Rising Tomorrow (Roc de Chere Book 1) by Mariana Morgan (essential reading txt) 📕

she displayed contradicted that. He wasn’t used to dealing with so much mental fortitude; he didn’t understand that even in her severely weakened state her ability to resist the nano-hells he had injected was way above average. There was no doubt he could get her to wail and beg for mercy, but not within the time frame he had been given. And she seemed to be as aware of it as he was.

‘Have it your way,’ Wagner hissed through gritted teeth. The words sounded like defeat, but there was a sudden spark of sadistic pleasure in his cold eyes, and Ingram gasped involuntarily.

The man seemed… cheerful.

‘Bring her in!’ he snapped into his wrist-comp, a replacement for the one he had lost at Givors.

Seconds later, two thugs half dragged a petite blond into the room, and suddenly Wagner’s cheerfulness made sense.

Megan looked dreadful, and Ingram’s heart sank. The nano-dressing was gone from her sunken face, showing nasty scarring and an empty eye socket.

Ingram wracked her brain for options as they manhandled Megan into shackles, but nothing useful came to her. The petite woman must have been in an even worse state than she looked because the thugs left her on the floor with one of her ankles shackled to a chain but otherwise unrestrained. It struck Ingram as reckless for Wagner to be potentially putting himself in that much danger. If Megan snapped, she could probably be on top of him in a fraction of a second with little concern for her own survival. The chain would reach, and her youthful hands knew many effective ways to kill.

During the Wars, Dalhström had been a deadly, well-trained Leech soldier who had survived months of harsh training, but Commissioner Wagner was lazy, spoilt by power and a complacent sonofabitch, and stood no chance against a trained MIS operative. The only reason he wasn’t obese was the wonders of nano-tech, which kept him looking fit and trim despite the fact that his muscles had long forgotten what speed or power were.

And yet, Megan was there, motionlessly splayed on the floor, her chest falling and rising heavily. She didn’t move to attack. She didn’t even seem to be aware of where she was.

‘If you won’t co-operate, I’ll just have to take it out on this one.’ Wagner gave the limp body a kick, and Megan whimpered.

‘How do you expect that to work?’ Ingram forced herself to sound conversational. ‘I saw the Elite murder thousands of Leeches during the Freedom Wars through brutal training, lack of proper planning or suitable gear. I’ve seen my friends tortured into exhaustion and insanity with nano-hells. I’ve lost friends to enemy fire, their names forever forgotten because no one cared. I learnt how not to care years ago. Why should I care now about a single Leech?’ Ingram snorted, praying her voice was as carefully devoid of any emotions as she was trying to make it.

‘Ah, but there’s a difference. You were a Leech back then, with no power to change anyone’s fate. Now you have it,’ he said, his fingers curling in Megan’s hair, dragging her head up to face Ingram. ‘Now, you can tell me what I want, and see this pathetic excuse for a human being live to take another breath. Refuse to answer my questions and you’ll see your worst nightmare playing out right in front of your eyes.’

‘You’re very sure of yourself,’ Ingram said, meeting his eyes.

Unlike Wagner, she was not a psychopath, though the training she had received could make her act like one. Each time she did, a part of her died, chipping away at her sanity. But that no longer mattered. She wouldn’t be alive long enough to worry about her long-term mental health. And one thing was for sure—she wasn’t about to compromise Colonel Larsen and the MIS’s efforts only to let Wagner kill Megan out of pure spite anyway when he got what he wanted.

‘Don’t try to play my game! There is no universe in which I’d be willing to believe you don’t care about another person’s suffering. I, on the other hand…’ His voice trailed off as he reached for the PX-47.

With difficulty Megan focused her one working blue eye on the friendly face in front of her. It wasn’t easy to stay conscious, but Ingram’s voice had been steadily dragging her back to reality. She felt devastated to find out that somehow they had caught her, but at the same time, it felt good to not be alone. A weak smile dragged the corners of her lips up just as the syringe connected with her flesh.

Ingram forced herself not to flinch when the younger woman wailed in agony, every nerve in her body, already irritated from days of mistreatment, firing in unison. She focused on the brave little smile she had seen on Megan’s face just a fraction of a second ago and clung to it with all her strength.

Surprisingly quickly, the screams died, and Megan slumped back onto the floor, breathing heavily. The dose of PX-47 must have been substantial, but without a compound that could bind it to the pain receptors for a prolonged period of time the woman’s body had neutralised it within seconds. An effective if crude way of making sure Wagner’s victims didn’t completely lose consciousness or die before he was done with them.

‘My requirements are simple. Tell me where Larsen is hiding and how to circumvent any security features, and I will not only take you and O’Haress back to a cell, but I will even arrange for medical care and food. For both of you. Resist, and you will spend the next few hours seeing what I can do with a cabinet full of nano-chemicals and the body of a useless Leech.’

The threats almost didn’t register under the pure joy of finding out that not only had the colonel made it out alive but had avoided pursuit, keeping the location of Roc de Chere a secret.

‘You kept the wrong person then.