Page 28 of Gamma

As much as I don’t want to do die, I even more so don’t want this innocent child to have to witness such a thing.

She goes still, the guard releases her, only to shove her toward the wall where the camera equipment is, out of the way and off-screen. He then stands a few feet away and levels the rifle at her face.

“Don’t,” I hear myself say, not quite begging but willing to, if it saves her life; she doesn’t deserve this, even if I do. “Don’t, please. Tell me what you want, just…don’t hurt the child.”

“She’s leverage,” I hear Spaulding’s voice from the doorway. “Cooperate, and she won’t be harmed.”

I look to Spaulding—a dove gray suit, today, with a white shirt, no tie. Snakeskin boots. Gold and diamond cufflinks. Not a hair out of place. He has a notecard in his hands, which he hands to me.

“Read this, when you are given the cue. Deviate from the words on the card in the slightest….” His eyes cut to Yelena, the threat clear.

I hold the card in my hand; I’m glad my hand isn’t shaking, even if my knees are. If it was just me here, I’d play this differently. But with Yelena’s innocent life hanging in the balance, I dare not challenge him.

Spaulding himself operates the equipment, turning on the lights, which blind me, adjusting the microphone, training the camera on me, testing the sound levels and mix and such. Then, he hits record on the camera and points at me.

I read what’s on the card, verbatim. “Nicholas Harris, Anselm See, Lear Winter, Duke Silver, Puck Lawson, and the one known as Thresh. This video serves as your only warning. Any attempt at rescue will result in my immediate death, followed by the torture and execution of the small child, Yelena Konstantin. There is no negotiation. They know your faces. They know your tactics. If you care about our lives at all, you will wait for further instructions. That is all.”

The camera continues to record, and I look to Spaulding for instructions—he grabs Yelena by the arm and shoves her toward me; as afraid of him as she is, she’s smart enough to not fight him the way she did the guard. I don’t doubt Spaulding would hesitate to at very least backhand her if she were to struggle.

I catch Yelena as she stumbles over to me. I hold her shoulders, feeling her whole body shiver and tremble with fear.

A moment, recording the fact that Yelena is thus far unharmed, and then Spaulding jerks a thumb at the rear wall, and I nudge her toward it. “Go on, little one. It’s all right,” I murmur.

She stands against the wall, big serious dark eyes watching me.

Spaulding moves into the frame, keeping his back to the camera without blocking its view of me. He withdraws a large .45, the handle plated in platinum and crusted with diamonds. Ridiculous. He holds it against his thigh, his eyes on me, blank and cold and inhuman.

“To show that I am serious,” he says, turning his head slightly to address the camera without directly showing his face. “I shall administer thisonewarning. Any incursion will result in the next round going through his skull.” A pause. “You’ve been warned.”

Blam!

The noise of the report is unexpected and deafening in the small room. I see Yelena clap her hands over her ears and drop to the floor—

As blinding agony shatters through me, radiating from my left elbow.

I clutch my arm to my elbow, teeth gritted against the pain—I hear myself groaning through my teeth.

Yelena is screaming.

“Shut the girl up,” Spaulding warns, “or I will.”

I roll to my back, crane my head up and look at Yelena. “Hey, look at me. Yelena, look at me.”

Her eyes remain squeezed shut, tears leaking out. She shakes her head.

“Yelena, I’m okay. You hear my voice, right? I’m okay. Just look at my eyes.” I do my best to keep my voice calm and normal, but I can’t do anything about the tightness in it from the pain. “I’m okay, Yelena.”

Her eyes crack open, and she sees me. Or, perhaps, sees me on the ground, with the crimson spatter on the white backdrop. And her eyes clench shut again. But, at least she isn’t screaming.

“Take them back to their cell,” Spaulding orders, and then saunters out of the cell.

The guard gestures at me, at the door. I work laboriously, painfully, to my feet. “Yelena. We have to go back, now.”

She looks at me, at my arm, a red ruin dripping blood down my forearm and sluicing off my fingertips onto the flagstones underneath. “He shooted you.”

“Yes, he did.” I go for a reassuring smile, but I have a feeling it comes across as more of a grimace than anything. “But I’ll be okay.”

Her gaze is skeptical. “It hurts bad?”