Tainted Hearts (25 page)

“The bad news is from there on you’ll have
to take utility passageways and evacuation stairwells or your
weapons will set off alarms. I hope you like stairs,” Phil informed
without turning around. “Come on,” he muttered, his fingers making
several rapid adjustments. “Did Bettencourt mention what frequency
he was using on your lady friend?”

“No. It was a pinhead audio/visual
transmitter.”

Phil chuckled. “All right. Let’s see if he’s
grown complacent in his old age.” An image appeared on the monitor
in front of him and he laughed again. “Thank God he’s
predictable.”

Marc recognized the lobby of the stronghold.
Tuesday sat against the windows, fiddling with one of their
brochures.

“I’ll keep you informed of every move she
makes,” Phil continued. “You stay in the stairwells unless things
turn sour. Remember you’re just a safety net.”

Clinging tenaciously to the fact she wasn’t
alone, Tuesday waited in the lobby for an escort. She hoped Job
would send Rahab, but the dour-faced blond man rounded the corner
from the elevators and approached.

“Where’s your friend?”

He sounded disappointed. Tuesday’s voice
lodged in her throat. “What’s your name?” Trying to mimic his cold
tone, she ended up sounding even more upset.

“Master is what you’ll call me, when Job
entrusts you to my care.”

His arrogance allowed her to relax a bit.
“If my involvement in PURE is contingent upon submitting to you,
I’ll channel my energies elsewhere.”

His sand-colored eyebrow angled upward, but
he didn’t reply.

Her sigh of relief proved premature as they
reached the elevator. He scanned open the lift as he’d done before
but remained inside when the door slid shut. Without turning
around, he began speaking. “Job spoils his pets. I believe in the
rod. I’ve found interesting uses for the rod. Painfully pleasurable
uses. You better never displease Job, or he’ll give you to me. I’ll
relish the opportunity to use my rod on you.” His harsh laughter
made her shiver. “To use both my rods on you.”

The door opened and he strode into the
foyer. Had that been a motivational speech? She pressed her lips
tightly together to keep from laughing. This was not funny!

“What do you find amusing?” Job asked from
the salon.

Compared to the goon, Job seemed normal. The
thought pushed her over the edge. She chuckled and then
laughed.

Humiliated and terrified, she turned around
and battled her emotions into submission. But realizing how well
Job would like her metaphor, she found herself laughing all over
again.

Job’s slender white hands touched her
shoulders and she started violently. “I’m sorry. I laugh when I’m
nervous and you’ve got me tied in knots.”

Truth rang through her words and his hands
moved to her upper arms. “I don’t mean to make you nervous. I
invited you here to put you at ease.”

She turned, glaring at the other man over
Job’s shoulder. “Then why did you send him for me? You should have
heard what he said in the elevator.”

“David has a fondness for discipline, so I
give him those in need of its sting.”

“What is his Purity Rating?”

Her question clearly startled Job. “David is
a medical mystery. Though he willingly partook of temptation, his
rating remains 0.0.”

“My penance overcame the mutation,” David
announced proudly.

“So you claim,” Job muttered. “I’ve found no
scriptural justification for your chosen means of penance, but we
meet each other’s needs.”

“He makes me uncomfortable.” She tried to
move away from Job, but his hands remained on her upper arms.
“Please make him leave.”

“Sorry, I can’t do that. You see, new
information has come to light that I find most distressing.” His
hands slid down her arms, circled her wrists and dragged them to
the small of her back. She twisted and arched away. He anchored her
against him, pulling viciously on her hands. Something snapped in
her right wrist and white-hot pain shot up her arm. A strangled
scream tore from her throat and she stopped struggling.

“What new information? What are you talking
about?” She panted. Pain spiked up her right arm with each harsh
breath.

“Who kidnapped you?” he asked casually.
“What was his name?”

“Why would my abductor tell me his
name?”

A salacious smile parted his lips while he
rubbed suggestively against her pelvis. “Because whatever he did to
you while he held you captive, you liked well enough to keep him
around. Who’s your tainted lover, Tuesday? Tell me his name.”

