With Ties That Bind (The Broken Bonds 4)

I rub my arms to generate heat, giving myself something to concentrate on besides counting the seconds. I’ve only been locked inside for minutes, but panic threatens to pull me under when I imagine it turning into days.

No. Don’t go there.

I’m not shackled. I’m not drugged. So very different than before, but somehow just as terrifying. Logically, I don’t think these people have the same intentions as my abductor did when he took me, but that only serves to frighten me more. The not knowing.

I can still feel the steel of the gun pressed inside me, and I start to pace, keeping myself sane. I can’t stop thinking. I want my mind to stop.

Right when I think I’m going to lose it and start banging on the rusted door, I hear a click, and the door grinds open against the floor.

The man entering is tall and thickly built. He wears a mask. A Jason mask like on the horror movie. And he’s carrying an assault rifle. My stomach plunges, free-fall. I want the bag back over my head.

He jerks his head. “Move. It’s ready.”

What’s ready? But the courage to ask is lost. He doesn’t manhandle me, and somehow my feet move me in that direction. I’ve simply lost my mind. Days, hours, minutes—I’ve wasted so much time fearing the world after I was released from the hospital. And what I dreaded could happen—that which I told myself over and over would never happen again—has happened.

What else is there left to fear?

Death?

I’m almost relieved. Like I’m ready to welcome it. Like I can stop fearing it now.

The masked man stands in the doorway as I cross through. My eyes go wide when I see what’s on the other side of the room.

A lab.

But unlike any lab I’ve ever worked in. It’s dirty and smells of death. Not like the death in the morgue, where I’m accustomed to being surrounded by bodies. But a grotesque, sour stench that soaks my pores.

Tables are full of beakers and test tubes. A giant syringe station is setup with thin blue hoses curling down into a large tub. My gaze follows their path along the back wall to a large containment unit.

“Welcome, Doctor Johnson.”

I whirl around, trying to locate the source of the gravelly voice. That familiar voice that raises bile to my throat, remembering the feel of the gun.

Feedback pierces the air, and I look up to find a speaker in the corner.

The voice booms through the room again. “Go ahead. Get comfortable. There’s a smock on the hanger to your left, and goggles on the table.”

I shake my head. “What do you want from me?” I say to the room, hoping this unsettling PA system is two-way.

“It’s what we both want,” the voice responds. “I believe neither of us want any more dead girls littering our beautiful streets. So you should get to work.”

I turn around and see the man with the gun standing watch at the only exit.

I face forward, lick my lips. “And if I can’t?”

The silence stretches out, endlessly taunting. I’m sure the decision to end my life has already been made. Then: “I really don’t think that’s an option for you, Miss Johnson.” A beat. “Best focus on the task at hand. You have one hour.”

I glance up above the lab station at an old clock. The secondhand ticking down.

Quinn, find me.

With no other alternative, I approach the table aligned against the wall and find a box of disposable gloves. As I’m sliding on a pair, my eyes flit to the trashcan and my stomach roils with revulsion. Blood doesn’t faze me. I’m elbows deep in it most days. But this blood—the blood coating hundreds of pairs of gloves and gauze—is not from the deceased.

This is the blood of the living. The tortured. The tested and experimented on.

The women who—just as I was—are at the mercy of a sadistic monster.

I set to work analyzing the drug, putting the countdown and the women out of my mind. This is my area. I can do this. I just can’t think of the consequences once I do…