Patient Z (27 page)

“I have a proposition that will be to your advantage if you agree. And I told you. No tricks. I’ll put myself in your hands.” He stopped and laughed, which felt like someone poking a needle into Mitch’s spine. “Not literally. You know I don’t play for your team.”

“You can’t imagine how happy that makes me.” Mitch glanced at Bren, raised his eyebrows questioningly. She shrugged without unfolding her arms. A couple more people had come into the room. Council members. Mitch’s heart sank when he realized it wasn’t in his power to deny or accept Ethan’s request alone. There’d have to be a vote.

“You want to talk, we’re talking,” he said. “What’s your proposition?”

“Not like this. I have no idea who’s listening in. I want to talk to just you and Bren.”

“You aren’t getting anywhere near Bren.”

“Oh, fuck off, Mitch. She’s not a delicate flower. She can even kick my ass if she wants to. I just want to talk.” Most of the council were in the room now, all listening in. “If you agree to what I propose, your damn rig will be safe. And that’s all you care about, right? Agree to my proposition, and you’ll never hear from me again.” Mitch stared at Bren, who stared right back. Well, what the hell?

“Stand by.” Mitch gestured at Vera to silence the connection. She flicked a switch and nodded.

“He can’t hear you,” she said. Mitch turned to the council.

“You all heard him. Do we allow him aboard to see what he has to say?”

“No way,” Ella said. “He’s a snake. This is some kind of trick.”

“He sounded quite sincere to me,” Dolores said.

“He sounded quite sincere when he claimed he wasn’t
really
planning to rape Bren after he’d knocked her out,” Ella pointed out with a prosecutor’s way of hitting the nail on the head. Bren’s expression didn’t change, but color rose in her cheeks. She shouldn’t have to see Ethan again. She wouldn’t have had to, even at a distance, if he hadn’t escaped from their holding cell after they’d tried and found him guilty of attacking Bren. Mitch would have taken him for a trip on a boat and come back without him, but he got away, and he was back, and Bren should not have to look him in the eye again.

“Can’t we at least listen to what he has to say?” Dolores said. “If he means what he says—”

“Vote,” snapped Ella. “Anyone in favor of letting that lying rapist back aboard with some trick up his sleeve, raise your damn fool hands.”

“Ella!” Dolores snapped right back, sounding outraged. Mitch had to smother a laugh. Ella sure knew how to frame a proposition to get the result she wanted. But she’d been too aggressive about it, and the discussion went on, and there was much talk of just hearing what he had to say.

“Okay, vote!” Bren shouted after a while, clearly ready to be done with this. “Decide now. For? Against?” Mitch and Ella were the only ones who voted against. Bren didn’t raise her hand for either. When Mitch looked at her, puzzled, she shrugged. “Abstaining. Conflict of interest.” Then she smiled grimly. “Also, I am quite interested in his offer to let me kick his ass.”

Mitch didn’t want to be the one to tell Ethan he’d got his way. “I’m going to prepare a suite for our guest,” he growled and stomped out of the room. He radioed Cal and asked him to join Mitch in the holding cell they’d first got to know each other in. Cal arrived a few minutes later, with his rifle, looking curious.

“Ethan is coming aboard,” Mitch said. “He wants to talk.”

“Fuck that. Can we shoot him?”

Mitch smiled. “I…I wish we could. But he’s coming in under a flag of truce.”

“So?” Cal said. “What’s going to happen? Will the UN send us a sharp note?”

“Cal, I like your thinking. But the council has voted to hear him out. He wants to talk to me and Bren. I want you in the room on guard.”

“Why me?”

“Because he’ll consider you a bigger threat than any of the women.”

“He’s clearly a total idiot, then.”

* * * *

They made Ethan climb a rope ladder right up to the deck of the rig, and he arrived panting, red-faced and sweating, making it very easy for Mitch and Bren to shove him to the deck and cuff his hands behind him.

“Easy,” he protested about Bren’s knee in his back. “I’m cooperating!”

“Keep still,” Mitch ordered. “I’m going to search you. If you have anything in your pockets that’s going to annoy me, I suggest you tell me now.”

“Just get it over with and don’t get off on it,” Ethan said. Mitch frisked him efficiently, feeling almost nostalgic. It was just like the old days of making a rather rough arrest.

“And make sure you keep that crazy
chica
who nearly scratched my eyes out away from me,” Ethan said. Bren pulled her handgun and pressed it into the back of his neck.

“You trying to piss me off, you dick?” she demanded. “Because I am this close to finishing you right now.”

