Benson regarded me with an almost amused expression, as though my injuring his minion was somehow entertaining. Maybe it was to him.
The wounded vamp screamed again and lunged at me, but Silvio stepped in front of him, thwarting his attack.
“Enough,” Silvio said. “That’s enough. You know the boss doesn’t like it when you damage his . . . subjects.”
The injured vamp kept glaring at me, but he didn’t try to push past Silvio. He was too afraid of Benson to do that.
I puckered my mouth and made a kissy noise at him.
The vamp’s face turned as red as the blood dribbling down his wounded hand, but the second man grabbed his shoulder, spun him around, and marched him out of the lab, closing the door behind them.
That left me alone with Benson and Silvio.
“Well, then, let’s get started,” Benson said, a high, excited note in his nasal voice.
Silvio went over to a wooden stand in the corner and plucked a long white coat off it. Benson held out his arms, and Silvio helped his boss into the jacket, just like he had the night Benson murdered Troy. Silvio even grabbed a stethoscope from the table and hung it around the vamp’s neck, like Benson was a real doctor, instead of just a sadistic bastard.
When the vamp was properly attired, he reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a pen and his pad, and started circling around me.
Squeak-squeak-squeak. Scribble-scribble-scribble.
Squeak-squeak-squeak. Scribble-scribble-scribble.
He moved behind me, so I couldn’t see him, but the squealing of his sneakers on the floor mingled with the scratching of his pen on the paper.
“You know, most people would be crying and pleading for their lives at this point,” Benson said.
I didn’t respond.
Suddenly, Benson leaned forward. He must have drunk some blood recently to amp up his speed, because I never even saw him move. One second, he was behind me. The next, his face was so close to mine that he could have reached out and kissed my cheek if he wanted to. Instead, he buried his nose in my grimy hair and sucked in a deep, audible breath.
“Mmm . . . rage,” he murmured. “One of my favorite snacks.”
Benson’s own scent filled my nostrils, the same alcohol-and-lemon stench that permeated the lab. I glared at him out of the corner of my eye. That was all I could do, given the cuffs and the fact that I still couldn’t quite grab on to my magic. Even if I could have reached it, my Ice and Stone powers were useless in this situation. Sure, I could harden my skin, but I’d still be stuck in the chair, and since my hands were tied down, I had no hope of using a pair of Ice picks to open the locks on the restraints.
Right now, Benson could do anything he wanted to me—torture me any way he wanted to, for as long as he wanted to—and I was powerless to stop him.
Completely, utterly, absolutely powerless.
For once in my life, I couldn’t fight back, and that hurt me more than anything else.
Benson bent down in front of me so that his face was level with mine. I met his gaze with a flat one of my own, even though I was mentally counting down the seconds to my own death. Because it would be all too easy for him to reach out, touch my cheek, and use his vampiric Air magic to drain my cold rage—and the rest of my emotions—from my body.
I wasn’t particularly scared of dying. I’d been too close to the end too many times to worry about it much anymore. When it happened, it happened. But I’d always hoped that I’d at least go down fighting. Not like this. Not so trapped.
Not so damn helpless.
But instead of finishing me off, Benson gave me a pleased smile. “You know, Gin, I was rather disappointed when you showed up on the bridge and even more so when I realized that you’d managed to get your sister and her witness to safety after all.”
I kept my face blank, even as my heart lifted at his words. His men hadn’t found Bria and Catalina. With any luck, they’d made it to Xavier, and the giant had driven them far, far away.
“But then I realized that this small setback didn’t matter,” Benson continued. “Not really. After all, I can always find and kill them later. They won’t be able to hide for long. Not in Ashland, not from me.”
That was all too true, and it was one of the many reasons that I needed to figure some way to get out of this chair. Or at least make sure that Benson was bleeding out before I took my last breath. Too bad I had no idea how to make either one of those things happen.
“But then, when my men captured you, I realized what a unique opportunity I had been presented with,” he continued.
“Oh, really?” I drawled. “And what would that be?”
“To further my studies.”
A chill slithered up my spine. “Studies? What studies?”
Benson straightened back up and swept his hand out to the side. “My observations on human nature, life, and especially death.”
For the first time, I realized that my chair was facing the wall in the front of the room—a wall made out of one-way glass.
People sprawled on couches and pillows. Smoke spiraling up into the air. The ceiling fans spinning around and around. I could see into the drug den next door as clearly as if I were in the other room, although I couldn’t hear any noise coming from that area. This room, maybe both of them, must be soundproof.
“Is that why you have all these people down here in your dungeon?” I asked. “So you can drug them up and experiment on them?”
“Of course.” Benson beamed. “Like any good businessman, I have to keep on top of current market trends to meet customer demand. Have to keep growing, changing, and . . . innovating. I wouldn’t want my products to get stale. That’s when sales start to dip, and well, we just can’t have that. Not these days, when there’s such a nasty power struggle going on in Ashland.”
I gave him another disgusted look. “You mean you have to keep coming up with new poisons to push on people to keep the cash rolling in.”
He chuckled. “Ah, Gin. That’s where you’re wrong. I don’t push anything on anyone. The first hit is always free.”
“Yeah,” I snarked. “It’s all the others they pay the price for.”
He shrugged. It didn’t matter to him what his drugs did to people—only that he profited as much as he could from their pain and suffering.
“Tell me, how many of those folks are on your newest recreational hit? What’s it called? Oh, yeah. Burn.”
“Quite a few,” he said in a cheerful tone. “It’s been quite popular, more popular than I thought it would be, actually. I’ve made a tidy little sum on it, although not as much as I would have liked, since I’ve had to import it from out of town.”
He gestured at the metal table. The glass vials with their cheery red, orange, and yellow powders reminded me of sugar sticks that kids might eat.
“But I’m reverse-engineering the formula, and I’ve almost got it, except for one small component. It’s always more profitable to make products in-house, rather than contracting them out.”
Benson kept staring at me, and I focused on him again. Maybe he thought that he could intimidate me with his steady gaze and faint smile. Please. If I got upset every time someone looked at me that way, I’d never get out of bed in the morning.
“You are amazingly calm,” he said. “Your heartbeat has barely spiked this whole time, not even while you were attacking my man. It’s fascinating, really, considering the situation you’re in.”
“And what situation would that be?”
He grinned, showing me his fangs. “In my mansion. In my lab. At my mercy.”
I matched his toothy smile with one of my own. “I imagine that you’re rather like me in that mercy isn’t exactly a popular word in your vocabulary.”