Into the Fire (Flame in the Shadows Trilogy #1)

40. Tommy

CHAPTER FORTY

TOMMY

Jagged rocks bite into my cheek, my chest, my abdomen. Thick fabric is tied over my eyes and stuffed into my mouth, but I can hear. Five guards stand in a semicircle around us. A length of scratchy rope binds my arms tightly behind my back.

Shit.

I was too focused on Mel, on our last moments together, to notice them coming.

Is she alive?

I reach out with my ears, chest tight to the point of pain.

Yes. Her rough breath isn’t far away, but she’s down too. Unmoving.

Fear slices through me, hard and fast.

Breathe. Think.

I need to stay calm. If they assume I’m still out, I might have time to figure out a plan before they move us.

Panic whines in my head, makes it hard to focus. Mel must be bound and gagged too. Even if I come up with an idea, I can’t communicate with her.

“This one’s awake.” The barrel of a gun jabs into my back, right between my shoulder blades.

Damn it all.

“Edwards wants to question them himself. Where should we take them?”

“The cabin,” a female guard says.

My stomach pitches, fear hot at the back of my throat. There’s no way out. No way to fight. The best we can hope for is a quick death. Maybe if we piss them off…

The man digging his weapon into my spine grunts. “This one can walk. I’ll carry the girl.”

Two pairs of rough hands grip me under my arms and haul me to my feet. My terror surges, a metallic tang on my tongue.

“Forward,” the woman barks.

I stumble ahead, my usual sure gait eluding me. The thunder of my pulse gets in the way as I try to listen and figure out what’s happening to Mel. If I could just brush her hand, let her know she’s not alone … but I can’t. I can’t hear her, can’t concentrate on anything besides the vicious panic that grows and grows, scouring away my insides until I’m nothing but fear.

Fresh tears soak into the fabric covering my eyes.

Chin up, I scold myself, scrabbling for some deeply hidden reserve of courage. You chose this path. Walk it well.

A door creaks, and I’m guided across what sounds and feels like a soft wooden floor and forced into a metal chair. The smell of wood rot fills my nose.

“Struggle and you die.” The woman’s voice is flat. Someone reaches around my ankles and lashes them to the legs of the chair with more rope.

I’m sorely tempted to kick out, to see if the woman will make good on her threat. Better to go now than suffer through what’s coming.

But what about Mel? I have no way to tell her what I’m doing or why. She’d be left to face this interrogation alone.

I can’t abandon her.

Once my ankles and waist are bound, the blindfold and gag are removed. Mel’s being carried in through the open door, slung over the shoulder of a huge, hulking man with thinning blond hair and a scrubby beard. Her wrists are bound behind her back like mine, but they’ve tied her ankles too. Her blindfold and gag hang around her neck, likely knocked out of place thanks to the tremendous fight she’s putting up. She writhes like she’s being electrocuted, a string of filthy curses sliding through her bared teeth.

The hulking man is visibly struggling. “A little help?”

“Be still,” the woman beside me snaps, some color bleeding into her voice. “If you fight, I will kill him.”

She cocks her gun and rests the barrel against my temple.

I stare at Mel through streaming eyes, my gut snarled up. She twists around, her hard gaze falling on me. Immediately, she goes limp.

The hulking man tosses her roughly into another chair. He rebinds her ankles and ties down her waist, ensuring she’s firmly strapped in place.

Once Mel’s secure, the woman guard orders all the others to leave, except the beast of a man who dealt with Mel. The thud of the door closing echoes ominously through the room.

Nausea overwhelms me as I catalogue our surroundings. We’re in a tiny, half-rotted, one-room cabin. There’s nothing here besides a long oval table, a few metal chairs scattered around it, and four lamps standing in the corners of the room. These cast everything in harsh white light.

About six feet separate me from Mel. The monotone woman and the hulking man stand to my right—Mel’s left—and watch us. The man spins a knife around and around in his large, meaty hand. The woman’s arms are crossed, her face blank.

A sudden shock runs me through, so powerful I stop breathing.

That’s Mara Levett.

