––––––––
Smith didn’t use a blowtorch on me. Instead, his flunky heated the metal chair they’d strapped me in. He’d placed some kind of heating element underneath the seat and then stood in the corner of the room. The temperature had risen rather quickly.
It wasn’t sizzling my flesh yet, but the heat was rapidly approaching a temperature that would become unbearable.
I squirmed in the seat, shifting my weight from one butt cheek to the next, trying to minimize how much time my exposed skin spent against the hot metal. My legs didn’t have much play, so I couldn’t lift them high enough to make much of a difference.
After two minutes, my lower body felt like it was on fire.
Sweat slicked every inch of my skin.
My teeth were grinding.
It got hotter.
And hotter.
It felt as if someone had placed a giant cigarette lighter from a car against the underside of my legs. And I knew while I was strapped in that chair, roasting like a Thanksgiving turkey, Smith was watching a readout from the machine strapped to my dome. His subordinate stood a few feet away and watched me fry.
I fought to block out the agony radiating through my body, but failed. My mind succumbed to the torment engulfing me.
“Going... to kill... you...” I managed to hiss between gritted teeth.
“Save your strength, buddy. You’re going to—”
The whirring coming from the machine beside me died.
“What the hell?” the man in the corner said. “What happened to the lights?”
My mental abilities instantly roared back. I could sense the man in the room, his mind a blank void that I couldn’t read. Dozens of others surrounded me at varying ranges and angles. Some were above me, others to my left and right.
The Bridge formed in my mind, a telepathic connection I’d only experienced one other time when I first met Murdock. There was another telepath nearby.
A tiny voice blossomed in the middle of my head.
...who... are... you...?
In the several years that I’d fought with the gift, or curse, depending on your perspective, I’d only ever run across one other person who could understand what I dealt with. That man had been a psychotic mass murder, so we hadn’t exactly shared beers and discussed our feelings.
Finding someone else to relate to should have excited me more than a lottery win. Unfortunately, I was turning into a human barbeque. It was hard to get excited about meeting new people when your ass was on fire. Especially when it was in a nonsexual way.
Even through the pain, I knew that the lights going out and my telepathy roaring back meant the power had failed. That gave me the smallest of openings. Without the machine running juice to the helmet, it couldn’t disrupt my abilities.
Harnessing all the rage surging through me, I focused on the strap cuffing my right wrist to the chair. I flexed my arm with every ounce of strength I could muster while I visualized my wrist breaking free.
And then it happened.
With a snap, the binding popped and my arm ripped away from the chair.
I reached behind my head and grabbed hold of the cable attached to the helmet. The only chance I had to escape meant getting the device disconnected before the power came back on. If the power returned before I could get loose, I was as good as dead.
That and my ass really burned.
Steeling myself against the pain that would undoubtedly jolt through my skull, I yanked as hard as I could on the cable.
My head snapped back.
Bolts of agony wrenched into my dome as the screws securing the helmet tugged against my skull. It felt like someone was twisting molten-hot nails into the bone.
The cable didn’t come free.
I yanked on it again.
It still didn’t work.
Tears flowed from my eyes.
Mind-numbing heat consumed my lower body.
“What is that sound?” the man asked. “Someone turn the goddamn generators on! I can’t see anything in here!”
I roared and tore at the cable with everything I had.
With a miniscule pop that didn’t signify how hard it had been to tear free, the cable finally gave away. I dropped it and reached for the binding around my left wrist. My fingers searched the leather, exploring the underside until I found a metal buckle and a flap. It was essentially a belt that had me tied down.
I grabbed the flap and pulled it until I felt the buckle give way.
My left arm tore free.
As I reached down to undo my legs, hands grabbed hold of my shoulder and neck.
“Benson is getting free!” he yelled.
The man shoved me back into the chair.
His fingers wrapped around my throat.
My windpipe constricted under the immense pressure of his hands. The dude was strong. Damn strong. But he didn’t hold a candle to me. I grabbed both of his wrists and twisted them outward as I pulled them away from my throat.
He grunted as I slowly moved his hands apart.
Then I thrust my head forward and slammed the helmet off his nose. The cartilage crunched against the metal, and he cried out in pain. A fresh wave of hell penetrated my skull. More blood ran down my face, neck and chest, though I could barely feel the sensation above the sensory overload coursing through my system.
The man’s arms went limp in my hands, and I released him.
A muffled whump came from the floor directly in front of me, followed by more groans.
The machine beside me whirred back to life. Lightbulbs overhead clicked as they came back on. At least, that was what I assumed the sound was since the helmet still blocked my vision. I could mentally feel the dozens of men in the area scrambling around.
I hoped they were panicking.
They would have a lot more to worry about once I got loose.
...please... help... me...
The voice I’d heard earlier repeated the same mantra three more times while I worked at the straps around my ankles.
I’m a little busy right now.
...please...
My right leg tore free, then my left. Then I worked on the final straps around my body. The heat underneath me had reached unbearable levels.
Murder ran through my veins as I exploded to my feet. The burning pain in my lower extremities ebbed a bit, but the throbbing remained. My hands instinctively felt my hamstrings and glutes. Blisters had formed on my skin from the heat. A few had popped, clear fluid running down my legs.
That only infuriated me more.
Metal rattled on the cart. The chair shook behind me. I could feel my anger fueling my power. There was some serious X-Men shit going on all around me.
The man at my feet groaned.
Even though I couldn’t read his thoughts, the void his mind left in my pseudo-telepathic radar signaled exactly where he was. I reached down and found his face with my hands.
I punched him in his mangled nose.
He cried out and swatted at my hands.
...kill... me...
The Bridge that had formed between my mind and the other telepath’s was still there, but the man’s inner voice registered as barely more than a whisper. It sounded as if he stood at death’s door. The fact that he’d just asked me to kill him probably hinted at that too.
I should have been a detective.
Hold tight. I have a few people to kill and then I’ll get back to you. If I could have closed off the connection our minds had naturally created, I would have. There were a lot of mercenaries around who were probably on their way to murder me, and I didn’t need to be distracted by a guy who should be on suicide watch.
My fingers wrapped around the man’s tie, and I yanked him off the ground. “Get this fucking thing off my head or I’ll stomp you into goo.”
“Kiss my ass,” he spat.
Literally spat. I felt a glob of nastiness splatter against my chest, which was already covered in other filth. As usual, I was disgusting.
The spitting incident didn’t help my rage.
Grabbing hold of his shirt, I lifted him to his feet and then hurled him against the wall. I reached toward the void that signaled where he was. His body had crumpled in the corner of the wall and the floor. I wrenched him to his feet again.
“Last chance. Get this off my head, or—”
The blank presence of another mind moved toward the door of the room.
I slammed my fist into the man’s stomach and doubled him over. Reaching for the cart, I quickly felt around until my fingers brushed against the blade of a knife. It nicked my middle finger, though the pain barely registered.
My hand wrapped around the handle as I slipped behind my doubled-over torturer. I reached down, felt the back of his head, then grabbed hold of his face and yanked him back against me.
I put the blade of the knife against his neck.
The door of the room burst open.