Page 71 of Villains and Vengeance
‘You can’t kill her,’ Maddox reminds him. ‘We need her or we’re never getting out of here. We have two days before we need to deliver her to Dante. We need to get the location out of her by then.’
‘I volunteer,’ I say. ‘I have more restraint thanothersseem to where she’s concerned.’ I smirk. ‘Ineveryway, it seems.’
I give Daemon a pointed look though I’m not just talking about him. He sneers at me, throwing himself into a chair at the table without a word.
Maddox rolls his eyes in annoyance. ‘We don’t have time for squabbles. Pack it in the both of you.’
I nod and Daemon does too, but as usual he looks like a petulant child who’s been denied a lollipop.
‘Get on with it,’ Maddox tells me. ‘But no physical damage and,’ he taps the side of his head, ‘nothing irreparable.’
I give him the briefest of nods, but my first thought is that I’ll do whatever I have to do to make sure we get out of here and Maddox knows it. She better play ball or the next few hours aren’t going to go well for her at all. This, for better or worse, is where my skills outside my budding magick truly lie and I’m not being conceited when I say I’m very. Fucking. Good. At. It.
I frown as I consider the many options though, second guessing my plan of extracting information from her because I realize that if I do treat the fully human girl the way I was going to, like a supe locked in our dungeon at home, I doubt she’ll live past the first hour.
But I do have my new skills.
Granted she seems to be resistant to the direct approach. She didn’t crack when I was asking the questions and trying to make her answer the last time, but Iwasable to get her to do what I wanted in a roundabout way when I had her and the others come to me in the tunnels.
Maddox walks across the room and peers through his doorway at her. His fingers delve into his breast pocket but his hand is still empty when he pulls it out a moment later. His expression gives nothing away, but I know Maddox. He has a plan and I need one too; I can’t let him and the clan down.
I go to stand next to him, looking into the room where she’s sitting on the bed and trying to pretend she’s not terrified.
‘Get started,’ he mutters, not looking at me. ‘No more delays no matter what.’
CHAPTER15
JULES
My throat feels bruised as I watch Iron enter the room.
I’m tied to a chair. Everything else has been removed.
I try not to think about what Iron is going to do to me in here to try to get me to talk, and I stare him down because he’s not going to break me.
He doesn’t bring anything in with him and I wonder at that because I thought there would beimplements, tools he’s improvised or scavenged because I doubt he’s the only supe in here who’s trained to extract information from someone.
But all he does is pull up a chair and look into my eyes. He stares at me, pushes at me with his magick. I can feel it trying to get through my mental barriers, but he’s coming at me head-on and I know that move. I’m experienced in that move, prepared for that move. It won’t work on me.
But I don’t tell him that. It’s not like he’d believe me. And maybe he’ll spend so long trying that he’ll tire himself out prematurely.
After an hour or so, I can tell he starts to get impatient because his breathing changes and he starts to fidget.
‘Tell me, Jules,’ he spits the name. ‘Did you get on your knees and beg them to fuck you? How long for?’
‘What do you think?’ I ask.
He snorts. ‘I think they must have been starving and desperate to touchyou. That.’
He gives my body, still half-undressed, a slow perusal that makes me want to look away. But I don’t give him the satisfaction of seeing my discomfort.
‘You’ve lost weight,’ he comments.
‘Thanks.’
He gives me a disgusted look. ‘It wasn’t a compliment. You look sick.’
He gets up and starts walking around my chair, staring at me.
