Bloodshot - Cherie Priest [110]
“You can explain the politics to him later,” Ian said toward me. Then to Adrian, “I do not know what they wanted from your sister, I only know that she was there, and that sometimes she was in the same holding area as me. There were two others like us, also. I never saw them, either.”
“Where were you kept?” he asked, and I thought it was a strange question until I remembered that yes, he was a special-forces-type guy himself and maybe he had more than a tangential interest in the particulars.
Ian shuffled his shoulders in a move that was halfway between a shrug and a hand-wave. “Underground? Someplace without windows, I assume. It was dark and quiet, with … with …” He struggled to recall. “Fluorescent lighting. I could hear the hum and buzz of it, all night, and all day when I tried to sleep.”
“And this compound was called ‘Jordon Roe’?” Adrian asked.
“That’s what they called it, yes. It was on an island off the coast of Florida—a tiny, vegetation-covered sandbar with no bridges to the mainland. Everyone who came or went came or went by helicopter, or by boat.”
“Did you ever talk to my sister?” Adrian wanted to know. “Did she ever say anything? About me, or about anybody? About anything?”
Ian’s eyes were all but hidden behind the tinted lenses, but I think I saw them tense, and soften. He said, “I heard her crying, sometimes. And I tried to talk to her, once. I asked her who she was—I was only trying to distract her. We were all lined up in these cells, you see, with walls between us. We couldn’t have seen one another even if I hadn’t been blind by then. But I heard her, yes. And I tried to engage her, but she only told me to go perform anatomically improbable acts on myself. I didn’t take it personally,” he added. “We were under so much stress and uncertainty. She was terrified, that much was obvious. I felt sorry for her. She gave me someone to pity other than myself.”
Cal, who hadn’t yet said a word to anyone, lifted his hand like he wanted to pat Ian’s shoulder in a show of sympathy, but he restrained himself.
Ian sighed, took a mouthful of wine too large to call a sip, and swallowed. “I heard her talking to other people, mostly begging to be told what was happening, or arguing, or screaming to be let out—before she figured out that no one was listening, and that help was not coming from anyone, inside or out.”
“Did you leave her there? When you escaped?” Adrian asked, his hands gripping hard on his glass, leaving a fog halo around his fingers even though the beverage inside wasn’t very cold.
The vampire shook his head. “I escaped after … a storm destroyed the premises. I was in no position to look for her, or anyone else. But I called out to her, and to everyone else who remained—and if she heard me, she did not respond. If she survived, she must have been injured. Or perhaps she escaped, but was recaptured. I wish I could tell you more, but that’s all I know. She didn’t answer me. No one answered me.”
He tapped one fingernail against the base of the wineglass, considering something else. I was about to ask him what it was, but he spared me the effort. “Once I heard her talking in Spanish, very quickly, to one of the guards—or scientists, or soldiers, or whatever they were there. She might’ve overheard a Spanish name, or heard him speaking, or perhaps she only guessed by looking at him that he might understand her. Regardless, she attempted to sway him—she was pleading with him, one morning when most of the residents were already turned in for the day, and trying to rest. Even when we can’t see the sun we can feel when it’s up, you see, and when we can feel it, up there or out there for very long, it makes us want to sleep—though we can delay it if we’re motivated to do so.”
“Do you speak any Spanish?” Adrian asked.
“I’m afraid not. She was whispering, pleading. I couldn’t pick out a single bit, except por favor, and I know that means ‘please.’ She said it several times. But whoever she was talking to, I could tell by his