you. I could never hate you. Ever.” Her voice broke. “I’ll hug Katie for you.”
Murdock nodded at Fischer and he pulled the trigger. And Caroline found herself screaming again.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The Fed
Caroline sat shackled to the chair. She’d been there all night. She assumed it was night. Time didn’t really have any meaning to her anymore. But they’d left the lights on. Not that she had any question as to why.
She stared at the large puddle of red on the floor. Blood. Jenny’s blood. The guards dragged Jen’s body out of Caroline’s cell as she sat there shrieking at them to kill her. Murdock looked back, smiled, and shut the door behind him. None of them had returned.
She didn’t know how long it had been since then. Probably hours. She screamed for Jenny at first. Not that it mattered. But it was the only thing she could do. She wanted her friend back. She wanted to rewind the clock. She wanted to redo any number of errors she made that culminated in a fate she no longer controlled. Her eyes were itchy. Her throat was dry. Her tangled hair hung down into her eyes and tickled her face, which she’d normally find bothersome, but it at least provided her with a mild distraction.
Red.
Blood.
Jenny’s blood.
They knew what they were doing. She’d had hours, days perhaps, to focus on what they had done to Ellen. To think about what that meant for her. To dwell on anything she could have done differently. Then they brought Jenny to her with similar results.
Murdock looked almost surprised in the immediate aftermath, studying her reaction as Fischer and Powell did their dirty work. She was certain that he was going to focus like a laser on any future efforts at making her suffer. Thinking up new and different ways to torture her soul before killing her body.
They had their answer. They knew she wasn’t going to talk. But she yelled it out again anyway despite her fading voice. They had never listened to her before but they would have to listen now. She changed it up a little in case they hadn’t gotten the message. Sometimes referred to them by name. Tried to make it personal. Because they already had.
Fuck you, motherfuckers. I’m not telling you shit. Fucking cowards. You’re all cowards and I fucking know it.
She had to stop when she became too weak to continue. Her bones hurt. Her joints. Her cartilage. How was that even possible? Her stomach had stopped gnawing on itself a long time ago. How many days had passed since she had something real and substantial to eat? Dinner, the night they’d been run out of their home? How long ago had that been?
Caroline shuffled somewhere between animal and human, wholly unaware of her existence. Caught between the primal urge to kill those who dared harm her friends and the childish desire to curl up in a ball and weep. She wasn’t lucky enough to be the mouse who got gnawed up right away. No, she had to stumble upon a destructive force that would toy with her, make her suffer, until it finally gobbled her up in mangled little pieces. The Fed had her by the tail, batting her around, baring one claw in a reminder that soon, very soon, she’d be lunch. And Murdock was the biggest predator of them all.
Jack will find me.
Ah, hope springing eternal. That thought, still tucked away in the back of her mind, rising to the surface at the most desperate times. The tiny glimmer of faith floating in a churning sea of doubt. Perhaps there was a feather left after all.
He’s not coming, you idiot. He’s dead.
Common sense was telling faith and hope to go jump off a cliff. She blew her hair out of her face again. Positivity. She needed positivity.
Jenny will come back. Yes. With Katie, and Ellie, and Bob, and we’ll all sit around and have the loveliest conversations. Such wonderful company.
Was that possible? Maybe it was all a mirage. Maybe she was just having an incredibly vivid dream.
Think logically. They’re dead. Everyone is dead, thanks to you.
Her inner monologue had become a dialogue, a reminder that her mind was oh so slowly descending into madness.
Caroline closed her eyes but she could still see her cell inside her mind. Every inch of it. Every crevice, every corner. She’d spent enough time in there to have every single aspect of it memorized, even in total darkness. She tried to think of