He nodded grimly. “You appear to know the schedule. This happens a lot?”

“Of course it does. He knows it hurts me. I think the reason he stopped sending for Baldwin and using him was that he wanted to show me what could happen to me if I didn’t cooperate. It’s his way of training me.” She shook her head. “It works very well. Because I usually don’t have anyone covering my ears so that I don’t hear the lesson he’s trying to drum into me.” Her lips curved in a bitter smile. “And I don’t even know what you were saying. I was trying to block everything out.”

“Good. Because I was just making noise and mumbling bullshit to help you do that. I think I ended up telling you the plot of the first episode of the Indiana Jones movies.”

She shook her head in bewilderment. “What? Indiana…I remember Alisa said something…” Then she said flatly, “You must be totally weird.”

“There are rumors to that effect drifting around.” He was moving quickly toward the back of the tent. “But I prefer the term unique. I’ll give Korgan your message. And I’ll tell Alisa my new friend, Sasha, is doing well considering all the scum around her. Though again, I might prefer to use a stronger term. I’ll be in touch.”

He was gone.

Sasha held her breath, listening. No sound. Total silence. But that only meant he might have gotten out of the camp without being caught. He still had the sentries in the jungle to contend with after he’d left the main camp. She would hear a shot or outcry soon if that happened.

She waited.

Nothing.

After fifteen minutes she gradually relaxed. Perhaps Gilroy was as good as he’d told her. At any rate, Korgan must have faith in him if he’d sent him on a mission that could have been deadly. Yet Gilroy had been almost casual about both the mission and any possible ramifications. He was just as weird as she’d called him.

But he’d accepted what she’d told him about Juno, and he’d blocked those agonizing sounds of pain and horror with his hands and his voice. He’d called her his friend in this place where she had no real friends. What difference did it make if he wasn’t like anyone else she’d ever met? The whole world seemed turned upside down and weird right now.