Being Amber (28 page)

“Shut your nasty, stinking mouth, Amber bitch.” He slapped her again. “Don’t mistake my manners for weakness.” His tone was lethal.

“You’re lucky that I let a piece of shit like you in the same room as me, let alone spend two days of my life on this stupid bullshit.” He paced the inside the room for a minute, before he continued in a calmer tone. “I have a few questions.” He sounded more dangerous now than when he’d slapped her. She held her breath.

He took her chin and lifted it, trying to meet her eyes. “Who else knows about Caroline?”

Jaci refused to look at him while twisting her head away from his grip. She kept her gaze focused on the open door behind him. She pressed her lips together, remaining silent.

“You don’t want to talk to me?”

“No,” she croaked.

“Your choice,” he said as he turned the light off and left her dangling in the dark.

She smiled. That was the most fun she’d had in days. The thrill of the defiance wore off about ten seconds later.

She had been there so long. The days without food or water began to have its desired effect. Jaci’s weakness grew. The muscles in her legs trembled under the weight of her body. Even though the air was damp and cool, a fine film of perspiration coated her skin. It cooled her to the point she was shivering. After several hours, her teeth chattered and the cold was bone-deep. She wouldn’t be able to stand for much longer before she would have to dangle again.

When her legs finally failed, she hung from her wrists with the cold metal digging into her so deeply it felt as if it was slicing her hands off.

She knew she was dead already. She tried to mentally prepare herself for what was coming because she sure as hell wasn’t going to say anything that would hurt anybody she knew in Amber, no matter what they did to her.

It seemed like days before the general returned. His vicious blue gaze took her in. A finger of dread aroused her to full consciousness. He walked up to her and grabbed a fistful of her hair.

“You are going to talk to me, or I will go back to your apartment and take your roommate into custody. I heard that neither one of you were clothed when you were picked up.” He chuckled as he crowded Jaci’s face with his own. “Is he your special friend?” Jaci noticed the Emerald band around the man’s wrist as he released the grip on her hair.

“No,” she croaked.

“Good.” He indicated to another soldier standing outside the cell. “Take her down.”

She was unhooked and shoved into a chair. The relief of pressure on her wrists didn’t feel as good as she thought it would. In fact, the renewed blood flow to that area seemed to increase the amount of pain she felt. A few seconds later, she was in agony.“Aaah,” she cried, rocking back and forth, cradling her wrists in her lap.

General Morgan pulled out the chair on the other side of the table and sat, crossing his legs and staring at her, apparently waiting for her to stop crying out. It took several minutes before she quieted herself.

“Who knows what Caroline was doing?”

“Nobody.” Her voice was nearly gone. Her throat was on fire.

He rose from his chair, stepped forward and slapped Jaci’s face with so much force that she fell out of the chair. He picked her up by her cuffs and sat her back in it.

“Who else knows?”

Jaci shook her head. “Nobody.”

The man slapped her again. “Who else knows?”

“Nobody, dammit! I didn’t tell anyone.” Jaci tried to yell, but the words sounded more like pathetic squawking than defiant refusal.

“Who else knows?”

Jaci didn’t answer the question. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the next strike. It didn’t come.

“How did you get back through to the Amber Zone?”

“I walked.”

“Did you go back through a gate?”

“Yes.”

“Which one?”

“Gate One.”

“Did one of the border guards let you go through without scanning you?”

“No, I snuck through.”

“I doubt that,” he said, scrutinizing her face closely. Then he rose, stepped out of the cell for a moment, and exchanged words with the soldier stationed there.

“I had my sergeant go get you some water. It looks like you’re thirsty.” He leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. He stared at her. Silent.

Jaci knew this wasn’t over by a long shot. He was planning his next move. The soldier returned with a paper cup of water and a syringe. He handed both to the general.

“Here, my dear, have some water.” He placed the paper cup on the table in front of her and tipped it over, spilling it. His lips twisted into a smirk when she looked up at him. He was fucking with her, and she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of watching her lap up water off the table. Then, after a long stare down, his eyes narrowed.

“We can do this easy, or hard.” He looked at her as he removed the plastic cover over the needle of the syringe he held. Jaci didn’t fight. It was futile. She knew he would be successful one way or the other. He injected the liquid directly into the vein of her arm. It burned for a moment, and then Jaci melted. She was an instant marshmallow. Every part of her drooped. She was in a state of almost sleep.

She closed her eyes and only seconds later she was knocked out of her chair again with another strike to her face. She wasn’t alert enough to soften the fall with her hands, and her head cracked on the hard cement. She was yanked up and back into the chair almost immediately.

Jaci slumped. The trickle of blood from the fresh gash on her head dripped into her lap. A thread of drool hung from her mouth.

He slapped her face again. “The police were watching you?”

“Yes.”

“And you knew it?”

“Yes, after a while.”

“What happened in your apartment that day?”

“Hmmm?”

He grabbed Jaci’s hair and brought her face close to his. “What happened in the apartment?”

“Caroline stabbed Emily.” Jaci’s words slurred, but she couldn’t seem to correct the problem.

“Why?”

“’Cause Caroline was a bitch.” Jaci sneered.

