Page 88 of Her Captivated Hero

Gray crouched down in front of the man and grabbed his hair. “Where is your brother?” he asked in Arabic.

The man’s eyes got wide and his shriek could be heard even with the sock in his mouth. “I won’t kill you. However, I will cut off your scalp, then I will scrape the skin off your cock, if you don’t tell me the truth. Do you understand?” Gray continued in Arabic.

Hunter pulled out his knife and twirled it in front of the man’s face.

Gray watched as a large snot bubble formed and popped.

He took the knife from Hunter and placed it at the tip of the sniveling man’s nose, and pulled the sock out of his mouth.

“Talk.”

* * *

ThankGod she didn’t have the hose hissing air at her anymore, she could hear herself think. Riya looked at the green light on the thermal cycler. She pulled out the samples that were useless, at least for now. She also pulled the slides out of the microscope. The one thing she didn’t have was an autoclave, which shouldn’t have been a problem, because she was supposed to have been working with only one toxin. Riya got out the disinfectant spray and cleaned everything she could, as thoroughly as she could.

Calm.

Breathe.

Think.

Calm.

Breathe.

Think.

Riya tried to imagine herself in her own lab. She had a microscope. It wasn’t her microscope, but it was a microscope. She looked over the table at all the other equipment. It was familiar, maybe not hers, but still familiar. Then she felt her heartbeat slow when she saw her black and white notebook. She could do this.

Her hands were now steady.

The table wobbled. Great. Her hands were steady, but the table wasn’t.

Just freaking great.

Riya made sure everything associated with the broad poison was put over to the right side of the table. She would work on the Jordanian toxin on the left side of the table.

She took the modified oxygen tank and opened it. She pulled out the deployed canister. The top part was missing. Carefully, she pulled out the bottom part and placed it on her table. She would need a substantial sample to pull off a miracle. Granted, when she’d been in D.C. she’d worked with a miniscule amount, but she’d had the best equipment in the world. Now, she needed a lot of the toxin.

The liquid was too thick to pour out of the canister, so she was going to need to reach inside to the bottom with an eyedropper. She gently tapped the metal on the table, trying to make it all fall to one side. She said a little prayer, and went for it. Please let there be enough to get a good sample.

“Ow!”

She dropped the eyedropper. Something sharp inside the canister had scraped her. Was it some kind of boobie-trap? She bit her lip. She fished around for the eyedropper and worked to extract her sample. She grinned when she pulled out the a full load. It would be more than enough.

Riya looked at her torn glove and the small scrape on her hand.

Fuck!

She froze. Then blew out a deep breath as she realized this was the DNA specific toxin, thank the Lord. She was good, but long years of protocol demanded she get a new pair. She reached over to the glove box. The table wobbled and the canister rolled and hit her elbow. She stumbled two steps to the right, her scraped hand landing on a slide with the broad poison.

She jerked her hand back and cradled it to her chest.

For the second time that day, time stopped.

Her mind blanked.

How long did she stand like that? Frozen? Unable to move?