still clutching the blue scarf. Then, he says, “I’ll make a deal with you.”

These stern words coming from such a small boy makes Taylor laugh.

“Let me skip today, and I’ll eat my dinner.”

Now the woman laughs in earnest. When she finally stops, she shakes her head at Sasuke. “I’m afraid not. You can’t skip a day. You know that.”

Sasuke gives her a thoughtful look. “Let me skip, and I’ll give you my scarf.”

At that, Taylor regards him with a curious smile. “You love that scarf,” she says in a coaxing voice. “We can’t even pry it from you in your sleep. Surely you can’t be serious, giving it up just for a day off.”

“I’m serious,” Sasuke says.

I lean forward, unable to tear my attention away from the exchange.

Taylor walks over to Sasuke, stares down at him for a moment, and then holds out a hand. “The scarf,” she says.

“My free day,” Sasuke replies, his hands still tight around the cloth.

“You have my word. You won’t be at the labs today. We won’t bother you. Take your time and rest here. Tomorrow, we’ll start again.”

Sasuke stares at her. Finally, his fingers loosen on the scarf. When she takes it, I can see Sasuke’s hands visibly tremble, as if it took all of his strength not to lunge for the scarf right then and there. But he hands it over, without making so much as a sound.

Taylor looks at the scarf, then tightens her hands around it and turns to leave the room. “We’ll see you the day after tomorrow, Sasuke-kun,” she says over her shoulder. “I’m proud of you.”

Sasuke doesn’t reply, and he doesn’t cry. He doesn’t crouch like he did in the first video I saw of him, either. He just stares calmly, carefully, as Taylor leaves the room, closing the door softly behind her. When it clicks shut, Sasuke’s shoulders droop. His hands clutch instinctively for the scarf that is no longer around his neck. When I look closer, I realize that he’s wiping tears away. Then he jumps to his feet, walks up to the security cam, and breaks it.

I startle. The tape buzzes with static. When it plays again, I see Sasuke struggling wildly in bonds, in a coldly lit room. Nearby is Taylor, watching him with a calm, cool expression. “And who helped you try to escape, Sasuke-kun?” Taylor asks.

Sasuke doesn’t look at her. His eyes are fixed instead on the door leading out of the room, like he might be able to will himself out of the lab. When Taylor walks over to him, standing purposely between him and the door, his eyes finally shift up to the woman.

“Who helped you try to escape, Sasuke?” she repeats.

Sasuke stays quiet.

When he still doesn’t answer, Taylor shakes her head and motions for one of her researchers to bring a young girl forward. My eyes widen. She has shorter hair here, but she is unmistakably Jax. She follows the researcher obediently to stand beside her mother, and the sight of Jax in such a frightened state is so odd that I can hardly believe it’s her.

“Did Jackson help you?” Taylor asks, still in that cool, calm tone.

Sasuke shakes his head again, although now his eyes are on Jax. I walk invisibly around in the recording, noticing how Sasuke’s leather bonds are stretched tight now, his arms so tense that I can see a vein standing out against his skin. He still doesn’t answer.

Taylor nods once at the others. As I look on, they loosen Sasuke’s bonds, so that his wrists and ankles are suddenly free.

Sasuke doesn’t even hesitate. He bolts upright and leaps off the table, his eyes narrowed at the door. But the others are already moving, too. Taylor reaches for young Jax’s wrist, drags her forward, and pulls her toward the same bench that Sasuke had been strapped to only moments earlier.

“Come here, my love,” Taylor says to her.

This movement is the only thing that makes Sasuke freeze near the door. Jax whimpers, too afraid to run as her mother ushers her up onto the bench.

“You want to leave so badly, don’t you, Sasuke?” Taylor says soothingly to him as a researcher begins to wipe Jax’s temples with a damp cloth.

Sasuke watches with a frozen expression. It takes me a moment to recognize that expression as fear. Temptation. Guilt.

“Then go. Die out there instead of letting us save you,” Taylor says, turning her back on Sasuke and focusing her attention now on Jax. “You aren’t the only patient we have in our ranks, and your progress has been slower than I would have expected. If you’re unwilling to cooperate, then I’ll simply have to replace you with someone else. Jax has always been the alternative for our study.”

The girl stares at Sasuke with a desperate expression, but doesn’t plead. Instead, she shakes her head. Go, she seems to be insisting.

Taylor turns around to meet Sasuke’s paralyzed gaze. “Well? The doors are unlocked. What are you waiting for?”

And for a moment, it really does look like Sasuke will make a run for it. There are no guards stopping him, no one looking his way. Taylor is too far away to catch him. No one will come for him, not if he runs now.

But he stands there and doesn’t move. His hands clench and unclench, his eyes darting from the woman to Jax, his expression tight.