“Mitch won’t let you, will he?” Ethan asked, grinning back over his shoulder, ignoring the pistol muzzle jammed into his neck.

“I don’t tell her what to do,” Mitch said, but Ethan didn’t seem to believe it. “Okay, he’s unarmed. Let’s go.”

A few minutes later he dragged the cuffed Ethan into the room they’d set up for him. Bren followed, poking Ethan with her handgun if he didn’t move fast enough. They found Cal leaning against the wall, fiddling with the action of his rifle, but when they came in, he straightened up and pointed his rifle at Ethan.

“My old room, how considerate,” Ethan said as Mitch pulled him inside. He spotted Cal. “Hello, who’s this? New boy?”

“Quiet,” Mitch ordered. He shoved Ethan into a prepared chair, strapped one arm into the restraints on it, then undid the cuffs and restrained the other. Bren meanwhile fastened restraints around Ethan’s ankles to secure them to the chair.

“Honestly, you guys, this is so over-the-top,” Ethan said. “I’m not Hannibal Lecter, you know.”

“We know,” Bren said. “This is just for fun.”

“It’ll be even more fun when we bring out the Taser,” Cal said.

“A cheeky one, eh?” He looked Cal up and down. “You are a guy, right? You’re not just one of the more butch members of Mitch’s harem?”

Bren punched him, a proper right hook across the jaw that Mitch had to admire the execution of. Ethan’s head snapped back and then slumped forward, blood on his mouth. But as good a punch as it was, Mitch couldn’t approve of it on a moral level.

“Bren, please,” he said. “He’s restrained.”

“Hit him again,” Cal suggested, earning a glare from Mitch. “What? Sounds like he deserves it.”

“Let’s all just calm down,” Mitch said firmly. “We’re going to talk. We’re not going to torture him or shoot him. Calm down.”

Cal shrugged and took a step back, keeping his gun on Ethan. Bren stayed where she was, her pistol also trained on Ethan.

“You must be one of Mitch’s sort if he’s letting you stick around,” Ethan said to Cal. “I assume the two of you are fucking?” When Cal didn’t respond, Ethan looked at him more closely. “Wait, you’re the one who attacked our boats, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. You can call me Han Solo.” Cal grinned. “Only wish I’d blown you out of the water too.”

“Only time you’ll blow me is in your dreams, fag.”

“Cal!” Mitch’s voice snapped him back even as he took a step forward, raising his rifle, reversing it. While Mitch agreed that a sharp clip round the ear with a rifle butt would improve Ethan’s personality immeasurably, they needed to get this done and get him out of here. He gave Cal a look, appealing to him to stay calm. Mitch needed him focused.
Don’t let this little cockroach get under your skin.

Bren, her face still flushed, but looking more in control of herself, sat down, arms folded, opposite Ethan. He smiled at her, but it didn’t crack the grim frown she wore. Mitch gave Cal one more warning look, then sat beside Bren.

“Okay,” Mitch said. “You’re here. We’re here. Say what you want to say.”

“I said I wanted to speak to you two,” Ethan said. “Not you two and Mitch’s bed warmer.”

“Tough. He’s on guard. Get over it.”

“Okay, fine. Here’s my proposition. I’ve had a setback, yeah, with that last attack. But it won’t take me long to get a new fleet together. Or men. When I tell them about this rig full of women, they get interested real fast.”

“So? We’ll see you off again.” Mitch sounded confident, but inside he worried. Cal’s surprise intervention had won the day this time. That wouldn’t happen next time.

“And I’ll keep on coming,” Ethan said. “I’m like the zombies that way. I just keep coming. And one day, I’ll win. Unless…” He paused, nobody spoke, breaths held.

Mitch blinked first. “Unless what?”

“We call a truce,” Ethan said. “I never bother you again. I only want one thing in return.” Ethan nodded at Bren. “Her.”

“No.” Mitch’s refusal was fast and unequivocal.

“It’s only ever been for you, babe,” Ethan said, talking directly to Bren. “I don’t care about anything else.”

“Fuck you,” she snarled.

“I love you, Bren. Always have. Come with me, and this place is safe.”

“And all the rest of your men?” Mitch asked. “We’re supposed to believe they’ll give up on the idea of getting their hands on the women here?”

“You think they want to get killed attacking this place? There are easier targets. They’ll agree like a shot.”

Mitch could believe that. He also had to wonder if Ethan was having trouble keeping his men motivated for another try at the rig.

