“No,” she says. “No. If you want I can lead you to it. I’ll get it down.”

Herk tries to raise someone on his mouthpiece. No one answers. Everyone, it seems, is either out searching for me or attending to the distraction that Kong created. An expression flickers over his face that approximates uncertainty. When he looks contemplatively at the door Charlie hazards a glance at me. Her eyes are complicit and full of hope.

“Nice try,” he says finally. He doubles up the duct tape on her arms and legs. Then he makes a second hole in the ham and stabs it with the curling iron.

“There. That’s cute. One for each of you. If you’re lying to me, Charlie, you’re both going to get one. It won’t be gentle, like before. And it won’t be quick.”

The door slides shut with a hydraulic shush, the air in the room radiating with the terrifying smell of burned bacon.

Teamwork

Teamwork

With one operational leg I kick against the floor and the chair rolls off its bolts. Then, on the floor, I arm-wrestle uselessly against the duct tape securing my wrists. Jagjeet suggests I squirm over to him so he can tear me free but I can’t propel the chair that far. Charlie avows that I have the strength but I do not. Seeing no other recourse, I kick over the table and when the curling iron falls to the floor I pry it out of the ham with my foot, kick it toward me, and press the tape onto it as hard as I can. There’s plenty of sizzling, and plenty of screaming, but I burn off enough tape to pull out of it. Then I peel off the other arm and free Charlie. Immediately, she tries to kiss me but I push her off.

“Think you waited long enough to tell Herkimer about the sword?” I say, trying to rub some of the heat out of my mouth.

“I had to. If I had said anything with everyone in the room, Azar would have just sent one of them after it and Jimmy would have killed us.”

“You just didn’t want to give up your precious sword.”

“Otto, no. I’d never . . .”

Words fail her. Again she attempts that hungry embrace, and again I stiff-arm her.

“Save it,” I say.

She stands there in her underwear, heaving and wounded with something more than physical pain. Even now, like this, and after everything that has happened, she is still the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. And it will always be that way. My blood knows it.

Her eyes beg mine for something—softness, possibility, hope—but I don’t give it.

“I’m getting you out of here, but that’s it.”

“But Otto—”