Let Me In. Donna Kauffman

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СКАЧАТЬ was here. He wasn’t going to make contact unless absolutely necessary. He groaned as she began working on the cords binding his wrists. Pain shot up through his elbows, then screamed when his shoulder moved.

      The pain had a clarifying effect that was costly, but one he hung on to. He was with Tate. She was here. Talking to him. So, he’d made contact. He’d…fuck.

      “I’m going to cut the cords on your wrists, but I don’t want you to move until we figure out if anything is broken.”

      “Not,” he managed. Dislocated, but not broken. “Fine.”

      She laughed. It was a short, harsh sound. And it made him want to smile. Which was proof right there how fucked up he really was.

      “Hardly. But maybe you won’t die. Maybe you’ll live long enough so I can have the pleasure of killing you myself.”

      He closed his eyes and stopped trying to roll his head so he could see her. “Please…do.” Then he could blessedly stop worrying. He hated worrying. It was a completely foreign concept to him. Worry was a luxury he simply did not allow himself. Focused, emotionless clarity. That was how he functioned. It was the only way someone in their profession could function and be successful. And survive.

      No worries. Only the job. And how to get it done. Sometimes you won. Sometimes you lost. Sometimes people died either way. Cost of doing business. It wasn’t something you could lose sleep over.

      But tell that to the sap of a conscience he’d suddenly developed. At least where Tate Winslow was concerned. Or Tara Wingate. Shit.

      He’d apparently blown that all to hell anyway, considering his current location.

      He’d never been good at that sort of thing anyway, having a conscience. It’s what made him good at what he did. Now he had to pray that Tate was still good at what she did. It was the only hope either of them had. For him, to get the job done. For her…to stay alive.

      A long groan escaped him without his consent when the bonds slid free and gravity pulled at his arms as his hands relaxed against the floor. He wanted to move, to blessedly find a different position, one that would allow him at least a shred of control. But he wasn’t truly capable of assessing his injuries and, for Tate’s sake, if not for his own, he needed to at least relay to her what it was he’d dragged her into. Why he’d come.

      “Don’t move.”

      “Don’t worry.”

      He felt her hands at his ankles, and then the pressure there eased as the cords slid away from them, too. He wanted, so badly, to just flex his legs, get the blood flowing back to the muscles, feel what the damage was. Pain was an incredible clarifier. It was excruciating, but this was the longest he’d held any real thought pattern in what felt like an eternity.

      “Let me do a check.”

      “Check,” he repeated, moving just enough to jolt himself alert, as the haze began to seep in around the fringes again.

      “Don’t,” she warned, holding his legs still.

      “Have to.”

      “You have to do what I tell you to do. And only what I tell you to do.”

      He smiled, then grimaced as the action pulled at abused, blood encrusted skin on his face and mouth. “Bossy.”

      “I’m about to be your worst nightmare if you don’t lie still.”

      “Can’t.” He’d already spent the past two days doing that.

      “Will,” she said. “Since you can’t string more than two words together, let me do triage and try to catalogue the numerous sources of the pain you’re presently in.”

      The haze was battling valiantly for a return, but while he was reasonably sure of his situation, he managed to tell her one critical detail. “Drugged.”

      Her hands paused on their journey up his thigh. A journey that actually made him glad he was in the diminished physical capacity that he was at the moment. Because the drugs in his system wanted to have a field day with the hallucinatory scenarios her mere touch brought to mind. At least, he was going to blame it on the drugs. Easier than admitting he was human.

      “How long ago?”

      “Days. Think…two.”

      “Two days?” She moved back up near his head, then gently prodded his eyes open.

      She was nothing more than a vague, wavery image to him, zooming in and out of focus as she tried to see his pupils. It made him nauseous.

      “Too dark, I can’t see. What did they use?”

      She’d shifted back and he mercifully closed his eyes again. “Don’t know,” he croaked, fighting to stay above the pain, above the fog.

      She leaned closer again, putting her hand on his cheek. It felt almost…comforting. He focused on that. “What do they know?” she demanded. “What did you tell them? And who the hell are they?”

      So much for comforting.

      He would have smiled if he had it left in him. He was sliding away, and he knew there was nothing he could do to stop the void, or the vivid hallucinations that were sure to follow. For how long, he didn’t know. Frustration made him instinctively curl his fingers into fists. The renewed blood flow to his fingers now that his hands were unbound caused needle-pricking pain to shoot straight through to the pads of each finger. Even his fingernails felt like they were on fire. Several of his fingers weren’t right at all. It wasn’t enough to jerk him back.

      The void claimed him again.

      The next lucid, or semi-lucid, thought he had was about the light. It was piercing, blinding, painful, and he was pretty sure his eyes were still closed. Had he finally ascended from purgatory? Was this the white light that signified the end of the road? Surely he wasn’t destined for that finale. But at this point he was simply thankful to get out of limbo.

      He tried to move toward the light, tried to open his eyes.

      “Derek?”

      The voice of angels?

      “Derek. Open your eyes.”

      The voice of Tate Winslow. Which, as it happened, was the preferable option. It meant he was still alive.

      “Try—” His voice stuck on one syllable. His throat was dry to the bone and swallowing didn’t help much.

      He felt the plastic tip of a straw press against his bottom lip, and he instinctively sucked on it.

      “Whoa, not too much. Sip,” Angel Tate instructed.

      He choked a little, coughed, which reunited him with the pain that had been his constant companion now for what felt like an eternity. He tried to be thankful for the jolt of awareness that always accompanied the shock of pain, but he had things he had to accomplish, and these brief moments of pain-induced lucidity weren’t going to get the job done.

      “Must…talk,” СКАЧАТЬ