Chapter Six
That was all he had time to think about. A heel descended decidedly on his gun hand, pushing the metal of the handgrip deep into the bite wound there. The stars already dancing before his eyes exploded into a Milky Way, and a thin, chill sweat broke out over his skin. He cried out before he could stop himself.
"Let it go. Let it go - "
It took him a while to realize that the voice was addressing him and that he was clinging relentlessly to his weapon while the heel dug deeper and deeper into his hand. He made a conscious effort to loosen his grip, heard the sound of metal on wood as the gun was kicked free and across the floor. The sudden release of pressure on his hand made him gag, and he instinctively moved to curl into a self-protective ball, but a weight on his chest stopped him, a hard, cold, familiar pressure digging under his chin.
"That's a good boy…" The voice was a low hiss. The metal under his chin ground in deeper, choking him, making him gag again. "Now, I'm going to ask this nicely, once, and only once - so be careful how you answer…Where. Is. It?"
Each word was punctuated with a jab of the gun barrel into the underside of his chin, until he was sure it was going to pierce through to the roof of his mouth. The pressure ground his teeth against each other and he couldn't have answered if he'd wanted to - even if he had known what she was talking about.
She seemed to realize his predicament, because she eased the pressure slightly. "All right. Don't try anything…" She ran the gun barrel lightly down his neck and stopped when it came to rest directly over his heart, positioning herself more comfortably in her straddle of his chest. She must have been sitting right where she had kicked him, because a general ache deepened and became more intense. The stars in his vision brightened and blurred. "Now. Tell me."
Steve coughed at the abrupt release of strain on his neck and throat. He tried to lift his head a little, to get a look at her, but she shoved the gun hard against his sternum. "Ah, ah, ah! Don't make me wait - I've wasted enough time on you."
He let his head drop back to the floor with a thud, swallowed to moisten his throat. "I don't know what you're talking about," he croaked.
The response was so fast that he didn't have time to prepare for it; something cracked against his cheekbone with a sound like a gunshot, and all at once a great gong was clanging between his ears and the Milky Way had multiplied into overlapping galaxies. Stupid, Sloan, he told himself dizzily. What a stupid, cliché thing to say…
The gun barrel returned to his chest and dug in hard. "Do you want to try that again…?"
He reached automatically to swipe at his watering eyes, touch the burning spot on his cheek, but the hard metal cylinder drove so forcefully into his breastbone that he choked on a cough again.
"Don't. Move." He let his hand drop. "Now. Listen. I am already off schedule because of you, Peterson, and I have full permission to eliminate you if you get troublesome, so you don't want to push me any farther - because I'm finding you plenty troublesome right now."
The feeling is mutual, Steve thought grimly. Gee, I wonder if this is what Tom was referring to when he said the cabin came with 'lots of extras'? Next time I see him I'm going to…something she said suddenly registered, and he squinted, trying to make out more than a shadow in the darkness. "What did you call me?"
"Oh, don't." The click of a bullet dropping into the chamber sounded loud in the room. "Just don't. I hate unoriginality."
Peterson, what the hell did you get me into? "I'm not Tom Peterson." Steve wasn't sure that was a wise assertion, but with the day he'd had and the surprise attack and his head ringing from the blow to his cheekbone, he wasn't able to reason things out all that clearly.
"Of course you're not," she sneered. "It's just a coincidence that you're at his cabin and look just like him."
Steve blinked. He didn't look like Peterson. Well, superficially, maybe…they were close in height, had the same basic coloring - but no one who had ever seen them would mistake them for each other. Now, someone going by a description, however… "It is," he blurted dazedly. All right, that wasn't sounding all that bright, but between the throbbing in his cheekbone and the throbbing in his hand and the throbbing in his knee he was having trouble concentrating…if she would just get off his chest so that he could breathe better…
"You're just an innocent bystander who stopped by the wilderness to do a little hunting. What kind of game were you planning to take down with a 9mm?" The voice mocked him.
Steve sucked in a careful breath. If she could identify his gun in this light then she was no amateur. Not, he reflected ruefully, that he hadn't sort of gotten that idea anyway. "I'm not here to hunt. I just rented the cabin from Tom."
She laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh. "Like anybody would pay money for this dump."
Steve closed his eyes. "Don't rub it in."
Something in his tone must have given her pause, because the gun barrel in his chest eased some. After a minute she said, her voice still edged in sarcasm, "So you're - what? A friend of his?"
"Not really." Steve dearly longed to rub the bruising ache in the middle of his chest, but didn't dare. "After today, probably not at all."
She laughed again, and this time she almost actually sounded amused. "Poor baby. I almost believe you."
"It's the truth." Her position shifted, relaxing slightly, and he coiled himself inside, waiting.
"Then what are we going to do about this?" she caroled. The gun lightened its pressure just a tiny bit more and Steve decided to risk it.
Almost before he could think about it, his right hand lashed out - coiling around her wrist while he jerked his legs toward his head, throwing her from his chest and landing him on his knees. He gave a grunt of pain as his bad knee collapsed under the sudden weight and slid him forward onto his stomach but he ignored it, feeling in the dark for where he thought his gun had gone. His fingertips had just brushed it when someone drove a spear straight through his bad knee.
This time there were no stars - the sky behind his eyes vanished, the world suspended in a moment of burning darkness. He thought he heard a strangled cry - his, he realized after a second, trying to get a hand to his knee, to pull out the spear that seemed to be twisting there now. For a minute he was sure he was going to be sick.
There was no spear of course - he realized it slowly, even as he winced away from his own touch. Probably she had kicked him or hit him with something…Before he could decide much more about it, hands were reaching under him, gripping his shirt and yanking him into sitting position and shoving him hard, so that his shoulder blades hit the wall and his head bounced against it with a sickening thwack. He slumped, his brain on fire with pain.
"That. Was. So. STUPID!" The voice huffed in his ear, shaking him for emphasis.
Yeah, like he couldn't figure that out for himself…he felt the chill of the gun muzzle push against the hollow of his throat. How could she…? Oh, God - infrared goggles. Of course. She could see, he couldn't. He really wasn't thinking very clearly not to have figured that…
"Now, no more games…" She still had one hand twisted in the fabric of his shirtfront. "I am behind schedule and I really hate that, but I hate failing even more. So here is what we are going to do. I am going to take you and this cabin apart, piece by piece, until I find what I am looking for - as slowly as I have to, for as long as it takes - tonight, tomorrow - and believe me, I know a lot of really gruesome tricks - I can keep you alive forever. It's not like there's anybody to interrupt us." She gave him another shake and the world turned upside down for a minute. "What do you have to say to that?"
He brushed a hand against the floor to steady himself, breathing hard. Something was creeping into his brain…a realization…but there would be someone to interrupt them. His father. By tomorrow morning…oh, God, he couldn't let his father walk in on this mess…
He swallowed down the pain, trying to find his voice again. "…won't work…" He was stalling - he had to think of something…
"Oh, no?" The voice was amused again. "Would you like a demonstration?" She leaned in until her hot breath brushed his cheek.
He started to lift a hand to push her away, stopped himself in time, shook his head slightly. "No - " His breathing was still catching in his chest, and he was having some trouble pushing the words past it. He bluffed wildly. "I meant - it's not in the cabin. It's not here."
