Page 49 of Lolli-Gag
“I am.”
“That's why you’re standing here instead of trying to tear my throat out,” he says, and he’s not wrong.I hate that.He gestures towards the screens. “Look at them,” he commands. I don’t want to, but I do. Jagger lifts Lolli off the bed as her hands cling to him. The image is grainy, but still enough. Something in my chest pulls tight. Not jealousy. Not exactly. Recognition. She found one of them. She needed that… good. My hands curl anyway as Master D watches me watching them. ”You care?” he asks, and my eyes flicker to him for a second.
“No!”
“Lie better,” he says, but I don’t answer. He smiles then points at the screen. “There it is,” he says as Killian has his head tilted with unfocused eyes in the noise room. Lucifer sits with a bloody face in the silent room, and Jag has Lolli in the hallway. Axel’s feed is blank. I noticed, and he saw me notice.
“Axel is irrelevant,” he spits, and I raise a brow.
“No one is irrelevant to her,” I say.
“Exactly.” He moves to the console and enters a code. A new monitor turns on to a room I don’t recognize. White floor. Drains in the center. Restraints off the wall and a chair, empty.
“Phase two requires a stabilizer,” he says as I stare at the empty room.
“No.”
“You haven’t heard the offer.” He smiles.
“It isn’t an offer,” I grit.
“No, it isn’t.”
The air changes as the guard near the door puts his hand on his weapon. I could move before he draws. The one behind me is slower. Master D is the problem. Not physically, but strategically. He already has something in place. Men like him don’t enter a room unarmed, even when their hands are empty. Especially then.
“What do you want?” I ask, and he presses another button. Lolli’s screen enlarges and she’s in Jagger's arms, her eyes look exhausted as she still watches everything.
“Her cooperation is inconsistent. And her attachment to the group is becoming dominant. That can be used, but not if the group remains uncontrolled,” he states, and my jaw tightens.
“Say it,” I spit.
“You will bring her back.”
Silence. The room narrows.
“No!”
“You will!” he says with certainty laced in his tone.
“No!” I grit.
“She will follow you,” he says, and I hate that he says it.I hate it more that some part of me thinks he may be right.He steps closer, facing me fully now. “Not because she trusts you. Not yet. Because she wants to. Because you don’t ask questions or make noise. Unlike the others, you don’t pull at her,” he says as I look at him.
“You don’t know shit about her,” I accuse, and he smirks.
“I know enough… especially which wound to press.”
There it is. The truth of him. Not a scientist. Not a doctor. Not even a monster.Worse.He’s patient and waits for people to show him where they hurt then builds rooms around it.
“And if I don’t?” I say, and he nods once to the guard. The man presses a control and Lucifer’s monitor flickers and his silent room lights shift from dim to blinding white. He flinches barely, but I see it. Killian's feed spikes with sound waves across the display. In Jagger and Lolli’s hallway, doors begin locking ahead of them one by one.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Even through the glass, I can feel the trap closing.
