Deeper than the Night - By Amanda Ashley Page 0,67
humorlessly. "Call him with your mind!"
Kara shook her head. "I can't."
"You can, and we both know it. Don't make me angry, Kara. You won't like what happens if you do."
"Threaten me all you want. I won't call him."
Barrett swore under his breath. The girl had been defying him for two days. At his wit's end, he had gone back to her house, intent on bringing her sister back to the lab with him, certain Crawford would relent if he threatened her sister's life, only to find the man he left to watch three seemingly helpless females locked in a closet and the girl, her grandmother, and the nosy neighbor all gone without a trace.
He shook his head. He should have known better than to leave Mitch Hamblin behind. The kid was eager and willing, but he was young. Fortunately, youth was something he'd outgrow, if he lived long enough.
Barrett grinned humorlessly. Hamblin had looked as sheepish as hell when he emerged from that closet. When asked for an explanation, Hamblin had replied that the girl had asked him to get something off the shelf in the closet and then had slammed the door and locked him in.
Barrett turned away from the bed and stared at the vials of blood on the metal table beside the door. He had performed every test he could devise, but to no avail. Whatever healing properties the girl's blood had once possessed had disappeared completely.
His only hope was to find the alien.
"I can make her do whatever you want."
Barrett grimaced at Handeland's quiet words. Joe Handeland was a brute of a man. Barrett had no doubt he could do exactly what he said.
Barrett sighed heavily. He didn't approve of violence, but the girl was stubborn, and he was desperate. "All right," he said, "just don't kill her."
Handeland nodded. "Maybe you'd better leave the room."
Fear turned Kara's blood to ice as the man called
Handeland loomed over her. She cried Barrett's name, her voice shrill.
"What do you want?"
"You can't mean to leave me alone with this . . . this man."
"That's up to you," Barrett replied. He stood on the other side of the bed, staring down at her. "Will you call Claybourne?"
"I can't," Kara sobbed. "You know I can't."
Barrett shrugged. "Remember what I said, Handeland. No permanent damage."
"Yeah, yeah," the big man muttered impatiently. "Go on, get out of here."
Kara stared at Handeland. Strapped to the bed, she was as helpless as a butterfly pinned to a board. Her blood thundered in her ears as she watched Handeland roll up his shirt sleeves. He had arms as big as tree trunks and the biggest hands she had ever seen. She remembered those hands grabbing her, holding a rag over her nose and mouth.
"Last chance, girl," he said.
Kara stared up at him. For all his bulk, he was a soft-spoken man, with mild gray eyes and wheat-colored hair.
"Please," she whispered. "Please don't hurt me."
"That's up to you. You do what the doc wants, and I'll leave you be."
"What are you going to do to me?"
Handeland picked up a scalpel. It looked no bigger than a toothpick in his hand. "Guess."
Kara watched in morbid fascination as he turned the surgical instrument this way and that. Lamplight reflected off the shiny metal blade. She cried out as he dragged the flat part of the knife over her cheek, down her throat, over her breast.
"I spent a year studying to be a doctor," Handeland mused. "I always wanted to perform an operation. Ever had your appendix removed?"
Kara shook her head. In spite of her resolve to suffer in silence, a scream rose in her throat as Handeland lifted her hospital gown and made a small incision over the site of her appendix, just deep enough to draw blood.
Plucking a white towel from the table, Handeland wiped up the blood. "A little deeper, I think."
"Stop, please!"
"Sure thing. All you've got to do is call him."
"Why are you doing this?"
"The oldest reason of all," Handeland replied. "Money. Barrett promised to make me a rich man." He ran the edge of the blade over Kara's cheek.
The metal felt like ice as it cut her skin. She gasped as a thin trickle of blood slid down the side of her face.
"I could peel your skin off an inch at a time."
"Do it then!" she screamed. "Do it!"
With an oath, Handeland placed the knife under her left breast. With deliberate slowness, he pressed the point of the blade against her skin.