Read Online The Bonding Ritual (Girls Wearing Black: Book Four) by Spencer Baum - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Spencer Baum
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minute, that the world had been covered in darkness for long enough.
3:31 now. A single minute closer to decision time. Only about two hundred more before the sunlight released them to go wherever it was they were supposed to be.
For Frankie, it would be the Network training grounds in Richmond. A former slave who had the strength to resist his own programming, who had the decisiveness and speed it took to behead Renata Sullivan, who had no family left in the world, other than Nicky—Frankie was perfect Network material. According to Phillip, Headquarters already had someone on the road to come get him. An experienced assassin named Eve Kendrick was scheduled to arrive at the safe house before dawn, and if Frankie had even the slightest interest in continuing what he started at Renata’s mansion, she would take him away to learn more about the fine art of vampire hunting.
For Phillip and Helena, it was almost certainly a return trip to whatever Rocky Mountain forest hid them between missions. Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Montana—these were the spaces where people like Phillip and Helena resided when they weren’t in action. A house on a lake somewhere, or a cabin in the woods. The region was full of Network operatives, laying low until it was time for them to rejoin the action.
But even a remote parcel of mountain wilderness wouldn’t be enough for Nicky, Jill, and Ryan. Their faces were so well known to the clan, so heavily photographed—there would be no place in America that was safe for them. Tomorrow morning they would travel to another safe house, then another, bouncing along one of the Network’s escape routes and ending up in Mexico or Canada. From there, they’d take a plane and land someplace far away.
Maybe they could meet up with Annika and Shannon in Brazil. Maybe they’d go to Europe, landing in a crowded city where they could disappear until it was time for another job.
3:35. On the one hand, the night felt like it was stretching into eternity. On the other, it couldn’t last long enough. The darkness held them here, and here was where Nicky wanted to be.
She wasn’t finished. The work wasn’t finished.
At 3:36 Gordon emerged from the spare bedroom.
“How did it go in there?” Nicky asked him.
“Really, really well,” Gordon said. “Frankie is resting in the bedroom at the moment. He and I had a good talk. I’ve never seen a subject come out so quickly. Usually progress on the first day is slight, but with Frankie, we’re pretty much done. He is a special case.”
“What do you mean?”
“When we consider what he did to his own master,” Gordon said, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Frankie is unique,” Nicky said quietly. “He always has been.”
Gordon gestured at a couch in the living room. “Let’s sit down together for a moment.”
On a grungy couch in the small living room of a dilapidated house in a crumbling neighborhood, Gordon summarized the past ten years of Frankie’s life for Nicky. Total subservience was a phrase Gordon used more than once. A very specific routine for each slave, day in and day out.
Nicky was tired, both physically and emotionally, and she made no effort to control the anger that built in her as she listened to Gordon describe Frankie’s life since that night he and Nicky were stolen from her father’s RV and taken to the Farm.
“Every action he took was based on the programming,” Gordon said. “Every word he said was in conformance with the brainwashing routine he received at the Farm. All that he was, his entire being, was quashed and pushed to the deepest recesses of his mind to make room for the new, subservient Frankie the vampires wanted him to be.”
None of this was a surprise to Nicky. She knew full well how it worked. She even sat through a programming session herself once, and remembered the barrage of endless commands Melissa Mayhew tried to plant in her mind. Had any of those commands took, she would have been
3:31 now. A single minute closer to decision time. Only about two hundred more before the sunlight released them to go wherever it was they were supposed to be.
For Frankie, it would be the Network training grounds in Richmond. A former slave who had the strength to resist his own programming, who had the decisiveness and speed it took to behead Renata Sullivan, who had no family left in the world, other than Nicky—Frankie was perfect Network material. According to Phillip, Headquarters already had someone on the road to come get him. An experienced assassin named Eve Kendrick was scheduled to arrive at the safe house before dawn, and if Frankie had even the slightest interest in continuing what he started at Renata’s mansion, she would take him away to learn more about the fine art of vampire hunting.
For Phillip and Helena, it was almost certainly a return trip to whatever Rocky Mountain forest hid them between missions. Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Montana—these were the spaces where people like Phillip and Helena resided when they weren’t in action. A house on a lake somewhere, or a cabin in the woods. The region was full of Network operatives, laying low until it was time for them to rejoin the action.
But even a remote parcel of mountain wilderness wouldn’t be enough for Nicky, Jill, and Ryan. Their faces were so well known to the clan, so heavily photographed—there would be no place in America that was safe for them. Tomorrow morning they would travel to another safe house, then another, bouncing along one of the Network’s escape routes and ending up in Mexico or Canada. From there, they’d take a plane and land someplace far away.
Maybe they could meet up with Annika and Shannon in Brazil. Maybe they’d go to Europe, landing in a crowded city where they could disappear until it was time for another job.
3:35. On the one hand, the night felt like it was stretching into eternity. On the other, it couldn’t last long enough. The darkness held them here, and here was where Nicky wanted to be.
She wasn’t finished. The work wasn’t finished.
At 3:36 Gordon emerged from the spare bedroom.
“How did it go in there?” Nicky asked him.
“Really, really well,” Gordon said. “Frankie is resting in the bedroom at the moment. He and I had a good talk. I’ve never seen a subject come out so quickly. Usually progress on the first day is slight, but with Frankie, we’re pretty much done. He is a special case.”
“What do you mean?”
“When we consider what he did to his own master,” Gordon said, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Frankie is unique,” Nicky said quietly. “He always has been.”
Gordon gestured at a couch in the living room. “Let’s sit down together for a moment.”
On a grungy couch in the small living room of a dilapidated house in a crumbling neighborhood, Gordon summarized the past ten years of Frankie’s life for Nicky. Total subservience was a phrase Gordon used more than once. A very specific routine for each slave, day in and day out.
Nicky was tired, both physically and emotionally, and she made no effort to control the anger that built in her as she listened to Gordon describe Frankie’s life since that night he and Nicky were stolen from her father’s RV and taken to the Farm.
“Every action he took was based on the programming,” Gordon said. “Every word he said was in conformance with the brainwashing routine he received at the Farm. All that he was, his entire being, was quashed and pushed to the deepest recesses of his mind to make room for the new, subservient Frankie the vampires wanted him to be.”
None of this was a surprise to Nicky. She knew full well how it worked. She even sat through a programming session herself once, and remembered the barrage of endless commands Melissa Mayhew tried to plant in her mind. Had any of those commands took, she would have been
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