All of her mental cautions echoed back,
mocking her. She’d walked right into his trap. How long would they
wait to rescue her? What could they do? They couldn’t get beyond
the lobby without an escort. Marc was right. All Bettencourt had
done was provide them with a front row seat for her
degradation.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,”
she whispered. “And I think you broke my wrist.”

What was Marc’s backup plan? What could he
do that the general couldn’t? Terror gave way to a calm certainty.
If she waited to be rescued, she would die.

“Stop struggling and you won’t be damaged.”
Job made a snarling sound and spun her around, quickly trapping her
arms against her sides. “You’re right, David. She needs discipline.
Shall we show her what happens when someone refuses to submit to
you?”

David’s stoic features became animated with
malevolent pleasure. “Oh, yes. Let her see.” He shoved a large
chair to one side, revealing a person curled in the fetal position,
so badly bruised his skin appeared purple. Raised welts and
depressed gouges distorted the shape of his flesh, but miraculously
the skin wasn’t broken. Not a drop of blood had escaped. “Elihu
never surrendered, so I was compelled to press on.”

She didn’t ask if the poor creature was
still alive. He was either dead or comatose.

And she was next.

Think! What does he want from you? What will
deescalate his anger?

“What must I do to prove my submission?” she
cried, pain making her lightheaded. “I honestly don’t know his
name.”

“You don’t know your lover’s name?” Job
sneered. “I think she needs a live demonstration. Go get
Rahab.”

“No!” She threw her weight forward, then
slammed her head back into his chin. He stumbled. For a moment, she
was free.

His hand caught in her hair and searing pain
ignited her scalp. She screamed. He pulled her head back, twisting
her hair around his fist. Catching her injured wrist, he jerked it
behind her back and forced her to follow David down the
hallway.

Lights sparked before her eyes and bile rose
into her throat. She had to get away from them or a fractured wrist
would be the least of her problems.

“You will watch Rahab’s demonstration of
obedience,” he sneered into her ear. “She is not fully trained, but
you can learn much from her example.”

She kicked at the walls and used her free
arm to impede their progress, all the while fighting her need to
throw up. He shoved her, propelling her as much with her tangled
hair as with her twisted arm.

“Why are you doing this?” A sob tore from
her throat. “I’m not unwilling. Why are you hurting me?”

He shoved her into an office, his panting
breath filling her ear. “Because, little liar, Elise Sinclair now
has one of your gizmos purring away in her chest. There’s only one
way it could have gotten there. You must really think I’m a
fool.”

Slowly, Tuesday licked her lips. He knew. He
knew everything. Perhaps not everything. Did he know who Rahab was?
Had he guessed her purpose for being here?

“Elise is an innocent child. Should I have
let her die?”

He spun her around to face him, his hand
finally releasing her hair. “Yes!” he snarled. “She is cursed. God
intended that she die. You are not God!” His lips pressed together,
almost as if he were fighting back tears, but those star-shielded
eyes made it impossible to determine his emotions. “Why would you
do this to me? Why would you spread your thighs for the enemy? I
must despise you now. I must.”

With the speed of a striking snake, his hand
tangled in her hair again. She whimpered, pressing her injured arm
against her chest, as he forced her to her knees.

He jerked her head to the side. “Classroom
C, visual only.”

She didn’t understand the voice command
until one of the monitors inset in the wall flickered to life.
Sydney sat at a table with six other women. An instructor calmly
explained the three-dimensional graph projecting from the center of
the table.

“No!” Panic and fury choked her, robbed her
of breath. He would not twist Sydney into one of his followers. She
forced air past her burning throat and unclenched her jaw. “I’ll do
whatever you want. Don’t hurt—”

“Sydney is here of her own free will,” he
snapped. “She shares the PURE vision. I only showed her to you to
help you understand that you are expendable. If you continue to be
unreasonable, I will fulfill my destiny with Sydney by my
side.”

No
! She repeated the word silently,
unwilling to reveal the full depth of her terror. She had to
protect Sydney no matter what it took. “If I stay with you, will
you let her go?”

