Chapter 5
In the middle of the night a hand smoothed the hair from my face. My room was still dark, and I rolled onto my back to see a slouching silhouette next to me.
"I need to tell you something," Sam whispered. His warm fingers on my cheek were a shock.
I pushed myself to a sitting position, groggy but awake enough to remember I was friendless and this wasn't a rescue. My lips, still swollen and cracking from dehydration, parted slowly and I inhaled the hot, stale air of my bed room, remembering how Sam had drilled me with questions till my brain boiled from pressure. "I assume you're escorting me to jail," I said. "Where’s Max?"
"My room. He’s fine, but you’re not." Sam clicked on the lamp.
Whoa. I may have felt like shit, but Sam really looked it: his wrinkled shirt, his hair thick with sweat, the shadows crawling under his eyes. He either hadn't slept in a week or Vilet had given him a real bruising, at least verbally.
"You need to understand what’s happening." Sam squeezed my free hand, his brows dropping. "They brought me here to break you. That’s my assignment. I’m not traveling back with your team."
"Then you’ve done your job, Agent Fields." I held up my other hand, which was cuffed to the headboard.
He mouthed fuck to himself and dug out a key. I doubted his key just happened to work on Mallory’s handcuffs. Question was, had Sam rather than Vilet ordered her to lock me to the bed, but asking required optimism I no longer possessed.
"I'd like to think you've had time to rethink your position here," he said, unlacing the cuffs from the headboard. "But knowing you, you're digging a bigger grave to bury yourself in."
I stared at the small hole in the wall from which a bullet had been extracted with Roy’s pen knife right before he’d logged it into evidence. Sure, I was thinking plenty. Like did I regret missing my target? Vilet certainly wasn't regretting the added criminal charges to help bury me permanently in the penal system.
"Jules, I’m begging you. Tell the truth. Make this stop. Vilet will keep going, you know. After me, he’ll bring in the heavies. Agents who don’t care whether you live or die. Things will get worse. Things will get physical."
I glared at him as I rubbed my de-cuffed wrist to encourage blood flow. Sam had seen the extent of my bruises, knew the rough service I’d already received.
"More physical, more invasive," he said. "Worse than you can imagine. Because now they can treat you like a hostile of the state for attempted murder of a federal agent. Deny you counsel, deny you visitors. Not even me. They already think you’re a cop killer. Now they think you’re helping Goliath, conspiring against the government. And you had security clearance. Military clearance, Jules. That’s Homeland Security territory. They’ll turn you and everyone you care about inside out. I can’t protect you anymore."
"Since when have I had visitors?"
"This isn’t a game, Jules. You’re trying to outrun a freight train."
