“Hey! I didn’t see this before!” she cried in triumph. “I figured there had to be a way in. I mean…we got in here somehow. I just couldn’t find it.”

“It was easy to miss. I only found it by checking every seam in the wallpaper. I gotta give cred to the guy who had the patience to paper this room…even if the floral pattern makes my eyes hurt. But I think that was deliberately chosen to distract the eye from the seams.”

“You sound like this is nothing new to you. You sound so calm.”

He supposed he did. It didn’t pay to get worked up. Anger and frustration only clouded his thinking.

“I’m not about to kick and scream. I won’t give whoever is watching the satisfaction.”

“So you think they are watching too? That it’s not just us seeing each other?”

“Of course they’re watching. That’s half the fun isn’t it?” He ran a hand back through his hair—his only sign of agitation. But it was enough for her to notice.

“I’m sorry. That was a stupid question.”

“Yeah. It was,” he said.

“I said I was sorry!” she bit out.

“All right! So you’re sorry. That doesn’t change things. Look, you have to get a grip. There’s no room for being all soft and apologetic. That won’t get the job done.”

“What job?” she snapped. “And there’s nothing wrong with being polite. You might try it sometime.”

“I don’t have time to be polite,” he said. “And the job is getting us out of here.”

“How are we going to do that? Like you said, someone is probably watching our every—”

She gasped suddenly and lurched back away from the doorway she was standing near. She scurried over to the chair and ridiculously hid behind it.

“Someone’s coming!” she hissed.

“Here’s a clue. They’re going to be able to find you,” he said dryly.

“Shut up! You’re a real—”

She gasped, cutting herself off from calling him an asshole. He supposed that was exactly what he was, he thought a moment later as someone all in black opened the portal and stepped inside Felice’s room. Felice screamed as he approached her—and it was a he, Halo could tell by his bulk and the way he moved—and she scrambled to get away from him. But it was no use and Halo knew it, even if in the moment of panic Felice didn’t.

A second figure entered the room behind the first just as the first, the bigger of the two, grabbed hold of Felice. She screamed and fought, her naked body twisting and squirming. Halo’s fists clenched as he watched every second of what was happening with burning eyes. Now he felt frustration. He wanted to leap through the screen to help her. He wasn’t the type to rescue damsels in distress, but he wasn’t the type to ignore them either.

This was unbearable for him, terrifying for her. He hardly knew her, but he knew he would do anything to switch places with her.

“You fuckers!” he shouted at the screen. “Why don’t you come after me?”

She was a fighter, he’d give her that. She kicked out, catching one of the men in the nuts. He grunted and fell to his knees, cupping his abused privates in both hands. That left the meatier of the two men to control the writhing, screaming woman in his hold. Tired of listening to her, he backhanded her. She immediately went silent as her head snapped back, then hung limply. He’d either knocked her out or she’d fainted, he couldn’t tell which through the screen.

Now that she was still, the bruiser threw her down on the bed. Halo gripped the remote so tightly he just about crushed it, but he barely kept himself from doing so. He needed it. He needed to be able to watch over her.

The second man recovered slowly as the bruiser arranged her naked limbs out on the bed. He did something with her arm and then pulled something out of his back pocket.

A syringe? He couldn’t tell but the actions of the bruiser seemed like those of someone giving a shot or taking blood. He bet on giving a shot. Something to further subdue her no doubt. The bruiser stood up and faced the camera in the upper north corner of the room. He was masked, so Halo couldn’t identify him.

“Don’t worry. You’re next,” he said.

“Just try it, fucker. Be prepared to hurt.”

“We’ll see,” the bruiser said smugly.

He plucked his partner up by the shoulder of his shirt and dragged him out of the room. Halo stood staring at the screens, watching her carefully. At least they hadn’t…he’d been afraid they would really hurt her. Rape her maybe. His mind went over dozens of possibilities of ways they could hurt her. He hated every sick thought that entered his mind. He had seen people hurt each other in hundreds of ways. It was what had jaded him so thoroughly. He could imagine every one of those hundreds of ways…spend days imagining them. What did that make him? He didn’t know. However, he did know that she didn’t deserve this. Whatever and whoever she was, she didn’t deserve this.

He stood there watching over her for an hour or so, waiting every minute for his door to open. But standing there in a state of readiness would quickly become exhausting, so he forced himself to relax. He took a seat on one of the recliners and settled in. He wished he could see her better, see her breathe. Why had they drugged her? If indeed she had been drugged. Obviously it was to prepare her for something. But what?

Then suddenly the screen blanked out, as if someone had shut off all the cameras. More than likely they had just shut off his access to them. Frustration welled within him as he tried changing the channel. It earned him basic cable, shows he wasn’t interested in, so he flipped back to the screen in case they allowed access to her once more. He wanted to be able to see her the minute they let him do so again. In the meantime he tried not to imagine all the things they could be doing to her out of his sight.