“You’re not taking Bren,” Mitch said. “So forget it.”

“Numbers, Kennedy. Numbers. Her in exchange for the safety of the rest. Nobody has to know you agreed to this. I’ll give you five days. She just slips away and comes to me. And that’s it. You never see me again. She doesn’t come, then maybe I start looking for boats at that naval base. Ones with serious fucking guns. Shells. Because if I can’t take this place, I’d be happy to settle for blowing it the fuck out of the water!”

Cal jumped in close and jammed his gun into Ethan’s neck as Ethan strained forward. Bren and Mitch shoved their chairs back and jumped up.

“Mitch,” Bren snapped. “You and me. Outside. We have to talk.”

Mitch had a horrible feeling he knew what Bren was going to say when they got outside and sent two more guards back into the room, mostly to keep Cal from killing Ethan.

“I’ll go with him,” she said, turning to him as soon as they were alone.

“No, you won’t. I won’t let you.”

“You don’t tell me what to do, Mitch.”

“If I have to, I’ll chain you up like we did to Cal. You’re not going.”

“Come on, Mitch.” She forced on a smile. “Give me a month there, and I’ll be running the damn place.”

“You don’t really believe that. He doesn’t want you for your military expertise, Bren.”

“He wouldn’t get anything else from me.”

Mitch shook his head. She talked so tough, but he saw the fear in her eyes. Fear she wanted to hide from Mitch.

“He’s not going to give you a choice. And we need you, Bren. The women need you.
I
need you.”

“You used to need me. Now you have Cal.” She didn’t sound jealous or bitter about it. Almost happy that he had someone.

“What?” Mitch shook his head, baffled. “What I’ve got with him is very different from what we have. And what about Inez?”

Bren looked away. “She…she’ll be okay. She’s stronger now.”

“She loves you.” He raised a hand to silence her protest. “I don’t know the details, and they’re none of my business.”

“I am not sleeping with Inez!”

“That’s as may be, but she’s in love with you. And if you go, you’ll either break her again, or she’ll follow you. Is that what you want, for her to end up as the plaything of one of Ethan’s thugs? You know that’s what would happen.”

“Shut up, damn you.” Bren’s voice cracked. “I have to do it. You’ll be safe. You’ll all be safe.”

“And you actually believe him?”

She looked down, shook her head. “Shit. No, I guess not. Of course he won’t keep his word.”

“So enough of this talk about giving in to him, please. He could be full of total bull about getting new boats and men. Hell, his own men might have already tossed him out. He came here alone, after all.”

“Maybe we should keep him and see how many of them show up to find him,” she suggested.

“He’s not staying here one second longer than necessary,” Mitch said. “In fact I’d say he’s already outstayed his welcome. Let’s get rid of him.”

They went back in and stood by the chair.

“No deal,” Mitch said. “Now get off my rig.”

They released him from the chair and got him on his feet. Cal looked entirely disgusted. He presumably wanted to use Ethan as a hostage. Or zombie bait.

“There’s still time,” Ethan said to Bren. “Got five days, remember?” A look passed between Mitch and Bren, and Mitch gave a small shake of his head.

“Not even in five years, buddy,” she said.

“You’ll regret it if you don’t. Especially you, Kennedy, when you watch me slit your boyfriend’s throat.” He slashed his finger across his throat, looking at Cal as he made the ugly gesture. Cal moved forward, but he wasn’t as fast as Mitch, whose fist snapped up in an uppercut to the jaw. Ethan went down like a sack of potatoes. Cal stared at Mitch.

“Okay,” Bren said. “I’ll handle him.” She slapped the cuffs on him, securing his arms behind his back. “Come on, ladies, let’s throw this pig back in his boat.” She grabbed the groaning Ethan by the collar and dragged him out of the room, the other two guards following.

Mitch rubbed the hand he’d hit Ethan with. Never hit a man with a closed fist without gloves, dammit. His dad had taught him that when he was five.

“Did you hurt yourself?” Cal asked. He slung his rifle on his back and went over to take Mitch’s hand. He planted a couple of kisses on the bruised knuckles.

“Cal,” Mitch sighed out. “Yeah, it hurt. Don’t know what I was thinking.”

“It looked like a no-thinking-involved moment,” Cal said. “Pure instinct. And, I’ll be honest here, kind of sexy.”

“Sexy? You’re kidding.”

“No. I’m a little turned on.”

Mitch laughed and ran his other hand through Cal’s hair. “It was instinct, like you say. To protect you. He meant what he said.”