Page 76 of Silent Comrade
No one else was in the room. He listenedwith his antidote-diminished ability. Damn the limitation. Peeringat the table, he didn’t understand what he saw. Shouldn’t there befinished pieces of clothing?
She made a choked, gurgling sound and walkedtwo halting steps forward, picking up random fistfuls of fabric.Ragged pieces drifted back to the tabletop. A button clinkedagainst the metal table and rolled onto the floor, out ofsight.
She opened her mouth. No sound came out.
Half turning in his direction, the electricblue of her eyes lasered into him. Desperate. Pleading. Layeredwith pain. Her mouth gaped.
Oh, shit.
“What the … I don’t … It’s. All gone,” shegasped.
He reached for her, but she ducked away,rushing around the table. With jerking motions, she held up morepieces, then let them fall between her fingers.
“My project. Oh my God.”
She staggered a few steps and thudded herback against the wall, sliding down until she sat on the concretefloor right in front of floor-to-ceiling windows. He didn’t havethe heart to tell her it was an unsafe location to collapse.
Her harsh gurgles got his attention. Tearsrolled down her face. That blank stare of desperation gutted him ashe sat down on the floor next to her.
“What happened?” she said, dropping her headinto her palms. “What happened?”
“I can find out—” He dug for his phone, tookone look at her, and abandoned the task. “Come this way, sweets.Away from the window.” Tugging her into the vee of his legs, hepulled her quaking body flush against him, hugging her tightly tohis chest, surrounding her with as much of himself as he could. Hewanted her to draw strength from him.
To what end?
Damn it.
To no end. There was no future.
For the present, though, Red sure as hellwould help by any means necessary. Even now, the silent shakes ofher shoulders twisted his heart in ways he had never experiencedbefore.
“It’s ruined,” she whispered.
The vulnerable voice coming from thissparkling, bold woman triggered a heated rage that slowly grew deepinside of him until it threatened to boil over.
“I can find out what happened,” he finallysaid.
“Really?” Her voice cracked on the word.
He pressed his lips to the crown of herhead. “We have surveillance cameras set up here.”
He took the sniff and a nod as permission.Drawing his knees up to better bracket her with his body, hesettled her deeper against his torso. The way she turned to oneside and sagged against him, cheek pressed to his chest and botharms clutched around his midsection, both terrified him and madehim feel a million feet tall.
“When were you last in here? Yesterdayafternoon?”
A nod.
Pulling up the app, he scrolled back throughvideo feeds of this room over the past day. Black and white imagesfilled the screen. Britt leaving in the early evening yesterday,before she went out to the club. More hours passed with a fewstudents working at their stations. Then late lastnight—no, this morning—he caught flickers of movement on the screen. Hebacked up and slowed down the replay.
Just after midnight a woman wearing a darkBalenciaga hoodie entered the lab, headed right over the Britt’stable, and cut into the fabric for ten minutes with a pair ofscissors. She even took extra time to distribute the piles ofruined clothing evenly over the surfaces. Once finished, the womanset the scissors down next to the sewing machine and walked out. Hecaught a wink of pale hair, perfectly manicured long nails, andenough of a facial profile for identification.
Jenna.
Britt stared at the screen with Red. “Whatthe heck? Seriously,” she said, a sob tearing out of her. “Whywould anyone do this? To me? I’m no one.”
“I’m sorry.” He snaked an arm over herchest. “This meant a lot to you.”
“I need to go to the school with thisvideo.”
