Page 6 of The Hangman's Rope

“Option two is what?” she asked.

“Option two is you fucking cooperate with me, and as long as you cooperate with me and stay inside the lines that I lay out for you – you get treated like a human being. Clean rooms, indoor plumbing, clothes, two to three meals a day, books to read, TV to watch, and an air-conditioned place to stay in with windows to look out of.”

“Please don’t kill me,” she whispered.

“I can’t promise that,” I told her. “All I can promise is that it’s up to you on how well you’re treated while we figure this shit out. If it comes down to it, I’ll make it so quick you won’t even know it happened.”

She started to cry.

“I don’t know anything. I don’t want to die. Please…”

“Listen,” I told her. “I don’t think you’re gonna die, but you need to know, the rest of these guys don’t play. I’m willing to work with you. Will you work with me?”

She nodded, her head bobbing so quickly I thought it might come off.

Synister came back down in our direction and said to me, “Should be good to move her.”

“Grim,” I called. “Need you to take over for a minute while I have a chat with Syn.”

“I got you,” Grim said.

“Cooperate,” I whispered in her ear and she nodded dumbly. I passed her off to Grim and said, “She won’t make a move, but stay on her a minute for me.”

Grim grasped her wrist lightly and stood in front of her while she clasped my flannel to cover herself.

I walked to the double doors where Syn waited and stepped out into the hallway with him.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“I think I’ve got her under control,” I said.

He smirked.

“The sound of the crypt put the fear of God into her?”

“And then some,” I agreed.

“I meant it,” he said.

“It’s a good deterrent from her getting out of line, I think,” I said. “For now, I think she’ll do okay at my place.”

Syn nodded. “Hadn’t thought of that, to be honest,” he said.

“I’m up for it,” I told him, glancing back through the windows in the doors to see Grim standing fast, talking to her. He’d relinquished his hold on her wrist and she was slipping into my shirt more fully.

“What the fuck is going on with this one?” I asked Syn and he sighed.

“Legit not a hundred percent sure,” he said. “Nobody ran disposing of this little girl by me butsomebodyknew the procedure.”

“Shit,” I muttered.

“Ain’t no freebies,” Syn said, staring past me. Lorelai had turned her back and was fumbling with the shirt’s buttons, her head bowed, her long, long hair mussed and a bit of a tangled rat’s nest.

“She give you anything more?” he asked.

“Says she doesn’t remember. I believe her. What do you think that is?”

“Not sure, but I’ve got the doc on speed dial to run some tests. There’s some kind of buzz in the streets about some new designer drug. Lowers inhibitions in micro doses, easy to overdo it, though. Lot of questions coming up in a lot of hospitals. It might be something. They call it corpse weed. In a regular full dose, it takes the mind for a ride but paralyzes the body. There’s a real potential for abuse. Could be the newest thing to roofie some chicks into submission. We haven’t heard of it in Savannah yet, but that doesn’t mean it’s not here. Fucks with the memory which is why it has my attention here. It’s a whole lot of bad for business. Not sure I like the sound of it.”

---