The Law of Nines (Sword of Truth 15.50)

“Well, well,” Alice said. “I think we just found out how much he really cares for her. He’s going to make this easy for us.”

Yuri’s eyes glinted with menace. “And if he cares for her so much, once off the drugs we won’t have to disfigure her too much before he’s eager to tell us everything he knows.” He glanced over at Henry. “Then we can have her, and we won’t have to be concerned about what damage we might do. Besides, the way she is right now it wouldn’t be much better than screwing a corpse. It would be a lot more satisfying if she was awake and kicking.”

At first displeased, Henry considered a moment. “I guess you may be right. Alice, I don’t trust our patient, here. And I don’t trust a nervous doctor to adjust the dose correctly. He’s worried about his own neck but it’s our necks on the line. We take orders from His Excellency, not a doctor from this world. You make sure that Alex gets enough so that he can’t fight, but not so much that he won’t care about her screams.”

Alice coldly appraised Alex. “I would have to agree with you about the doctor.” She smiled crookedly. “I’ll make sure that my patient is able to be terrified, but not able to fight back. In the meantime, if you two do anything to ruin her so that she can’t talk, or he won’t, I’ll have you both hanging there in her place when Vendis returns. Got it?”

Henry made a sour face. “Got it.”

Yuri folded his arms and finally nodded.

She shoved Alex. “Let’s go.”

35.

THE NEXT MORNING,after an endlessly long, sleepless night of staring up at the ceiling in the dark, Alex got dressed and sat on the edge of his bed to wait. All he could think about was Jax hanging there, alone, no one caring how much agony she was in. Alex was the only one who cared, and he couldn’t do anything about it. Not yet, anyway.

Not long after he’d gotten dressed, Henry showed up. The big man looked to be in a foul mood. It became obvious just how bad his mood was when he pulled Alex to his feet and began punching him in the abdomen. Henry apparently didn’t want marks that would be obvious. Maybe the others had told him not to damage their prize.

Alex could do nothing but take it. He knew that such a beating to the abdomen could cause dangerous injuries. He also knew that he couldn’t fight back if he was to keep Henry believing that he was drugged. They had to believe that, if he was to have a chance to help Jax.

This time, though, as Henry slugged him, Alex didn’t have the benefit of drugs to dull the pain. This time it hurt in earnest and left him gasping on the floor. He fought back the urge to vomit. For a time as he lay on the floor convulsing in agony, Alex was hating life.

“You know, Alex,” Henry said as he stood with his fists at his sides, towering over Alex, catching his breath, “you would think that we would be even by now. But I have to tell you, when I woke up this morning and my nose was bleeding again, I realized that we’re not even close to being even.”

The big man unexpectedly kicked Alex in the side of the head. It caused Alex to bite the inside of his cheek. He swallowed the coppery taste of blood. He struggled to stay conscious, and to stay quiet, to act thoroughly sedated.

“Since I have to wait to screw the bitch, I figure you owe me even more. One way or another you two are going to end up talking up a storm for me.”

Henry squatted down to be close when he delivered the rest of the threat. “Tell you what else. Your day is going to end badly. I’m going to tie a tourniquet here, and here.” Henry used a finger to mark a place on each of Alex’s upper arms. “Then I’m going to cut off your arms, right here. Then I’m going to do the same things to your legs. The tourniquets will keep you from losing so much blood that you miss the show.

“You’re going to tell us everything you know or we’ll be doing even worse things to your lady. And let me tell you, when it comes to using a knife, Yuri is a real artist. Once he gets started he gets inspired and you just can’t stop the man. I think he’s kind of sick in the ways he enjoys hurting women, but maybe that’s just me. You’re going to be eager to tell me everything you know to keep Yuri from getting started on her.”

Alex lay curled up on the floor gripped by pain and rage. He pretended to be gripped by neither.

Henry stood. “Alice will be in with your morning medication any time now. Last night’s dose will be wearing off by tonight, and this morning’s dose is being reduced. You’ll be clearheaded enough to hear Jax screaming and begging you to tell us what we want to know.”

