The Bureau (A Cage for Men and Wolves Book 1) (23 page)

"He's not worth protecting, Clover. He's your enemy, as much as I am."

"I'm not protecting him," she said, her voice stronger than she'd expected.

"Then tell me. What is he looking for in those files? His request said it was for a case study for his residency, but you and I both know that’s a lie.”

Clover stared at her assailant—at her living, breathing nightmare—then shook her head, tears dripping from her chin even as her resolve hardened. "I don't know."

Pain shot up Clover's arm as Rainer's hand came down on top of her broken finger. She felt the air surge from her lungs as he squeezed the swollen digit between its endangered neighbors. She'd seen no warning signs and it was that ability to strike instantly—without precursory jitters—that scared her.

"I admire your resolve." His voice hadn't risen at all, making it hard for Clover to hear over her loud breathing. "It's commendable that you're willing to die to keep whatever secrets you think are so important, but are you willing to give up someone
else's
life?"

Rainer's grip moved to her unbroken ring-finger, pressing it back until she stood up in a futile attempt to alleviate the strain. "You were meeting with someone in that corridor, weren't you? He was a pack-mate of yours? Did you think I'd forgotten? Or that I hadn't noticed?"

Unsure if she was answering his question, or just willing the situation to be unreal, her head shook continuously.

"Tell me what I want to know, and I'll let your friend live."

Thinking was hard; the only thought Clover's mind still had any sort of grasp on was that she'd chosen silence.

"I don't know!" Clover's knees buckled as the snapping sensation reverberated up her arm.

She gritted her teeth around a scream, her body collapsing back into her chair, her knees rising to touch the underside of the table. It was more bearable this time, but she was still sweating, and as she caught her breath the sound of rummaging in what she could only guess was a tool bag registered through the fog of pain. A fist caught in her hair and wrenched her head off the table. Her vision swam in and out of focus through her tears, and she recognized the change in Rainer's face. He was done playing.

"Let me be very clear." His voice was level, but at such close proximity, Clover saw a flash of madness in his eyes, a flicker of absolute sadism. "You can take your secrets to the grave, but if you do, believe me, I'll find the pathetic hovel you animals call a home. I'll slip inside when they're all locked in their little cages and shoot them like sick dogs." With a clatter that made Clover’s body jerk, Rainer slapped four bullets onto the table in front of her. As he pushed her face toward them, using her hair as a handle, she felt the itching, tickling burn start—
silver
bullets. She squirmed, trying to put distance between the little nubs of metal and her skin. She’d never felt silver burn first hand, but she didn’t need to know what it felt like to recognize them. She remembered the scars that littered the bodies of some of the oldest members of her pack and felt her stomach clench around her growing panic. How had he gotten them? Was he so influential that he could find somewhere that would actually sell him the stuff?

Seeming satisfied, Rainer wrenched back on her hair again. He leaned over her, his breath wafting over her sweaty face. "That's how I put down the pack on the west end, you know. I waited for the full moon, when they were all tucked away, and I shot every one of them through the bars of their own cages."

Clover thought of the culvert under their freight car tower that was lined with cages they'd made and repaired over the years. She hated those cages. But every month, she locked herself inside, as did everyone in her pack, to keep those who hunted and killed them safe. Now she wished that she'd let herself loose instead.

"Now tell me." Rainer's voice had steadied again. He leaned his head back before brandishing a pair of wire cutters inches from her nose. "What is my brother looking for?"

- 23 -

Fear wasn't something new to Clover, and she'd thought she understood what it was in its purest form. She'd felt it when she'd helped her father take Byron's arm; when she'd watched that girl beaten to death in the park; when she'd squeezed into the sewer. Now she realized that she'd never come close to understanding. None of it compared to the cold of the wire cutters that Rainer used to trace her jawline.

"I was watching you in your cell," he whispered, his fist twisted in her dirty hair, holding her head completely still. "You seemed most upset when I used these. Do they scare you?" He drew them along the lower curve of her quivering lip.

"Please..." Clover didn't realize she was speaking until the tiny plea had slipped out.

"Please what?"

She knew what she was going to ask for—mercy. The chill of metal had seeped in and was numbing her willpower. She was going to tell him what he wanted. She pressed her lips together and tried to squeeze the tears out of her eyes so she could see clearly, as though banishing the fog in her eyes would also clear the blurring of her resolve.

Rainer waited, seeming riveted to the struggle going on inside his victim. "Let me make this easier for you. Every time you tell me a lie..." He touched the tip of the wire cutters to Clover's nose. "You're going to lose a centimeter from somewhere on your body."

A sob finally shook Clover, and once she'd let the first one slip, the cascade that followed was unstoppable. What was she doing? Why was she enduring this? For her pack? She didn't have to tell him where her pack was, she could tell him about the data. She could tell him everything that she'd done and planned to do. It didn't matter if he knew any more. She’d already lost her chance to save her family. She'd lost it when she'd stupidly wandered into that hallway. She looked past Rainer and his weapon, at the door she willed to open. She'd lost her chance when she'd expected Elliot to clean up her messes for her.

"Now, let’s get to the questions. Just a 'yes' or 'no' will do. Do you know what Elliot is doing with the data he got from Central Records?"

She should tell him. Who would suffer if she did? Elliot? What did she care if he suffered? He was a murderer just like his brother, just like all the other Bureau workers who liked playing god with the lives of innocent people. He was no light, he was just a softer shade of darkness.

Then she remembered the weight of his arm across his shoulders. "No."

