Savor Me Slowly (Alien Huntress #3)(50)
Author: Gena Showalter

The vulnerable woman he’d held in his arms last week, moaning her surprised delight at every heated touch, had not found joy in death and destruction.

“You better head to interrogation before Jack pops a vessel,” Mia said, changing the subject. “No one’s been able to get a word out of the girls but you. Oh, and guess what? I’m going to watch from the two-way.”

“To make sure I tow the line?”

“You know it.”

“Just like old times,” he said. Only he’d had to watch her back then.

Her lips curled into a slow smile. “Pretty much the same. If we lived in Bizarro World, that is, and sometimes I think we do. Ready?”

He stood but didn’t move around the desk. There was a slight twinge in his ankle, but it was so minor he was able to ignore it. “You aren’t officially on duty for another month.”

“So. I’ve taken an interest in your case. Consider me your new shadow.”

Great.

“Let’s go, then.”

Side by side they strode from the office and down the bustling hallways of A.I.R. Jaxon nodded to Dallas as he passed him. They hadn’t been on the best of terms since leaving the compound.

Dallas refused to discuss what he and Devyn had done and said to Mishka after Jaxon had passed out. Jaxon would have asked Devyn, but the temperamental other-worlder had not made a reappearance.

Jaxon suspected Dallas and the team he’d put together—Mia, Kyrin, Eden Black, Lucius Adaire, and Devyn—were planning something. About the Schön, about Mishka, about both, he didn’t know. None of them trusted him with mission details.

And they were right not to. If they thought to hurt Mishka, well, he thought he might just fight against them.

“You and Dallas should kiss and make up,” Mia suggested. “With tongue. I mean, really. It’s the least you can do.”

“When he tells me what I want to know, I’ll plant a fat wet one right on his mouth.”

She rolled her eyes. “Liar. Not nice to get my hopes up like that. You didn’t used to be this much of a bastard.”

“So I’ve heard,” he muttered.

As they pounded out of the main sector and into an elevator, he knew the security system was taking their measurements, body heat, and electrical chemistry, making sure they belonged.

A minute passed, the walls jostling slightly.

Ding. The double doors opened, and they entered the foyer of the prisoners’ cells, a sort of holding room in case someone somehow escaped confinement. Two guards looked down from a raised glass partition as he and Mia endured retinal and hand scans. He’d submitted to so many over the years, they were second nature to him, as much a part of him as breathing.

“Weapons on the table, Agent Tremain,” one of the guards said.

Two at a time, he withdrew his blades, guns, and stars and laid them on a nearby tabletop. Though he thought he could have managed it, he didn’t try to sneak one in. Risking this interview—not gonna happen.

Buzz. The door opened and they were soon moving along another hallway. He frowned. The air was quite a bit colder than usual. Cold enough to chill his face and arms and cramp his lungs.

“Must be trying to slow the growth of the virus,” Mia said.

With as little as was known about it, the cold might help it spread, but Jaxon didn’t speak his fear aloud. Wouldn’t do any good and might actually cause panic.

A lab coat, gloves, and mask hung on the wall beside his target’s cell. He donned each item while Mia entered the room beside his. A room that provided her with a two-way mirror and sound track of everything that happened in the cell.

Jaxon mentally flipped through everything he knew about the victim. Patty Elizabeth Howl. Twenty-three. Had a boyfriend of one year, was in school to become an alien radiologist. Generally happy since being placed on antidepressants five months ago. Source of depression unknown.

She was pretty, short, and a little plump. Usually, she did not sleep around.

From the corner of his eye, Jaxon saw a man exit one of the other rooms. Though he hadn’t met the man, Jaxon knew he was a doctor. This wing of the cellblock had been emptied except for the women and those in charge of their care. Also, the man was wearing the same coat, gloves, and mask as Jaxon. He held a tray of red-filled vials. Blood? Probably.

Jaxon fought a wave of trepidation. At the very least, the women should have been taken to a laboratory and the tests done there. Safer that way. But there was no better security against alien powers than at A.I.R., and if the women proved to be bait for the Schön, there was a better chance of capture here.

Jaxon waited until the doctor had passed him before entering Patty’s prison. The door closed behind him automatically, and he took a moment to study the scene.

White walls, white floor: both speckled with blood. He frowned. She must have scratched herself. Even as he watched, dry enzyme jetted from tiny holes in the tiles, cleaning and sterilizing the foundation. A toilet and a cot were the only furnishings. Patty was sitting on that cot, rocking back and forth, arms crossed over her middle.

She’d torn at her clothing until all that remained were bloody tatters. Her dark hair stood in tangled disarray, some of the strands having been ripped out in chunks. There was a sickening gray tint to her skin, as if she were dying inside and the rot had just begun seeping from her pores.

“Hello, Patty,” he said, using his gentlest tone. Since his return, he’d found it harder and harder to adapt his relaxed, calm mask. He didn’t know why.

No, not true. He just didn’t want to accept the reason.

Mishka liked the real him, and he wanted to be the man she liked.

Pull yourself together, ass**le. He blew this meeting, he wouldn’t get another chance. Guaranteed. He veiled his eyes with patience as surely as he’d veiled his nose and mouth with the covering.

Patty gave no reaction to his presence.

He remained by the door. The others had attacked him, coming at him like bullets from a gun stopped only by the glass that had separated them. “I came to check on you, see how you’re doing.”

Her attention did not waver from the ground.

“Is there anything I can get you? Anything that will make you more comfortable?”

Silence.

“I talked to Joe,” he said truthfully. The interview with Patty’s boyfriend had taken place earlier this morning. No new information had been discovered, but it had given Jaxon the link he needed to bridge the gap between himself and Patty. “He misses you.”