Free Run Among Thorns by Anna Louise Lucia Page B

with me.”
    She muttered something; then, “Is that another of your rules, McAllister?”
    “No. Just a piece of good advice,” he drawled, and watched her whole face shut down, just like that, although barely a muscle moved.

    Jenny didn’t answer any more of his questions that day, although he threatened and swore, cajoled and bribed her with the prospect of freedom. The capacity for answering had been drained out of her somehow, and she didn’t care, did not care what he did about that.
    Which was nothing much, in the end.
    And she was conscious, as he surely must have been, that he’d failed to follow up his advantage once or twice, when it had been a struggle to keep the tears back, and when he’d forced her to live through the deaths of those three men again.
    Lunch passed, dinner passed, and the day dulled to sunset under a livid grey sky, so McAllister lit lamps early, painting the stone cottage in pools of warm-honey light and looming shadow.
    As soon as she thought she could get away with it, she headed for bed, neither knowing nor caring when he was going to join her.
    She was so tired. Tired of fighting, tired of arguing.
    Tired of his questions.
    He only wanted the truth, after all. Would it really hurt to tell him?

    Kier woke, suddenly and completely alert. Snaking a hand out from under the covers, he felt the empty space beside him, still enticingly warm from her body.
    His heart lurched, and he didn’t like it, because it was something more than professional concern, and that … that was a weakness that could get him killed, after all.
    A quick scan showed him her outline, sitting in a heap at the foot of the bed. She was cross-legged, with something wrapped around her shoulders, leaning up against the footboard.
    When she spoke, her voice was dull, expressionless.
    “I had no choice, you know.”
    He felt a fierce surge of satisfaction. This was the voice of a woman defeated, spilling her guts to the man who had broken her. Another job well done, McAllister , he thought, and wondered why he felt like the worst kind of bastard.
    “He was scaring Susie. I knew Phillip would need medical attention very soon, or he would die. I thought it was a fair bet they would kill all of us, anyway.”
    She paused for a long time, and he raised himself up, slowly and carefully so as not to startle her, and propped himself against the headboard, covers at his waist. He thought he could see what was playing on the screen of her mind’s eye, remembered that stark and shocking video at the facility.
    “I knew everyone there,” she said. “Knew all their circumstances. Susie was the only one without a young family, and she had just become engaged to a lovely lad. Alan, my brother … Well, we’re close, but he would have understood if I’d tried and failed.”
    There were questions he wanted to ask, but they could wait. He didn’t want to interrupt the flow. There was a seed of grief inside him, for the woman she might have been, if she hadn’t been corrupted to the purpose of killing.
    “I never really expected to succeed, you know. All the time I was moving, I was waiting for the bullets to hit me, wondering what it would feel like. I can remember my skin itching all over, it was so sensitive to that anticipation.”
    She took a long, even breath, but he heard it waver in the middle. Part of him wondered where she got the control after all the work he’d put into making her lose it.
    Kier was puzzled, expecting a confession of guilt. This … this was something very different. Very different, indeed.
    “In the end it was very simple. What I had to do all unfolded in front of me, like someone unrolling a carpet. I couldn’t faff about with trying to wound people, trying to restrain them. There were three of them and one of me. If I was to succeed at all, they had to go down and stay down.”
    He felt her shift on the bed, and knew she was looking at him.
    “If you ask me how I did it, I don’t know. If