His black eyebrows drew together in confusion. Maybe it was the drug still working its way through my system or simply my relief at being alive, but his puzzled expression made me giddy, so giddy that I started snickering, which soon erupted up into long, loud laughter, until tears were streaming down my face and my ribs ached.
But I couldn’t stop laughing—I didn’t want to stop.
Benson stared at me, even more confused than before. But my delighted peals soon made his uncertainty melt into anger. Red roses of embarrassment bloomed in his pale cheeks, and his blue eyes glittered with rage behind his silver glasses. He got to his feet, threw his pen and pad down onto the table, and ripped off his white lab coat.
“Clean her up,” he snarled, slapping his coat down onto the back of his chair. “I want her ready to go for round two as soon as possible. I’m going to check with the supplier and get a fresh batch of pills to use on her.”
Silvio nodded. Benson gave me one more disgusted look before stomping out of the lab and slamming the door behind him to cut off the sound of my merry, mercurial, maniacal chuckles.
•
Silvio spent a few minutes unhooking me from the monitors and other contraptions. He didn’t say a word as my crazy laughter finally slowed, sputtered, and then stopped. When he had finished putting the machines away, Silvio pulled out his phone and sent a quick text. Then he moved behind me, out of my line of sight, before coming back into view and setting a thick white plastic garbage bag on top of the table.
Clink-clink-clink.
I cocked my head to the side. I knew that sound—it was the clatter of silverstone blades scraping together. My knives were in that bag. Too bad I couldn’t get to them. Too bad I couldn’t do anything but sit in this damn chair.
I thought Silvio would grab my knives again and leave the lab, but he hesitated, then came over to stand beside me. And then he did the strangest thing of all.
He reached out and unlocked the silverstone restraint around my neck.
I blinked, wondering if maybe I was still flying high on Burn and hallucinating, but Silvio quickly opened the shackles around my wrists, then the ones around my ankles. We stared at each other, him as calm as ever, me completely confused. This had to be some sort of trap, some sort of trick on Benson’s part. No doubt, he had ordered Silvio to unshackle me just so he could watch me try to escape in my weakened state and take some more stupid notes for his so-called scientific observations.
But I didn’t care, and if there was one thing that I was good at, it was surviving impossible situations and leaving the bodies of my enemies strewn behind in my wake. Starting here and now with Silvio.
“Here,” Silvio said, leaning over the chair and stretching his hand out to me. “Let me help you up—”
I reached up, wrapped my right hand tightly around his neck, and used my left hand to push myself out of the chair. We tumbled to the floor. Silvio tried to slither out from under me, but I reached for what little magic I had left—my Stone power this time—and hardened my hand with it. I used my viselike grip to put even more pressure on his throat, squeezing, squeezing tight.
“You make a sound or a move that I don’t like, and I will crush your windpipe,” I hissed. “What the hell is this? Why did you free me? What game is Benson playing now? Is this all part of his f**king experiment?”
“No . . . game . . .” Silvio croaked. “Trying . . . to . . . help you.”
I lay on top of the vamp, waiting for him to start clawing at my hand or punching me in the face. If he really wanted to, he could throw me off him. My arms and legs were about as steady as a bowl of soup right now, and the only reason I was holding him down was that my body was complete dead weight.
But instead of fighting, Silvio stayed still. “You held up . . . your end of the . . . bargain,” he rasped. “You saved . . . Catalina . . . from him. Just trying . . . to return . . . the favor.”
His gray gaze locked with my much frostier one, but I didn’t see anything in his eyes except cool, calm clarity. Silvio had already accepted his own death, whether it was here at my hand or later on at his boss’s.
“Benson will kill you for this,” I said, trying to rattle him, trying to see if he really meant what he said. “You know he will.”
Silvio nodded as much as my Stone-hardened hand would let him. “I am . . . well aware of that.”
I stared into his eyes, but his calm expression didn’t flicker or waver, not even for a second. He was either sincere in his desire to help me, or he was one of the best actors I’d ever seen. Either way, I made my decision. No choice, really. As much as I hated to admit it, I wasn’t getting out of here on my own. Not when I was weak, still partially drugged, and running low on magic and had my bare ass hanging out of the back of a hospital gown.
“All right, then,” I said, releasing my grip on my Stone magic and Silvio’s throat. “If you’re so determined to betray your boss, then help me up. And find me some damn clothes.”
21
Silvio rolled me off him. He grabbed Benson’s white lab coat and tossed it at me before going over to a large metal safe in the back corner of the room.
Still lying on the floor, I stretched out my hand, dug my fingers into the fabric, and pulled the coat over to me. Even that tiny effort made sweat trickle down the small of my exposed back, and sitting up against the side of the torture chair made me pant for breath.
Silvio ignored my slow progress, spun the dial around on the front of the safe, and yanked the door open. He drew a black leather-bound book out of the dark depths of the safe before shutting and locking it again. He hurried back over to me. The vamp sighed, shook his head, and hoisted me up. It was all that I could do to stand upright, while he yanked my arms and body this way and that, maneuvering me around like a doll he was dressing. I gritted my teeth to hold back my frustrated snarls. I hated being so weak, so dependent, so damn helpless, but time was the most important thing right now, and if I had to be humiliated to escape, well, so be it.
Anything would be better than being strapped down in that f**king chair again.
Silvio buttoned the coat over my chest. Then he grabbed the plastic garbage bag full of my knives off the table and handed me one of the weapons, before sliding the book from the safe inside the plastic and tying the bag tight around my wrist.
“What’s that?” I asked. “That book.”
“Insurance.”
Before I could ask him what he meant, Silvio reached out, scooped me up into his arms, and headed toward the door. The bag of knives hanging off my wrist smacked against his hip, but he didn’t seem to notice.