Brain(27)

I sat up on the cold, hard concrete, looked around, and leaned forward to puke waffles and eggs all over the floor. Some of it splashed back on me, and I realized I was naked.

My cage was floor to ceiling, six feet wide and about five feet deep. More of a cell than a cage, really.

My jailor sounded pissed as he asked, “You done? Or is there more?”

“There’s more. Can I get a wet washcloth? And maybe some Coke or something, to settle my stomach?”

“Orders are you can’t have anything to keep in the cell. I can let you have some Coke, but you’ll need to drink it while I hold it.”

I nodded, and didn’t argue as he got a bottle of soda from a mini-fridge, and then held it inside the bars and I drank from the straw. The Coke helped, and I told him, “Okay. I think I’m done throwing up, but I’d still appreciate being able to clean myself up a little. I can stay near the edge with the washcloth.”

He walked to a wall, lifted a hose out of a bucket, and said, “I’ll clean you up. Stand so I can get your front, then turn.”

Humiliated, I stood and let him hose me down like an animal, and turned because I wasn’t sure some hadn’t splashed onto the back of my thigh. When he was done washing me off, he pointed the hose to the floor and aimed the mess outside of my cell to a floor drain. It took ten minutes for him to clean both me and the floor, and I desperately wanted a towel so I could dry off, but didn’t ask for one. I sat in the corner and pulled myself into a ball to keep warm.

“Where’s Duke?”

He shook his head. “Brain has GPS on all club member vehicles, so he can find us if we get into trouble. I just bought a new car, so Brain hasn’t had a chance to outfit it yet. I met Duke outside of the next town over, brought you here without him. It’s just you and me until Duke talks Brain down, convinces him he’s too close to you.”

“And you don’t trust any woman, ever, so it’s safe I won’t use my wily ways to bring you to the dark side, too?”

He leaned back, grinned, but it wasn’t a nice grin, and I had to force the terror inside me down again.

“Something like that. Duke tells me you’re as smart as Brain, and if I let you have anything in the cell, you’re likely to figure out how to use it to escape. He wanted me to be clear you aren’t naked because I’m perving on you, said to tell you no one will hurt you as long as you behave. I turned the heat up when we got here, but it’ll take a bit to bring the temp up.” He shook his head. “He said to make sure I don’t let you escape, but not treat you as the enemy, either. He also said you’re supposed to be coming up with your suggestion of how to kick the Disciples’ ass while destroying every copy they might have of the data you gave them.”

“I’ll need something to either write or type it out on. I can’t think it through in my head.”

“Yeah, he said I can type it as you think out loud. I have a big screen TV upstairs I can bring down, prop against the wall, and hook up to my laptop, so you can see it.”

I’d get farther with this group by showing them they could trust me than I would by fighting them. I nodded, and he went upstairs.

Surprisingly, he brought a towel down, and handed it through the bars long enough for me to dry myself and a section of the floor to sit on. I gave it back to him when I was finished, though I was tempted to move it to the middle of the cell and sit on it.

I outlined the Disciples strengths and weaknesses, had him put them in two columns, side by side, and sat and analyzed them a while. Finally, I said, “Don’t suppose you’d be up for a game of chess or something? I need to get out of my head a while.”

He shook his head. “I unplugged the router when I got here, so there’s no wi-fi, and Duke gave me a burner phone and took my regular one. We’re internetless, and I don’t have chess on my laptop.”

I grinned. “All that, for a little girl?”

“I’m thinking what I’d do to keep Brain in that cage, if he was here. He’s the smartest person I know, and Duke says you bested him for a week before he caught you.”

“Duke must trust you a lot. You not only have to keep me in here, you have to keep Brain from finding us. That’s a pretty tall order.”

“You don’t look like a Grace.”

Okay, so flattery wouldn’t work on him. It’d been worth a try. I shrugged. “Not a lot of choice in my name.”

“I’m one of the few in the club who knows you’ll be getting a new identity. You don’t look like Grace.”

“Not even with girly clothes and longer hair? A chin implant, the bridge of my nose shaved down, and the tip perkier?”