And yet his casual dismissal had instinct suggesting that the very opposite was true. “I hate to break this to you, but anyone involved in the attempted murder of my friends is of interest to me right now.”
“Harlen didn’t order any attacks on your friends.”
“Indeed?” I shifted my arms a little so that they pressed against my sides. I still had my phone. I still had my knife. This man might not be underestimating me, but he sure as hell hadn’t searched me very well. “Then Harlen isn’t the man behind the buyout of premises on West Street?”
“No, he’s not behind the buyout, although he will definitely benefit from it.” Once again it sounded like it was all one big joke only he could understand. “You really must tell us your sources.”
“The Directorate,” I said, crossing my arms to hide my hands. Slowly, carefully, I grabbed my jacket and pulled it around until the pocket holding the knife was at the front of my body. “They did capture one of your boys and they do so enjoy the odd routine-breaking bit of interrogation … as you will experience yourself once I hand you over to them.”
He laughed. “My dear, I’d start worrying about your future rather than mine.”
I reached into the pocket and wrapped my hands around the hilt of the knife. “Look, I don’t know where the goddamn book is. I don’t know where my father is. Those facts cannot be changed, no matter how much you might wish otherwise.”
“We shall see.”
He moved, and his shadowy form wavered briefly—the first real indication that I was indeed watching a projection rather than a real person. I quickly scanned the wall behind his image, and for the first time noticed the faint outline of a doorway.
Then his image flicked a nonexistent switch—or at least it was nonexistent in this room—and something hit me with the force of a sledgehammer. I was thrown backward, my spine hitting a wall with bone-crunching force and my body shaking, trembling, and tingling. The assault stopped almost as soon as it had began, but the skin underneath the wire felt like it was burning, and my whole body felt weird. Numb, almost.
“Now that you’ve had a taste of what I can do, please answer the question.”
I licked my lips and somehow croaked, “What fucking question?” God, there were spots dancing before my eyes, and my ears were ringing. What the hell had he done to me?
“Where is the book?”
“I don’t know—”
I didn’t get any further. The force hit again, and only the wall at my back prevented me from being thrown. But it didn’t stop my limbs from shaking and dancing, and it didn’t stop the energy that was flowing through me.
Electricity. He was using electricity on me. God, the wire. It was coming through the wire around my legs.
The energy snapped off again, leaving me a trembling, twitching mess. And yet my mind was suddenly clear. I had to get the wire off before he hit me a third time. Had to.
I closed my eyes and once again forced shaking fingers toward my pocket. The knife was still there. Relief surged.
“Answer the questions,” Forman said, in that same dispassionate voice, “and the electrocution will stop.”
I groaned in response and curled into a tight ball, my knees drawn up close to my chest. With my hands once again hidden, I slowly wrapped my fingers around the knife and drew it from the sheath.
“Risa,” he said, an edge of sympathy in his voice. “I really have no desire to cause you such pain. All you have to do is answer my questions.”
I slipped the knife from my pocket then flipped it back along my forearm so that it was hidden from view as I moved my arm down toward my curled-up legs.
“The book,” I said, forcing my eyes open to watch for any indication that he realized what I was up to. Though what I would do if he did realize, I had no idea. I wasn’t exactly in an ideal position right now. “It’s on the gray fields.”
He tsked. “That is most unfortunate, as neither I nor my employer has access to those fields.”
His employer. Not Harlen, then; otherwise he would have simply said it. That was a name I already knew. Although maybe he simply thought I was fishing and was just being careful.
I flicked the knife around and caught the wire in the notch at the top of the blade. Slowly, carefully, I began to bend it back and forth.
“That,” I said, my whole arm shaking with the effort to break the wire, “is not my problem.”
“But I’m afraid it is,” he said, “because it means you’ll just have to fetch it for us.”
Not on your fucking life. The wire snapped, and I quickly squeezed my calves together, stopping it from snaking away. If he flicked that switch now, I was still a goner, but that was a risk I had to take.
I sheathed the knife then reached down and caught the end of the wire, holding it gingerly.