With her answer still on her lips, Rainer drove her head into the table. A whisper of metal was her only warning before pain burst from her ear, turning her vision white. She screamed as hot blood coursed across her cheek. Then the hand in her hair was gone and she was reeling back, her head tilting to try and staunch the bleeding that saturated her uniform sleeve. When the blinding static receded, she saw Rainer toss a tiny lump of brown and red flesh onto the table.

"I don't believe you." 

Clover was distantly aware of the way her legs thrashed under the table, and the way her body tried to squirm away from the lobe that was no longer part of her.

"Question number two." Rainer prefaced himself. "Is he looking for children? Boys?"

Without even registering the question properly, her head shook wildly.  It wasn't until a hand snagged in her hair again that she remembered her brother and sister at all. They
were
looking for children. Her head was pulled back until she felt the skin at the front of her neck pull tight, like her throat would break open if she swallowed too hard. Through her tears she saw Rainer perched over her, then felt the touch of metal against the septum of her nose.

"Go ahead and lie again. I’ll make sure this one hurts more." Rainer growled in her face, the blades of the cutter pressing hard into her nostrils. "Is he searching for anything on the Argentum Project?"

"I don't even know what that
means
!" She could hear the hysteria in her own voice as her feet slid over the floor, trying to push away from her tormentor.

"You're lying!" His hand squeezed tight in her hair.

"I'm not. I'm not, I swear." Clover was choking on her own tears and her voice raised in a shriek as she felt the pressure on her nose intensify, then Rainer stilled completely. Through her crying she realized that another person had entered the room, the familiar voice seeming alien in this closed off world Rainer had created for her.

"It's the head of Internals." Pierson' voice. It was sharp as ever, but somehow a welcomed softness.

"Tell him I'm busy." The stiffness of Rainer's voice made Clover's body shake with another unmanaged sob.

"I’ve already tried that one. He insists
.
"

Clover gulped for air, trying not to move as the clippers stayed poised at the sensitive juncture of her nostrils.

"Don't go anywhere," Rainer said through a growl of annoyance before slapping the clippers onto the table between the bullets and the small, ejected part of her body.

Clover didn't open her eyes until she heard the door scrape shut. She'd thought that seeing him leave would staunch the flow of tears, instead they just increased. She was relieved that he was gone, but in equal measure she was horrified by the inevitability that he would be back and they would have to start this disgusting cycle over again. As minutes passed, the convulsive tears eased and she rested her head on the table, the cold of the metal dulling the pain in her ear.

Her mind raced through thoughts that were too fuzzy and too jumbled to make any sense of.

Why was she doing this? Rainer would find her pack without her help, her family was lost to the system, and Elliot would stand aside when it was time for his brother to take control of the Bureau. Something squirmed inside her when she thought of him—when she thought of the beacon he’d become for people like Jeannette. She had pretended she couldn’t see the light he gave off, determined to only see the crimes he committed with his pen. Now, under Rainer’s fist, she saw that the light was really there, and that it was blinding. She couldn’t tarnish Elliot’s name. She couldn’t hurt his chances of becoming Director. No matter what.

Clover thought she might have fallen asleep when her body jerked off the table, the scraping of the door seeming violent as it bounced around the room. Her stomach twisted painfully as she waited for Rainer to barrel through the door, but instead, her familiar guards appeared. If she looked as helpless as she felt, she was sure they activated her shock collar just so they could hurt her more. Her body stiffened with the jolt of electricity and threatened to topple out of the chair. Then she was limp and her hands were being released. Even if she'd had the strength to fight back, she didn't have the urge to any more.

She was bagged and cuffed and led out of the room, her legs shaking as she was corralled down the hall. The promise of solitude that her cell offered seemed like a welcome break from the interrogation room, but they'd been walking longer than normal. Then the stale air gave way to something better circulated, and she heard voices. More light seeped through the rough weave of the bag. She wasn’t being led to her cell, she was in a main hallway again. She stumbled when her guards stopped walking and she heard a door open in front of her. Chairs scuffed on the floor as a hand yanked the bag from her head.

She blinked against the bright light, her eyes trying to remember how to focus in something more powerful than the dim bulbs of her cell. Even the interrogation room seemed dim in comparison. She was in an office she didn't recognize. A grey-haired man sat behind the desk, his unfocused frame looking severe, and on her side of the furniture were two blurry lumps of men in black uniforms. Even through the overexposed blur, she recognized Rainer immediately. She felt herself knock into the guard who stood behind her as she lurched away from him, her body reacting on instinct now that she wasn't strapped to a table.

"Clover."

Distantly, she recognized the voice coming from the other black-suited figure, but was unable to look away from the violent stare Rainer had locked on her. She wished her sight hadn't cleared, then she wouldn't have to read the promise of pain she saw in his eyes. Fingers gripped her shoulder, talons that would force her toward her interrogator.

"Clover!"

Finally, she turned to the second figure and she felt something wash over her that she’d nearly forgotten—relief. It was Elliot's hand on her shoulder—there were no talons and he wasn't pushing her. He was steadying her. His eyes seemed brighter, greener than she remembered them and for a second she wanted to throw herself against him, then she looked back at Rainer.

While Elliot's eyes seemed brighter than she'd remembered, Rainer's seemed darker. Even the air around him seemed to be sucked of light, like just his presence was enough to poison the room. A hand touched Clover's face, and her eyes were guided back to Elliot's. "Can you walk?"

Kept from looking back at the black hole of a man standing across the room, Clover managed to nod, even as her legs shook. Elliot's hand moved to her arm and Clover felt him squeeze gently, tightening in the promise of support.

"Thank you for your help, Sir." Elliot's stature was solid as he faced the man at the desk and his brother.

"Just keep her under control. And make sure she shows up for her hearing." The grating voice that came from the older man sounded impatient.