“And you killed Caroline?”

She didn’t answer him.

Jaci was yanked up from the chair and her back slammed up against the wall. General Morgan clutched her face in his hand and squeezed. His fingers clenched, gouging the yielding flesh of her cheeks. “I’m getting tired of the fucking games, Miss Harmon.” His body was pressed up against hers. “Tell me.”

His cock was hard between them. He was getting off on this. Jaci’s expression must have reflected that revelation.

He chuckled. “That’s right, you know what’s next.” He grabbed the front of Jaci’s shirt and with a savage heave, ripped it, partially exposing her breasts. Then, he threw her to the floor.

She landed hard, her forearms and elbows taking the brunt of the fall. He stood over her. “You killed Caroline?”

“She was trying to kill me,” Jaci croaked.

“I know that, you stupid bitch. It’s unbelievable. You Ambers get more simpleminded every time I have the displeasure of having to speak to you.” He squatted down next to her and ran his hand inside her shirt to cup her breast. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re only good for one thing.”

Jaci sucked in a breath, and attempted to back away from him. But he grabbed her with his other hand, holding her in place. He released a deep, frightening chuckle.

“How did you get through the border back to Amber?” he growled, as he ran a thumb over her nipple.

“I snuck through.”

He wasn’t appeased by her answer because he pinched and twisted her nipple brutally hard. Jaci screamed from the pain. He didn’t let up. He kept pinching and twisting until Jaci wailed and sobbed for him to stop. “I snuck through. I snuck through,” she yelled over and over.

Finally, he eased the viselike grip.

The general stood. “I think we’re through for now. But this isn’t over, not by a long shot.”

Jaci curled into herself, tucking her legs up to her chest as he turned to leave.

“Oh, and Miss Harmon,” he turned back to look down at her. “Don’t flatter yourself. You stink like an animal. I would never stick my dick into a filthy, diseased Amber like you.” He spat on her, the warm wet fluid landing on her cheek and then he walked out.

The soldier stationed outside the room extinguished the light and closed the door before leaving her alone and in the dark again.

Chapter 18

Xander was practically out of his mind. It had been over three days since the message from the general. He started to wonder if they were going to give her back. Then, he finally got the news that Jaci had been released to Amber Border Gate Two.

She was a heap on the dirty floor of the border guard station when Xander walked through the door.

He immediately spoke into his com. “We need a VN at the apartment when we get there.”

“Visiting Nurse. Roger that,” was his response from Jordan.

Xander rolled Jaci onto her back. Her face was bruised and swollen. She was unconscious. He checked her pulse.

Her hair was bloody and matted against a gash on her scalp. Her t-shirt was ripped, her breasts exposed.

“Motherfuckers,” he roared. His anger was uncontainable. He looked up and eyed the two Border Guardsmen that watched. They were smug and didn’t bother to hide the amusement that washed over their faces.

“Looks like they used interesting interrogation techniques,” one of them said, laughing.

The only thing that kept Xander from snapping the asshole’s neck was Jaci’s need for medical attention. But he still looked at the Guardsman good and hard, memorizing the man’s face. Xander would see him again.

He picked Jaci up from the floor and carried her outside to the cruiser where Brady waited. He laid her gently on the back seat and quickly got into the passenger side of the car before it sped off toward building seventeen. He peered over the seat and looked at her. Bruises mottled the dirty, blood covered skin on her face. The skin that wasn’t bruised was ashen. He wasn’t sure which bothered him more.

Jordan and the visiting nurse were waiting at the apartment when Xander carried Jaci in. After a cursory examination, the VN inserted an IV to hydrate her and then closed the gash on her head. She left saying there was nothing else she could do, and gave directions to call when Jaci regained consciousness.

It was a waiting game. Again.

Somebody commed his mother and Gwen. They arrived while the VN examined Jaci. He didn’t talk to them. He couldn’t, not without losing it, but they stuck close to him and did what they do best, love and support him.

Not long after, Xander kicked everybody out of the apartment with quiet thank-yous and promises to call. As he closed the door behind the last of them, he turned toward the bed. He was near a total loss of control. He took the minutes he needed to clamp down on his emotions and focus on his responsibility.

He walked around the bed and surveyed the battered form of the woman he loved. She still looked near death, despite the assurances from the VN that she would be okay.

She was a mess. After filling a bowl with warm water and grabbing a washrag, he began cleaning her. With a tentative hand, he tenderly wiped her face with the warm water, washing away the blood under her nose and the grime from her cheeks. His hands trembled with unreleased rage that he forced himself to push away as he continued his task. But that emotion was quickly replaced by another. His throat tightened, the muscles squeezed away his ability to swallow. He cut her shirt off so as not to disturb the IV in her arm. Earlier, he saw the ripped shirt, but his mind, at the time, rejected the direction of that train of thought. But now, he let himself go there. If they’d raped her…

Tears rolled silently down his face while he methodically cleaned her arms and torso. Her wrists were marred by deep bruises and worn away skin from being cuffed too tightly and for too long. When he cleaned the dried blood on the inside of her arm and found the needle mark underneath, the sudden surge of rage that he felt made him want to kill. They drugged her.