I didn’t recognize her at first, decked out in a common guard’s uniform, but that fair skin, those dark, almond-shaped eyes, the shoulder-length chocolate-brown hair. I know that face.

“Well, hello there, little terrorist,” Mara says coolly to Mel.

The way she’s taken charge, the way the guards immediately follow her commands, the air of control surrounding her, even now … the pieces fall into place, one by one.

This is why Mara and Mr. Edwards are never in the same place at the same time, why Mara’s always been oblivious to the corruption flourishing under her nose. It’s how the Organization has hidden so effectively within Levett Tech for so long.

“You’re Mr. Edwards.”

Mara throws me a cold, empty smile, then turns back to Mel. “I know exactly who you are, Melanie Snow.”

I hate the way Mel glares at Mara, no trace of fear visible in the hard lines of her face. I might as well be fifteen again, hidden under the bed while Reyna aims the same fiery stare at her tormentors. Blood runs into Reyna’s eyes, flows from her crooked nose, dribbles over her ruined lips…

“And you, Thomas Williams.” Mara gives me another wintry look.

It’s in my best interest to stay quiet, but the way the beefy man sneers at Mel leaves me wanting to pull their attention my way. Anything to get their focus off her. “What do you want?”

“You know how this ends,” Mara says softly. “It can be easy, or it can be difficult. The choice is yours.”

Sickness roils in my stomach, the blood draining from my face as I glance desperately at Mel. I can already see her, bleeding and broken. I can already hear her screams.

If I don’t answer Mara’s questions, Mel’s worse than dead.

I can’t quite swallow the sob that escapes my locked jaw.

Mara tilts her head, observing me like I’m a science experiment. “You want to spare the girl, yeah? Talk, Williams.”

Too late, I realize I’ve given Mara valuable information. Namely, how much I care for Mel. I lick my dry lips and will strength into my words. “What do you want to know?”

Mel’s eyes cut into me, burning with censure. Her head jerks from side to side.

I don’t acknowledge her. I focus solely on Mara, who says silkily, “You know what I want.”

Before I can respond, Mel taunts, “We don’t know anything about the chip.”

My heart sinks, and I hang my head. Mara was fishing for information with that open-ended statement, trying to find out what we expect her to ask without revealing anything in the process.

Unless Mel has a plan I don’t know about, she just played right into Mara’s tactic. And now Mara thinks we do know about the chip.

I hope Mel knows what she’s doing.

“I knew it,” Mara murmurs, the words alight with a frenzied sort of euphoria. “You!” She snaps at Mel, clicking her fingers. “Your mother had it last, yes? We weren’t able to recover it from her. You know where it is. Tell me. Now.”

“I said, we don’t know anything about it.”

Everything in me tightens as the bulky man strides up to Mel and yanks her braid back, pulling her chin up to expose the pale skin of her throat. The almost-healed cut Cait left there stands out, a faint pink line.

The man presses his own knife lightly to the mark. Beads of red appear along the blade. “You would do well to show some respect, sweetheart.”

Before I can stop myself, I’m shouting. “Take your fucking hands off her, or I’ll use that dagger to saw your fingers off, one at a time.”

At a nod from Mara, the thug lowers the knife and releases Mel’s hair. Blood dribbles from the new cut, vibrant against her fair skin.

“Language, Williams,” Mara chides. “Do you have something you want to tell me?”

“ Don’t touch her, ” I growl, tone laced with dark violence.

“If you don’t want her touched, you know the solution.” Mara’s not even looking at us. She’s examining her nails.

I lock my jaw, despair rising up to smother me. There’s nothing to be done. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t give Mara the information she seeks. I don’t have it.

Mara’s mouth twists. She strolls sedately to stand behind Mel’s chair. “Have it your way. Jeff.”

Terror explodes in the pit of my stomach as the thug—Jeff—leers at Mel, twirling his dagger between his thick fingers. He tilts his head, considering her, then drags the point of the knife over her cheek, lightly enough that it doesn’t draw blood. That unbelievable bravery of hers is starting to crack. She’s white as a ghost, her breath coming in harsh, jagged gasps.

Jeff glances my way, blade now tracing Mel’s jaw. “It’d be a shame to carve up such pretty skin, don’t you think?”