Before he could respond, a muttered curse
and several violent thuds drew her attention toward the open
doorway. David came into view, wrestling Rahab down the hall. His
arm banded her waist and trapped one of her hands, but she clawed
and kicked, lodging herself against the walls of the corridor.

This
was the epitome of
obedience?

“You touch me again, you son of a bitch, and
I’ll kill you. I swear to God, I will.”

Desolation echoed in the words and Tuesday
looked more closely at Rahab. Her face was bruised, as was her
neck. Had someone been choking her?

“Please, Job.” Despite the pain it caused
her, she turned her head and looked up at him. “I don’t need a
demonstration. She’s obviously suffered enough.”

“She hasn’t begun to suffer,” David
promised, jerking her away from the wall and shoving her into the
office. “You want more of what you got last night? You settled down
fast enough once I was inside you.”

Using the massive desk as a vault, Rahab
launched herself at David, toppling him with her backward momentum.
His head collided with the doorframe and a sickening crack echoed
in the office.

Not pausing to assess the damage, Rahab
advanced on Job.

His hands released Tuesday. She pivoted,
still on her knees, and drove her elbow hard into his groin. He
howled, dropping to a graceless heap beside her.

Rahab wasn’t satisfied with his pain-filled
moaning. She knelt, her knees flush with his back. Hooking her arm
around his head, she snapped his neck.

Stunned and horrified, Tuesday stared in
macabre fascination. Rahab made it look so easy. How could this be
Raeanne Rawsen, gently reared daughter of the president?

“I just murdered two men,” Rahab stated
calmly. “Do you want to stick around?”

Tuesday struggled to her feet and pointed to
the monitor. “I’m not leaving without my sister.”

The red haze gradually dissipated as Marc
felt Tuesday’s fear recede. He stopped struggling against Geoff’s
hold.

“Are you ready to behave?” the soldier
asked. “Phil warned me that you’d try to be a hero.”

Marc let lose a string of profanity that
made Geoff laugh. “What—is—going—on?” Ragged breaths separated his
angry words. “Are Bettencourt and Phil in bed together?”

“I don’t think either would appreciate the
analogy and the answer is no. Bettencourt is running some sort of
Black Ops shit. Phil didn’t have time to figure out the
specifics.”

Marc panted, scrambling to make sense of it
all. Marc hadn’t been able to see what Job was doing, but Tuesday’s
terror made him crazed, ready to tear apart the stronghold to get
to her.

“This isn’t over,” Geoff reminded him. “They
have to find Sydney and get out of the building.”

Marc swallowed, consciously releasing the
tension in each muscle group until he could breathe normally. “The
classrooms are in tower C?” Geoff nodded. “Let’s go.”

They hurried down flight after flight of
stairs. Marc refused to think about his burning muscles or
straining lungs. All the passageways looked the same, yet Geoff
rushed on without hesitation.

“We can’t risk a lift,” Geoff muttered,
glancing over his shoulder. “How are you holding up?”

Desperation gave Marc strength, kept his
body moving. “Go!” was all he said. He would get Tuesday to safety
or die trying.

“Take the corridor to your right,” Phil’s
voice intruded on Marc’s concentration. “It parallels the
classrooms.”

Geoff made the turn. Marc followed close
behind.

“Now go left and you should be able to see
the main hallway.”

After a quick glance through the grilled
window centered in the access door, Geoff ducked to one side of the
opening. Marc inched closer, peering down the adjacent hall.

Rahab stood near one of the doorways
speaking in hushed tones with a tall male instructor. Marc’s heart
gave a mighty lurch. Tuesday lingered back a step, her head bowed,
hair concealing most of her face.

The instructor turned and motioned to
someone in the classroom. A long pause followed. Tuesday and Rahab
both looked up and down the corridor, obviously uncomfortable with
the delay.

“Sydney’s pitching a fit,” Phil told them.
“You better get in there.”

“Stay here,” Geoff insisted.

“Not a chance.”

Geoff pointed to the PURE logo on the front
of his uniform. “Then cover me.”

Marc pulled his pulse pistol out of the back
of his pants as Geoff eased the door open. Moving so fast his body
blurred, Geoff ducked around the corner, paused a moment, then
strode into view.