Omega The Girl in the Box - By Robert J. Crane Page 0,19

Parks asked when I voiced that thought to him, “We’ll be able to get an idea of his state of mind when we pull that hood off.” His gray hair flowed over his shoulders, somewhat more controlled today than it normally was. Its usual state was to be bushy, but it looked like he had washed and perhaps combed it. “Let’s take a look, shall we?” His expression was almost wolfish, his teeth bared as though he were a feral creature ready to strike. He strode out of the observation room and into the hallway, unlocking the door using a key card. The door opened with a gentle whoosh, and I walked in first when Parks gestured for me to.

Fries wore the same clothes he had when I had encountered him yesterday in his apartment—suit coat, black pinstriped pants, leather shoes, no tie. I could see the top of his chest in the space between the hood and his unbuttoned shirt; I had seen him with it off, and he was muscular, in very good shape. I suspected he spent some time on that, probably more as a vanity thing than any sincere desire for the added strength his definition would bring him. I circled him and came to a stop just to his left. His head moved under the hood, swiveling to follow the sound of my footsteps.

Parks took up position at the shoulder opposite me, and looked at me over Fries’ covered head. Parks reached down and took hold of the hood and gave me a questioning look. I nodded. He gave me a wink and then yanked the hood off, causing Fries to blink at the brightness of the light. He shut them harder when I yanked off the duct tape.

Fries blanched, then slowly opened his eyes, keeping them squinted as he stole a look first at Parks, then at me. “Oh, good, it’s you,” he said upon seeing me. “I was hoping it’d be you.”

I stared at him, forcing my face to carry an expression that I hoped conveyed bleak humor. “Because I didn’t hit you hard enough yesterday to satiate your masochistic desires?”

“No,” he said, and formed a smile that caused me to feel another desire to pound his face into tenderloin. “I just like seeing you, that’s all.”

“I assure you, the feeling is not mutual.”

“Enough of this crap,” Parks said. “Fries, we’ve got questions for you.”

“I’m sure you do,” Fries said, turning to face Parks. His expression went from a grin to something more concealed, calm. “I doubt I have any answers for you, though. At least none that would satisfy.”

“You, unable to satisfy?” I arched an eyebrow. “Common occurrence.”

“I don’t hear any complaints,” he said with a light shrug and a smile.

Something primal and brutal welled up inside me, and I couldn’t contain myself. I hit him before I even realized I was going to, leveling him with a punch that sent his chair over backwards and snapped his head against the floor with a crack that I felt reverberate off the walls. “That’s because the women you seduce are dead before you finish,” I said, leaning over him. I reached down and forced my gloved hand against his throat and lifted him back up, setting his chair upright against the wall. “If you didn’t kill them, they might tell a different story.”

I heard him take a deep breath around my hand, his wrists still attached to the chair courtesy of the handcuffs. “I do know how to make the girls scream.” He coughed. “I didn’t hear you complain.”

I restrained myself from hitting him. “Oh, I didn’t? Sorry. I was very unsatisfied with the look I got at your equipment. It seemed pitifully inadequate to the task before you.”

I caught a flash of rage in his eyes that disappeared behind another smile, this one faker than any of the others he’d used on me. “Heh. Very good. But you wouldn’t know what satisfaction is, would you, Sienna?”

“Enough,” Parks said, and I felt his hand on my shoulder, gently. I looked back and saw that there was no mistaking the look in his eyes—Back off, it said. I walked back to the table, seating myself on its edge. “We’re here to talk to you about your employers.”

“I’ve got nothing to say about my employers,” Fries said, leaving the smile plastered on. I heard the click of his handcuffs against the chair as he rattled them.

“You sure about that?” Parks gave him a dead stare,