Even if he wanted to, Alex couldn’t tell them what they wanted to know. He didn’t know what a gateway was or anything about it. He didn’t think, though, that they were going to believe that.

“You understand?” Henry demanded.

Alex, curled up on the floor holding his arms across the cramping pain in his middle, could only nod.

Henry seized Alex’s shirt and hauled him to his feet, then heaved him into the chair. “You sit there and have a nice rest. Alice will be in with your medication in a bit. Got that?”

Alex nodded as if he didn’t care.

Henry paused at the door to look back and smile. “You just got to love a world that comes up with Thorazine. Just think, I can pound the crap out of you and the Thorazine keeps you helpless to lift a finger to defend yourself. What a great world.”

After Henry left, Alex put his throbbing head in his hands, recovering, trying to clear his vision from the brutal kick. His neck muscles hurt so much that he could hardly move his head.

He let the anger rage through him. He held his hand out to see his fingers trembling. He knew that he needed to get them under control or someone might get suspicious.

He wanted the day to be over. He wanted to see Jax. She would still be drugged, but not nearly as much. He needed her to be more alert if he was to have a chance of helping her.

He hated to see her doped up with Thorazine and whatever else was in the pills. He didn’t know if they would stop the pills. Since his mother was on Thorazine he’d long ago asked questions about them. Thorazine, he had learned, greatly amplified the effect of whatever pills were taken with it.

Alex leaned back in the chair and drew deep, even breaths, trying to calm himself as he waited for his morning medications to arrive.

One more dose of drugs to dodge.

He was pretty sure that they wouldn’t bother with the evening dose, since the morning dose wouldn’t be worn off that soon and they surely intended to kill him that night after they got the information they wanted.

Except Alex didn’t have any information to give them. He didn’t know anything except that Jax had figured out what they were after. She hadn’t had time to tell him what that was.

Still, even that much information was dangerous to them both. That information in and of itself might be all they needed. If Alex couldn’t find a way to stop them, they would be able to get him to reveal that Jax knew what they were looking for, and then torture her to get her to tell them everything she knew. Alex’s grandfather had told him once that everyone had a breaking point and everyone would eventually talk under torture.

These people were obviously experienced at torture. They knew what they were doing. He couldn’t expect either Jax or himself to be able to hold out forever.

Alex knew that he couldn’t let it go that far. He had no option but to try to do something before it got to that point. He’d been awake most of the night trying to come up with something, but it was next to impossible to plan when he didn’t know exactly what it was that they were going to do. If they came to get him and first bound his hands or put him in a straitjacket before taking him to Jax, it would be all over. He needed them to believe he was drugged enough that he couldn’t fight them. He needed to keep up the act and put them at ease.

If they tried to restrain him, though, he would have no choice but to act.

If he had to fight them in his room first, he didn’t know how in the world he was going to get all the way across the ninth floor of Mother of Roses.

He couldn’t break down the heavy doors. They were designed to keep mental patients from breaking them down.

If he could get keys he could unlock the doors, but not all the staff carried keys. Even if he managed to get his hands on a set of keys, he couldn’t simply stroll through so many locked doors, or through the nurses’ station, without being seen and an alarm being raised.

His head spun as he tried to think through the different scenarios. His thinking was beginning to become mired in panic.

Just then the door swung open. It was his morning medications. Except that this time it was Alice who marched in with a med tray. Alex sat limp, staring off at nothing.

Alice glared down at him a moment, then lowered the tray with the three cups. “Time for your medications. Don’t give me any grief. I have things to do, other patients waiting for my caring touch, so hurry it up.”

Alex nodded and took the cup with the Thorazine. He trapped the syrupy liquid in his mouth under his tongue as before, then added the pills to it. He spit the whole thing into the water cup after drinking down the water. He crushed the cup and threw it in the wastebasket with the first two.

Alice had watched him the whole time. Her gaze moved to the wastebasket. She stood for a moment, then tossed the tray on the bed and bent to retrieve the larger of the three cups, the one that had held the water and now contained the discarded drugs.

She looked in the cup and then angrily threw it in his lap.

“Nice try. You have ten seconds to drink it all down or I’m going to go get a couple of orderlies and we’re going to put you in a straitjacket.”