Page 34 of Traces of Her

A kidnapping and torture situation is never good, but I know him well enough to know he plans on doing some fucking damage. I just need to figure out a way to diffuse the situation in any way possible.

“Where’s Ryder?” I ask, diverting his attention away from Lydia.

“Not in the ground where he belongs,” he scoffs. “He almost fucked the whole thing up. Had to put a bullet in his leg but then I realized that I can use him to fuck with her.” He smiles. “It’s actually pretty perfect, if you think about it.”

I don’t even know where to go from here, let alone where to start. We could play twenty questions all day long, but with his vagueness, it’s not going to get us very far. An aggressive approach isn’t going to work with him, but there has to be a way around his bullshit. He goes against everything I’ve learned as a psychologist working with criminals like him.

Time to try something different.

“If you want me to help, you’re going to need to take me to him first,” I bargain with the back of his head.

Silence fills the air before he finally rises to his feet, turning around to face Rowena and I. “Fine,” he rolls his eyes, brushing past us back into the hallway.

We follow him into another dark room directly across the hall. It’s hard to make him out in the darkness, but it’s Ryder for sure, sitting in the room, strapped to an old dentist chair. His head rests off to the side with his dark hair falling across his forehead. Pushing my luck, I slowly walk over to him with Rowena following behind. When I reach his bloodied thigh, I grab it, pulling his leg closer to me and rip open part of his jeans. He doesn’t move or wince and I quickly look back at Jared standing in the doorway watching us with a bored expression.

“Chill.” He rolls his eyes, yet again. “I gave him some sedatives to knock him out. He was starting to get pretty fucking annoying demanding to see her and it was either sedate him or kill him.”

Inspecting his bullet wound, it isn’tactively bleeding, it was a clean shot in one side and out the other and it doesn’t look infected at all. For now, that is, but we’ll worry about that later.

Jared walks back out of the room, expecting us to follow, which we both do. We have no choice but to submit to him and play his game and usually if you play along, you’re good.

“So,” I start, walking back into the room with the computer screen. “What do you need me for with her?”

“Your brain,” he says matter-of-factly, glancing at me. I raise an eyebrow in question. “You know, all your psychobabble bullshit and how you can fuck with people’s heads. I’ve seen it myself, with your warped reverse psychology manipulation, whatever the fuck type voodoo shit you do.” He stares at me hard. “Go over there and fucking do it.”

I feel Rowena’s gaze on me, I can already sense the questions she has just below the surface. I told her about Jared’s messes and my part in cleaning most of them up. What I failed to mention were the times I engaged and the minds that I fucked with relentlessly.

“Fine,” I say curtly. “But Rowena doesn’t wait with you.”

“Fine,” Jared mocks me. “She can go—”

“I want to wait here,” she cuts him off. “I want to watch.” Her voice is cold, her expression hardened. But her eyes burn with an intensity so hot, she’s daring me to go in there and do my worst to my sister.

She’s got Jared’s attention now as he watches her with a completely different look, one as close to appreciation as he could get. “She’s fine here,” he says, crossing his arms.

I look back and forth between the two of them, from one psycho to another. If she thinks she can challenge me, then fine. She can stay here with him and what happens, happens, that’s on her.

“Fine,” I say with resignation and promptly leave the room with ease focusing on the real task at hand.

She’s in far worse condition than she looked on the screen as I quietly enter the basement. Standing on her tiptoes, she looks so small and fragile, her body covered in slashes and bloodied cuts. Her hazel eyes meet mine and suddenly drop to the floor in humiliation.

“Lydia,” I say softly, and she looks back up with a confused expression. “There’s no audio on the camera. They can’t hear us,” I tell her as I position myself to face away from the camera and hide her hanging form. “You have no reason to trust me. And usually I’d advise against it. I’m not here to save you and I can’t offer you any way out of here. What I will give you, is honesty. I’m not here to hurt you. We’re going to play a little game. Put on a show for the camera. Do you understand?”

She still looks confused but nods along with what I say.

“Good,” I agree, nodding. “I won’t touch you or inflict any physical pain. Jared sent me in to assess your current mental state; I have a Ph.D. in Psychology. Quite frankly, this is a waste of my time and you possess no information of value to me. This is all just Jared’s personal vendetta thanks to our traumatic past fucking him up. And for that, he feels as though Robert needs to pay.”

She chews on her cracked lips, drawing blood. “What did he do?” she croaks out.

Pulling my phone from my pocket, I quickly send a text to Rowena to bring down a bottle of water. This girl’s going to die of thirst before she dies at Jared’s hand. It doesn’t take long for there to be a knock at the door and Rowena’s small hand holding out a bottle to me. I grab it, gently caressing her hand as I pull away. Unscrewing the lid, I walk over to Lydia, pressing the bottle to her lips. “Drink,” I command. “You’re going to need it.”

She tilts her head back, allowing me to pour some of the water down her throat, enough to provide some hydration and I pull it away from her. “If you drink too much too fast, you’re going to get sick,” I inform her, just as she’s about to beg “And then it will all go to waste. And I will be pissed off if you vomit on my Valentinos.”

A flash of worry passes over her face as I glance down at my watch before she gives me a small smile.

“Shit,” I say, moving closer to her. “As much as I’d love to stay and chat, I have prior obligations. I’ll be back sometime tomorrow. Keep your head up. They’re going to break you down physically, trust me on that. But disconnect. Protect your mind. If you break mentally, you might never come back from all of this, Lydia.”

Turning my back on her, I nod toward the camera before looking back at her once more.

“I am really sorry this had to happen to you.”

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