Page 166 of Deep Cover

I found one old nanny cam that appeared to have died back in the days when nanny cameras were a thing.

Listening devices I couldn't do anything about. Unless I found them. Which was unlikely. Bugs and trackers got smaller with every iteration and iterations seem to come about daily.

After securing my cell – and obviously trapping myself in it – I started going over it again for any exits. I'd done this, of course. Over and over. But this time I took special care, going over the doors, all of which opened out so the hinges weren't on my side. On the off chance, I tried the doors.

Of course they were locked.

Finally, I poked at the ceiling but it was every bit as real as I could imagine. Finally I showered a final time and looked at the time. It was past midnight.

I lay down on the bed to catnap.

And woke to find Cole leaning over the bed, the needle of a hypodermic already lodged in my elbow.

"Annie."

I woke with a violent start. Instantly I tried to kick back across the bed, partly to drive him away, partly to backstroke my way away from him.

He pushed the plunger in and I saw his wicked grin in the seconds before the world floated away from me.

"Fuck you," I whispered just before the darkness took me.

"Fuck you, sir," I heard and I was gone.

When I woke, I was strapped obscenely into some bizarre medical chair. My arms were restrained over my head and my naked body was strapped to some kind of mutated dental chair. My legs were separated widely, pushed up and back toward my chest. I was more spread eagled than being spread eagled.

Cole was moving purposefully around the lab.

"You need to be awake," he said. "So I gave you a relatively light dose that's fast acting. How are you feeling?"

I didn't answer. I didn't look at him. I could feel the cold air on parts of me I never wanted exposed. I was crawling with fury and humiliation.

Cole sighed. "Annie, this is happening. There's not a damned thing you can do to stop me. I don't want to have to hurt you which I can do easily if you don't give me feedback, and I don't want to have to hurt you to get you to give me feedback! Could you just fucking submit?"

"Why are you doing this?"

He leaned in close and I thought again how beautiful he was, the wicked trickster face, the lean, muscled body and that delighted grin like a child getting his way.

"Because I can. And because this is to keep you safe. Did you listen to me at all?"

I turned my face away and didn't answer.

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