The room spins, waves of razor-sharp dread breaking over me.

With blinding speed, Jeff pulls back his fist and smashes Mel in the eye. Her head snaps back and her cry of pain reverberates in the air between us.

Before she can gather herself, Jeff’s other fist comes around in a brutal hook, slamming her face sideways.

Awful sickness swirls in my gut as a terrible, burning chasm opens in my chest. All fear, all sense evaporates, burned away by pure agony. Her jaw. Her cheekbone. And it’s going to get a lot worse.

Screaming incoherently, I wrench on my restraints.

“Shut up shut up shut UP!” Jeff explodes, stalking across the room toward me. In the split second before his blow lands, I see the savage light in his eyes, the total absence of any sort of scruples.

This is a man with no limits.

The hit connects over my left temple. My head explodes in blistering pain, slamming to the right with such force the muscles in my neck strain. Ringing fills my ears, everything around me suddenly shrouded in bright, shining mist. I slowly raise my eyes and my head swims with a sick, stabbing sort of pressure.

“Cut that out,” Mara barks. The sharp sound ratchets up the ache in my skull. “If you knock him out, he can’t talk. Focus on the girl and keep them awake, you absolute imbecile.”

Mel holds my gaze. The area around her right eye is pink, swelling fast. Bright crimson blood trickles from the corner of her mouth, slides over her chin. It runs in rivulets from the cut on her throat, soaking into the neck of her shirt.

This can’t be real. It must be another nightmare.

Wake up. Wake up, wake up, wake up, please wake up…

“Ahh,” Mara says, detached as ever. “That’s not a nice look for either of you.”

My attention cuts to her as her words set my head throbbing.

“This is nothing,” she continues, waving a hand at Mel. “We have hours. Hours and hours. Oh, yes, you’ll tell me what I want to know before the end. Why not make it easy on yourself? On her?”

Turning dead eyes to Mel, she says, “You don’t have to go through this. I can make it quick. Tell me where the chip is, and I’ll end it, nice and clean.”

For a moment, I’m under a bed, listening to a cold female voice promise my parents the same thing.

The same voice.

A flood of molten anger burns through the fog in my head. “You were there. You interrogated my parents. You murdered them! You… you…”

There aren’t words evil enough to name what she is.

Mara’s lips twitch. “Indeed. As were you, so it seems. Interesting.”

Mel spits a mouthful of blood onto the floor. “You’re a monster. We’ll never tell you anything.”

A sense of unreality washes over me as I hear Reyna in my mind.

Mara jerks her chin at Mel, and Jeff rains blows down on her. Her face, her ribs, her gut. Mel stares at me when she can, dragging her eyes back to mine again and again. She’s intensely focused, her jaw locked against the screams she’s battling to keep in.

I hold her searing gaze, suffering with her through the vicious beating. With my eyes, I tell her she’s strong and fierce and brave. I tell her she’s not alone.

“Stop,” Mara commands.

Jeff falls back, revealing the full impact of what he’s done. Mel’s whole face is puffy, mottled red and purple. It shines with blood that weeps from the many cuts, runs from her nose over her lips, drips down her chin. She’s panting, sagging in her restraints as she holds onto my gaze like it’s a lifeline.

“Mel,” I moan, my cheeks slick.

Mara almost looks bored. She’s examining her nails again. “Are either of you ready to talk yet?”

“Never,” Mel rasps, at the same time as I say, “We truly don’t know anything.”

Jeff’s hand twitches, but Mara holds hers up, halting him. She glances at me. “You don’t? Nothing at all?”

“No. All we know is a chip existed at some point. That’s it. I swear.”

Mara chews her cheek, head tilted as she contemplates me. “Why were the Snows at your house that night?”

“I don’t know. They came every summer for a few days. I didn’t know the Resistance even existed. Neither did Mel.”

Mara gives me a cold smile. “Perhaps you didn’t. Still, I’m sure there’s something useful you could give me. Information you’ve learned since.”

“I knew nothing about the chip until recently, and now, I only know it existed.”

“Liar. I think it’s time to start breaking bones, don’t you, Jeff?”

