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CHAPTER 25

Graham pressed his forehead against the cold stone wall, fighting to anchor himself in the present. The cell—eight feet by six, with a stained mattress and rusted chamber pot—swallowed light, time, and sanity with equal hunger.

“Evaluate me,” he rasped for the hundredth time. His voice was little more than sand and splinters. "I am a physician. I know my rights. You must examine me or set me free."

Only silence answered, broken by distant moans. The darkness pressed in.

You are Graham Redchester, Duke of Eyron. You are in London.

Think. Plan. Survive.

But the darkness had other ideas.

It tore away the walls of Hallowcross and hurled him back to a fetid alley?—

The man’s throat convulsed beneath Graham’s forearm, flesh giving way, bone straining against pressure.

Let him die.

“Stop,” Abigail’s voice—thin, desperate—cut through the roaring.

He did not loosen his grip. The man thrashed, nails scraping uselessly at Graham’s arm.

“That’s enough!” She sounded closer now, pleading, impossibly gentle.

Graham pressed harder. The man’s eyes bulged; breath rattled, broke. He could end this—just one more second, one more ounce of pressure, one less predator in the world.”

“Let him go. Please.”

Graham slammed his fist against the wall, the sharp pain dragging him back to the asylum cell. Blood smeared the stone where his knuckles had split.

"I am Graham Redchester," he whispered through clenched teeth. "I am in London."

A rustling sound drew his attention to the corner. A rat, fat and sleek, watched him with beady eyes before skittering toward the door. Graham pressed himself against the opposite wall, heart hammering.

Not the rat. The dark corners where it vanished.

The shadows there deepened, swirled, and?—

"Pity you won't see sense." Captain Hayes wiped blood from his knuckles with a handkerchief. "I'll have to turn you over to the doctor." He smiled thinly. “Not all cuts kill, you understand.” He leaned down and murmured to murmur in the man’s ear, “Some just make you wish they did."

Graham stared at the man bound to the chair. A French officer, caught behind British lines with coded dispatches. The information he carried could save hundreds of lives.

Hayes withdrew a slender knife from his kit and pressed it into Graham's hand. His stomach churned, but his face remained impassive, a cold mask sliding into place. His fingers woodenly obeyed the command to close around the hilt as something inside him retreated to a dark, quiet corner where the screams couldn't reach.

It was just another kind of incision. Same hands, different scalpel. Outcomes irrelevant.

He catalogued pressure points and nerve clusters with detached precision, already calculating which would yield results fastest with minimal permanent damage.

The Frenchman's eyes widened as Graham approached?—

"No!" Graham stumbled away from the memory, his back hitting the cell door with enough force to rattle the hinges. His breath came in ragged gasps. "I am Graham Redchester. I am in London. Abigail?—"

The name acted as a talisman, pushing back the darkness. Abigail with her steady hands. Abigail who looked at him and saw a man, not a collection of nightmares.

A metallic scrape at the door made him whirl around. The small viewing slot slid open, revealing a pair of dispassionate eyes.

"Enough of that hollerin’," a voice announced. "Evaluation at dawn. Nothing more outta ya until then."