“Friends.”
“Ah. An escape plan.”
Rooster hesitated another moment. The guy was juststaringat him, with his too-sharp teeth, like something out of one of those terrible movies Red loved. “What?”
“Do you really think these friends of yours will be able to get you out of this cell? That they’ll fight their way down three levels to find you?”
“I…” Deshawn would try, and probably get himself killed in the process. As for Rob and the others, he only had legend to go on, and no firsthand knowledge.
“Here’s a thought.” There was something suggestive, almost obscene, in Val’s smile now. “How about you set me loose, and let me help you?”
Rooster looked at the bars. At the phone. At his lack of weapons. And back at the blond in shackles. “You’re serious.”
“Absolutely.”
“I dunno if you noticed this or not…but you’re chained up as fuck, man.”
“An inconvenience, yes.”
“Dude–”
“But now that you’re here–”
“Look at me.” Rooster gestured around him. “You’re not the only Rapunzel in this tower, okay? I have to sit on my ass and wait to be rescued, too.”
Val snorted. “So unimaginative. Listen to me.” He rocked forward and pressed his thin face to the bars. “If you get a gun away from one of the guards, will you know how to use it?”
For the first time in days, Rooster felt himself crack a smile. “Yeah. You could say that.”
~*~
Jake didn’t knock, just let himself into Dr. Talbot’s office, and was rewarded, momentarily, by the affronted look the doctor lifted toward the door. It was smoothed over quickly to a look of surprise, because Talbot was nothing if not committed to his kindly doctor façade, but for a heartbeat, Jake had seen what lay beneath: something oily, desperate, and angry.
“Major Treadwell,” he began. On his computer screen, angled so that Jake could see, a man’s face stared out: a live Facetime session. Jake noticed, absurdly, that the man on the other end of the line had startlingly red hair; the same color as Ruby Russell’s.
But speaking of Russell…
“Sir,” he said before the doctor could say anything else. “It’s Roger Palmer. He walked up the driveway about ten minutes ago.”
Dr. Talbot’s face blanked over with shock. “Hewhat?”
“He was unarmed. Walked all the way from the road; several cameras picked him up.”
“He’s alive?” A spark of anger glimmered to life behind the lenses of his glasses. “I thought you neutralized him?”
Jake thought of the trees bending toward the girl, the unholy light in her eyes. The unemotional tone of her voice as she’d bargained with him…and he’d known he would go along, because she was a girl wrapped in fire.
He heaved a sigh. “I left him unconscious and bleeding out in a forest in Wyoming. There’s no conceivable way he could have found his way here.”
“And yet,” Dr. Talbot’s voice was deadly calm, “he did.”
“I’m going to interrogate him. Personally. I was just headed back to the cells now, but I wanted to let you–”
“The cells?” The doctor braced his hands on the desk and shoved himself to his feet, the color bleeding out of his face. “You put him down there with Valerian?”
“Well, yes, those are our only cells…” But the fine hairs on his arms lifted. What had he done?
Dr. Talbot said, “Go and get him.”