“Please,” I beg, and the word is acrid in my mouth. “I’m telling the truth!”

Jeff kneels next to Mel, gently untying one of her legs while Mara presses a dagger to her throat.

“I’m gonna get a hammer,” he grunts as he stands up.

When he leaves, Mara shakes her head. “Are you sure about this?” She looks between Mel and me.

“We don’t know anything,” Mel spits, but the tremor in her voice ruins the effect she’s going for.

“I’m sure you can think of something to tell me. Williams, you say you saw me at your parents’ interrogation. If that’s so, you were there with the Snows immediately before we arrived. You must have been.”

“So? I was fifteen. Barely more than a child.”

“You’re telling me a fifteen-year-old can’t be observant? Give me details. Any details you can. What did the Snows say? How did they act? Were they carrying anything with them? Did they hide anything as we stormed the house?”

My stomach jolts, Mom’s twine bracelet suddenly white-hot on my wrist. I try not to glance at it as I see her, moments before the monsters arrived, shoving it in my face.

Keep it safe.

“Ah.” Mara’s arctic smile broadens, more a grimace than anything. “You do know something, don’t you?”

I always thought Mom’s last request was strange. Why would she care so much about a simple twine bracelet she would give it to me for safekeeping? I assumed it must’ve been sentimental, though I never saw her wear it.

A piece of Reyna’s last email to Lisa flashes through my mind.

I’ll pass you my report through the Williamses, but because Max won’t be aware of it, I’ll need to do so secretly … You’ll know where to find my message when you see it.

I swallow, mouth exceptionally dry. Could there be a note from Reyna concealed within my bracelet? It’s a thick weave. Bulky enough to hide something, for sure.

Vomit rises in my throat as Jeff reenters the room, a hammer swinging from his fleshy fist. Mel’s lips go white.

Mara waits to speak until Jeff has Mel’s leg stretched out before him, her foot resting on an empty chair. “Last chance, Williams.”

I stare at Mel, at her mangled face. The remnants of my soul scream at the sight. And I know, I know , they’ve only just gotten started.

They will beat her senseless. They will keep going, until, brave as she is, even she begs for death. And then they will torture her more.

Unless I give them the bracelet.

I didn’t save my parents. I didn’t save hers. But I have it in my power to stop this.

Mel’s eyes are leaking tears, her mouth and limbs quivering. Even so, the glare she shoots me is more than clear: say nothing.

My heart hammers, the blood throbbing in my ears. What Mel’s going through now—what my parents went through—has all been to thwart the Organization. If I give Mara what she wants, I render their sacrifices null and void. It would be like spitting on their suffering. It would be the most selfish, cowardly thing I could ever do.

Some things are more important than pain, even hers.

I will not allow the Organization to find Reyna’s message.

Mara can see the resolve form in my eyes.

“Jeff,” she says, practically oozing apathy.

Jeff rests the hammer on Mel’s trembling shin. It swings up, then flashes down, and the sharp crack of Mel’s bones rips through me like a serrated blade. Her blood-curdling scream twists the knife, drags it back and forth. The rolling sickness in my stomach peaks, and I retch.

Mel’s sobbing now; huge, quaking sobs. Bill nudges the misshapen purple lump on Mel’s shin. Her answering howl frays at my sanity.

I watch, lost in a fog of horror, as he slides the hammer up, rests it on her knee. He’s going to shatter every piece of her. My stomach turns again, the words bubbling up my throat like more vomit.

Before Jeff can raise the hammer, an almighty BOOM rocks the floorboards under our feet. Another, then another, and another; each one powerful enough to shake the cabin’s foundation.

All four of us look toward the door.

Shouting, gunfire, running, more shouting, more gunfire.

Mara’s lip curls. “What in the?—”

Just then, the door bursts open. A sweaty guard stands panting on the threshold.

“Rebels in the woods, firing on us. The camp’s burning. Don’t know how many.”

Mara curses.

“Come,” she hisses at Jeff, then races with the guard into the night. Looking sour, Jeff removes the hammer from above Mel’s knee and lumbers after them.

The door bangs shut behind him, sealing our tomb around us.