He stood. Came around the desk. “I told you that if you set foot in this building again with that foul mouth I would—”
He’d gotten as far as the front of the desk when Qween pulled the bowling ball from her bag and dropped it on his foot. It landed with a jarring crunch and rolled away. He gasped, and bent over to clutch at his ankle, as if the foot hurt too much to touch. He stammered, “I’ma make sure—”
Qween wasn’t paying attention. She retrieved her ball and lobbed it at him with an underhanded toss, using both hands. It soared up about six feet. She stopped to catch her breath, and eyed the room. It hadn’t changed much in eight years.
The ball landed with a whispered crunch on the base of his spine and the man flopped forward. This time, he couldn’t suppress a short scream. One hand shot to the small of his back and the other splayed out for support or mercy, Qween wasn’t sure which. She didn’t care either way.
Eight years. Long time to carry that much weight. She was more than ready to unload it on the bastard who had raped her. She noted the same dark cheap wood imitation walls. The same puke-green carpet. The same set of Bibles. The same set of encyclopedias from 1974. Eight years ago the bastard had put a knife on the desk and said that if she gave him any problems, he would take this blade and shove it up her asshole. Then he would watch her try to get help as she slowly bled to death.
He’d smiled. Said either his dick or his knife was going in her ass and it was all up to her.
She picked up the bowling ball yet again and dropped it on his hand. Another scream. This one was long and heartfelt. She dropped the ball again on his broken foot, grinding fractured bones together.
There was a knock on the door. “Qween?” Sam’s voice. “You good?” He tried the handle, but the dead bolt held the door.
The man rolled over, trying to find his breath to shout for help. Qween dropped the ball on the guy’s crotch. Sour vomit spilled from between his teeth.
Qween called back to the door. “Not yet. But I’m getting there.” She picked up the ball again. It was growing heavier.
“You got thirty seconds to finish your business,” Sam said.
“We’re leaving.”
Qween struggled to lift the ball higher. The guy was moaning at the floor, good hand held up as if to deflect the bowling ball, wherever it might land. Qween’s breath whistled between the wide gaps in her teeth as she planted her feet, squared her hips, and slowly, slowly hefted the ball above her head.
“Oh God, oh God, don’t, I have—”
She raised the bowling ball almost a full foot over her head and dropped it on his face.
CHAPTER 45
9:23 PM
August 13
They left Tommy alone in front of the TVs for a while to think about what was coming. For a while, he’d fought to maintain perspective, trying to convince himself that people weren’t kept in hospitals against their will, that as soon as these doctors realized that he wasn’t sick, they would discharge him. He would be allowed to leave. He would see Grace again. Soon.
That had been the old Tommy. The Tommy who had faith. In God. In America. In the government. In people.
The hospital had burned most of this faith right out of him.
Now he fought against the despair that threatened to sweep him away, that sapped his strength, stole his will to live. The throbbing in his head never left. When he did speak, his voice was wavering and weak. He lived on nothing but protein shakes he drank through a straw. His muscles felt slack and useless; he guessed he might have lost at least ten pounds. Maybe fifteen. If things didn’t change, he was going to die, virus or not.
Tommy forced himself to slow down and concentrate. He let his eyes glaze over, so the disturbing images on the TVs sank into a blurry haze, and he focused on the face of his daughter in his mind. He could see her smiling. Hear her laugh when they threw the rubber chickens at the Son of Svengoolie. Feel her arms around his neck.
Same as before, two technicians and Sergeant Reaves came in to take him back upstairs. Tommy couldn’t tell if it was the same two techs or not, but these looked like they’d been on duty twenty-four hours at least. Their eyes were sunken and dull. They moved like robots in need of oil. No weapons.
He wondered how much the life of a tech was worth to Dr. Reischtal. At first, Tommy would have assumed he could take a hostage to escape. He’d been planning on twisting his head when one of them grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and biting down on the tech’s hand, threatening to rip the biohazard suit wide open if they didn’t wheel him right out the front door.
Sergeant Reaves, as always, was the problem. He hung back, hands clasped loosely in front of him, eyes missing nothing. Tommy had no doubt he could have his handgun out and squeezing the trigger in less time than it took for Tommy to sneeze. Hell, he’d empty the clip into both Tommy and the tech before anybody could say, “God bless you.” And while Tommy was the most desperate he’d ever been in his life, he wasn’t suicidal.
They wheeled him out of the conference room. Tommy sank back in his straps on the wheelchair as they rolled him back to the elevator.
Back in the car, Ed asked Qween, “Did you take us back there for the reasons we talked about or for some kinda half-assed payback?”
“Didn’t sound half-assed to me,” Sam said.
Qween watched the lights slide past the windows. “Little of both, Ed Jones.” She didn’t say anything else, and seemed oddly contemplative. Whatever had happened back at the mission had calmed her. She sounded at peace with herself and the universe.
Ed didn’t like it. “We asked you for help, not for an excuse to seek revenge. We got bigger problems here than you.”
Sam nodded. “I know. But listen, we got what we needed. If that was the price, than so be it.”
“I just don’t like to be used,” Ed grumbled. “If it was necessary, I would’ve been happy to go back there when all this other shit was finished.”
“No point in worrying about it now,” Sam said. “Like you said, we got other problems. Let’s go take a closer look at that address.”
Qween laid back on the seat and unfurled her cloak. With the windows rolled up to hold the air-conditioning in against the summer heat, it soon became clear that it had been a while since she had bathed. She pulled up her knees and crossed one leg over the other, her left foot braced against the back passenger window. She let out an “Oh, yeah . . .” that Koko Taylor would be proud of.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Ed said, trying to breathe through his mouth. Sam rolled down his window and stuck his head out, taking deep breaths of the sweltering heat.
Qween laughed. “You two need to get over your own damn selves.”
There was no chance to try anything.
They wheeled Tommy out of the elevator and into Don’s room without any preamble, just banged him into a door and there was Don. He had been lying so still before they came in that Tommy had thought he might be dead, but the sudden movement startled the large man, and he flinched against his restraints. His eyes, blood red and swollen, slid wildly around his sunken sockets, lighting briefly on Tommy.
There was no sign of recognition.
The techs left before Tommy’s wheelchair had stopped moving. Nobody wanted to be in there any longer than necessary. The shock of seeing Don, up close and personal, made Tommy forget about his escape plans for the moment. He stared at his partner.
The skin around Don’s stomach had pulled back, revealing a distended organ, while the flesh around his face had simply wilted and hung off his skull like fake eyelashes on a decomposing corpse. Dark saliva collected at the corners of his mouth. He struggled against the straps, but the movements were feeble. Large black bruises had formed along limbs, concentrating in his joints, as if slow-motion car crashes were happening under the skin.