Page 52 of Taken for Granite
“Do you remember when I was a little girl and I read stories to you?” She moved toward the door and Tas moved back, keeping his distance.
“Little Rhoda.” That had been a long time ago. She used to skip excitedly down the corridors, the leather of her shoes slapping against the concrete slab floors. Her parents, both Syndicate agents, encouraged her visitation. They wanted her to familiarize herself with the creature in the cage, not befriend it. He didn’t think Rhoda got the message.
Tas snarled. “I was not your pet then, and I am not your toy now.”
She tilted her head and frowned. “You hated any show of kindness back then. Still do. Is that why you didn’t run? Too proud to accept the least bit of help from the enemy?”
Her question shook him. “What?”
“Why didn’t you run, Tas? Do you know how many years it took to plan your transfer? To convince Eastwick? How clever and sly I had to be to ship you across the ocean in a wooden crate? How carefully I counted your calories to make sure the cuffs would be loose at the end of your journey? How much information I had to spoon-feed to that store-brand thug? I practically handed you to him on a silver platter and he still managed to bungle it. All that work for nothing.” She made a disappointed clicking sound with her tongue. “You failed to run and now you’re back. For this?”
She patted the pocket holding the sigil, watching him for his reaction.
Tas schooled his expression to remain passive and betray nothing.
“No, I think not. Surely it’s not the girl? You understand that I had no intentions of keeping her.” She circled around him slowly, studying him. “Must be the woman.”
Tas tensed and his tail slapped against his leg.
“Interesting.”
“To display compassion? Humans claim to exhibit the emotion but I have seen precious little from your lot.” Years of captivity weighed on him. He was exhausted. “Let’s just have out with it. Why did you let me go?”
“Because I’m your friend,” Rhododendron replied with a straight face.
A loud bark of disbelieving laughter tore out of his throat. His friend? His captor claimed to be hisfriend.
Her icy blue eyes narrowed. “Eastwick wanted to dissect you ages ago. I convinced him that learning about Khargal psyche was more valuable than cutting open another corpse.”
“Delaying an execution does not make you a friend,” he snapped. Juniper had shown him more kindness and true friendship in five days than Rhododendron had her entire life. He was a fool to ever suspect Juniper of being a Syndicate agent. No amount of acting talent could hide her compassionate soul.
Grack. He had feelings for the human. The thing he swore he would not do, he did. He willingly walked into a Syndicate compound with nothing but his wits, as feeble as they were, to rescue Juniper’s sibling. The sigil was a distant second, he now realized.
And now his handler knew he had an emotional entanglement. They would come after her as leverage against him. He needed to get back to Juniper quickly.
Rhododendron tossed him the sigil. The faint red light brightened at his touch. It recognized him.
“What does it do?” she asked.
Tas closed his hand around the device, not willing to access the message in front of her.
She rolled her eyes. “Take it, but you should know we can track them within a two-kilometer radius. If you keep moving, you should stay ahead of us.”
“Why are you helping?” Especially when she recently had Frelinray locked in a holding cell?
She gave him an empty smile. “I told you and you didn’t believe me.”
Friends. Unlikely.
Rhododendron shook her head, as if she knew what he was thinking. She probably did. “Call it my rebellious phase. My parents were fanatics. They spent all their lives hunting down more of your kind and they neglected me. Poor little daughter of monster hunters.” She moved her hands at the corner of her eyes in mock tears.
While she jested, Tas suspected that she spoke the truth. Her captive prisoner really had been her only friend.
“The American branch doesn’t have the same quality as the London office, but they do seem keen on acquiring specimens. I won’t be able to keep the Americans from coming after you,” she said. “Take your woman and disappear. But before you go, strike me.”
He knew it was to make the situation appear as if she failed to capture him, rather than sabotage, but he found little pleasure in hitting a defenseless opponent.
With an open palm and not using stone to harden his skin, he struck her across the face. Her lip split. She touched her fingers to the bleeding wound and nodded.
