Seeds of Iniquity (In the Company of Killers, #4)(54)

Fredrik walks casually back over to the table where he drops the tooth.

“You have thirty-one more of these,” Fredrik says impassively, approaching her again. “Now tell me, where are the people you abducted?”

Nora smiles and doesn’t answer.

He gags her again and removes another back tooth.

Two more teeth later, he begins to change his questions.

“Where did you get your information on Dorian Flynn?”

Nothing.

“Where did you get your information on Victor Faust?”

Nothing.

“Where did you get your information on Niklas Fleischer?”

Nothing.

He takes out another tooth.

“Fuuuck you!” she growls. Her breathing is rapid and unsteady. Blood pours down her chin and from the corners of her mouth.

He finally has her attention.

“Where did you get your information on James Woodard?”

Still nothing when he finally gets around to naming me.

Nora spits blood at him, and he pulls away from her with a blood-flecked white dress shirt.

Seeing that Nora may need something more intense than the pulling of her teeth, I step away from the screen and put my back to it when I watch him retrieve a vial of needles from his briefcase.

I can never watch this. Just the thought of needles being shoved underneath anyone’s fingernails, makes me shake.

A minute later, Nora’s screams are so blood-curdling that I have to cover my ears, pressing both hands firmly over them.

Suddenly, the surveillance room door swings open and I’m outside in the hall. James joins me.

“Jesus f*cking Christ,” he says, trembling underneath his plaid shirt with sweat at the armpits, “I just can’t watch that.”

“I thought you admired him,” I say, still trembling.

“I do,” he says as he slips a finger behind the neck of his shirt and pulls it away from his skin, “but I never claimed to be able to stomach what he does. I admire him because he’s not afraid of anything. Because everyone I know is afraid of him.”

Nora’s screams make it to my ears out in the hall since the surveillance room door is still open. I clasp my hands against the sides of my head again, wincing.

Niklas appears in the doorway and starts to close it after seeing how much it’s affecting me, but I shake my head and stop him.

“No,” I say, “leave it open. I want hear if she says anything.”

“Are you sure, Iz?”

“Yeah,” I nod in a rapid, uneasy motion. “I’ll be fine.”

He shakes his head with a sigh as if he doesn’t really believe me, and then goes back inside to watch with Victor.

Thirty minutes later I’m sitting on the floor in the hallway with my back pressed to the wall and my knees drawn up.

And Nora still hasn’t answered a single question.

I’m starting to fear for her. I may want her to die, but I wouldn’t want to die like that and I just wish she’d talk. Say something to ease her pain and mine.

“What’s he doing?” I hear Niklas say with curiosity.

Hesitantly, I get up from the floor, and with a bit of talking myself into it, I go into the room to look at the screen.

Fredrik has cut her out of her bonds and unlocked the cuffs from her ankles and wrists.

“I won’t tell you anything,” Nora says in a pain-filled, raspy voice as he forces her to stand on her feet.

She doesn’t struggle or even try to get away, but I think the pain she’s coping with has a lot to do with it.

“Faust tells me you’re a daughter of the SC-4,” Fredrik says, as calmly as ever. He strips off her black silk shirt and walks her over to the wall. She doesn’t struggle when he presses her against it. “Raise your arms,” he says, and she does.

Her hands are stained with blood, the tips of her fingers swollen and red. Her body shakes pressed against the wall from the front. But still, she doesn’t relent. She’s in undeniable pain and I know she wants to end it, but she doesn’t break.

My god…her back…what did they do to her?

Nora’s back is covered in deep scars, crisscrossing in a horrific pattern from one shoulder to the other and from the top of her spine to the top of her hips. Old scars. Made by a whip of sorts, or maybe even a blade—from the looks of them, probably both.

Fredrik slips a knife underneath her bra straps and cuts them off. The black bra falls to the floor, leaving her exposed.

“It was a question,” Fredrik says from behind her. “Are you a member of the Shadow Sect?”

Fucking answer him! I scream inside my head. Please, Nora!

I don’t know why I care, but I do.

Answer him!

“Yes,” Nora says. “My father was Solis.”

“And where is Solis now?”

“I killed him.”

So that’s who she killed for her freedom. That’s who she wouldn’t tell Victor about.

Victor and Niklas glance at each other.

“Is she talking?” James asks as he decides to join us again.

“Yes,” Victor says, staring at the screen, “but she’s only telling him things she wants us to know.”

I look at Victor, as hard as it is to tear my eyes away from the screen.