The Colt & The Cobra - THE SPECTER SERIES [book six]

Chapter THIRTY SIX

Mikki De'lucca

You stumble in a stupor up the sidewalk beside the stoically silent and scary Specter Agent, into the unmarked office building and across a spangled white lobby towards the elevators..

The steel doors slide closed, trapping you like a rabbit in a snare at the mercy of an angry Hunter.. "Am-Am I in trouble, Mr Paxton?" You stutter..

He shrugs one shoulder, indifferently.. "I have no idea what you are, Miss De'lucca."

You fall silent as the doors ping open and he leads you through the dimly lit, empty office floor, opening the door to a bare room, with only a table and four steel chairs inside..

Familiar feelings of fear as past memories begin to flood you.. You have been in an interrogation room before.. The frosty bite of the air conditioning, the faint smell of cleaning chemicals..

A flurry of flashbacks hit you in rapid succession.. One after the other..

The FBI had held you indefinitely and interrogated you on multiple occasions.. Sometimes you for days, or weeks at a time.. Threats, taunts, intimidation and plea deals.. Back and forth.. You remember feeling so confused and overwhelmed you had wanted to recede inside yourself.. To shut down entirely..

Some of your worst nightmares are made up of those memories..

The people who had worked so closely with your husband.. The men he had called friends..

They have treated you no better than the criminals they hunt.. It is a perverse game of bad and badder, the ends justifying the means in their narrow minds..
You were just the means to an end in their eyes.. Not a victim.. Not a person..

"What is going on? Who the fuck are you people?" You stand, frozen in the doorway, unwilling to go any further..

"You need to answer my questions, Miss De'lucca.. If you can't do that, I can't help you.." He replies bluntly, barely acknowledging that you had spoken..

You look around, seeing nobody else in sight, it's late and the building is deserted for the most part, a few lights on here and there but otherwise, it is a ghost town..

Where are you?

Why did Colt bring you here?

Who even is he?!

"And if I won't? Am I under arrest?" You fold your arms defensively..

"No, you're not under arrest.." He waves a tattooed hand back towards the elevators.. "Last I heard the bounty on your head was well over a million now.. But by all means, you're free to leave.."

You hate that he thinks you have nowhere to go.. But he is right.. Reluctantly, you shuffle forward.. "What do you want to know about?"

He smiles, not a kind smile, a sharky and shiny grin.. A hint of darkness in his watchful gaze.. "I thought as much.. Come, love.. Sit down.."

You move at the tone of authority he uses, almost as though you are conditioned to it.. Actually, you probably are.. It's that same patronising edge you'd find in your father's voice when he'd scold you in disappointment..

He was always so disappointed in you..

Anxiously you take a seat at the cold steel table, looking down to see it is bolted to the floor.. "Where did Colt go?" You ask, looking up to make eye contact with yourself in the large mirror fixed into the wall.. Two-way, no doubt..

You stare at your pale, frightened reflection.. Wondering who might be on the other side.. Watching..

Hunter opens a blue folder, shuffling through a stack of papers inside as he dismisses you once again.. "Don't worry about Knox right now, Mikki.. Worry about the mess you're in.."