“Well, maybe I quite like you.” She spun and strode away from the bars until submerged in shadow. “Though, goodness knows why.” Her disembodied voice flew out to me. “You’re an idiot!” She re-emerged from the gloom. “And my name is not puss.” She spun and marched away again, her dark hair lashing the air like a string whip.
My expression tugged in all directions as my mind struggled to decide if I should be mad or amused. “So … what is it, then?”
Silence.
I turned my focus back to Kyle, resting my head against the bars as the onset of weariness crept in.
“Brook.”
Only my gaze shifted to the female who’d returned to the forefront of her enclosure.
“My name is Brook.” Her tone held insistence, like she thought I hadn’t understood her first utterance.
I couldn’t help but smile. “Nice to meet you, Brook. I’m—”
“Ethan. Trust me, we know.”
A chuckle rolled past my throat.
“And I happen to think you’re okay … for an idiot. And for a dog.”
“Brave words, said from the protection of her cell.” My smile remained, and hers reflected back at me.
Returning to Kyle, I folded my arms across my chest to assist with propping me up and leaned my entire body into the barrier. My nostrils flared, my chest rose, and a yawn juddered out on my exhale.
“You should get some rest,” she said.
I shook my head. “I’m on sentry.” I gestured with my chin toward Kyle.
“I can watch him for you,” Lauren said to my right. “If he wakes, I’ll … poke you, or something.”
“If I were you, I’d take the girl up on her offer,” Brook said.
Maybe I should have given the suggestion deeper consideration, but the preference to go under by choice, rather than through an inability to remain awake, won out. I turned to Lauren. “He moves … you wake me.”
She nodded, her stare unwavering.
“The slightest sign that he stirs, and I want you to let me know.”
Another nod—slow and exaggerated.
“Even if it’s something small like a change in his breathing—”
“I get it,” she said. “I’ll wake you.”
Just the idea of taking my focus off Kyle induced a throb in my temple, but my own body had needs—ones I couldn’t neglect for much longer. My teeth ground even as complied. In the corner nearest Lauren and Kyle, I spun to face inward. The metal chilled my flesh as I slid my back down the barrier until my butt met the floor. “However small his movement …”
“I know,” Lauren said through clenched teeth. “Dude, you’re a worse nag than my mum.”
With a low chuckle, I closed my eyes.
• • •
Although my mind woke, my lids remained lowered. An inhalation drew in every surrounding smell, but filtering took immense effort. The familiarity of Kyle’s scent gave him an immediate pass to the forefront, and brought with it the knowledge that he’d changed forms.
“What happened to waking me if he moved?” I murmured.
“You said I had to wake you if he looked like he was waking up.” Lauren’s quiet voice came from my left. “He didn’t wake. Just turned into a man.”
“No, I said to wake me if he so much as moved. It’s impossible to change without moving.” I opened my eyes and twisted my head to bring her into view. On her knees, she stared forward toward Kyle’s cage. “Even unconscious,” I added.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “But your snores kinda made me think you needed the sleep.”
My eyes narrowed. “I don’t snore.”
“Do, too.”
A whisper of a growl vibrated across my lips. “How about you? Don’t you ever sleep?” I asked as I turned to check on Kyle.
“I’ve learned it’s safer to stay awake.” She shrugged. “As you’re only the second neighbour I’ve had who didn’t look like he wanted to eat me, I taught myself to survive on less downtime.”
I stared across the aisle until my sleep vision lost its blurred edges, and the outline of Kyle’s body sharpened in my view. “That bad, eh?” I caught her acknowledgement—a fuzzed movement—at the corner of my eye, rubbed my hands across my face in the hope of clearing my sight further. With a yawn extending my mouth to cavernous proportions, I surged to my feet and worked out my kinks—shoulder rolls, a few neck rotations, face angled to the ceiling, down to the floor, back up again.
Upon lowering my chin for the fourth time, my gaze fell on the entrance to my cage.
What the—
The metal-barred door stood ajar. Not wide open—nothing quite so obvious as that—but just enough to reveal an inch-sized gap.
Afraid it might be an illusion, I stayed firmly fixated on it. “Lauren?”
“Yep?”
“Someone been down here from upstairs?”
“Nope.”
I peered through the slit like I’d find something different than what rationality insisted had to be there. Within the inch, the metal stripes of the deader than dead vampire’s empty enclosure solidified in my focus. “You sure?”
“Yep.”
“Maybe you fell asleep for a while?” I took a step toward my door. Pure instinct insisted I inhale, yet only the same delightful bouquet from earlier greeted my senses.
“I didn’t. Just like I told you I wouldn’t.”
Another step, followed by a third, and impatience drew me the rest of the way in two strides. I slid a finger into the sliver of air, raised it up, and dropped it back down.
What you checking for? Booby-traps?
“So, how did my door get open?”
Without waiting for her answer, I folded my fingers around the frame and gave a gentle pull. The door swung inward, creating a bigger gap.
I peered across to Lauren. “What’s going on?”
Without sparing me a glance, she scrunched her shoulders up and gave a reply that sounded like, “I-unno,” which I interpreted to mean she didn’t have a clue.
I twisted back to the door, from the opening to Kyle, and back again. Once more, my gaze flittered between the two points.
“Why the hell am I just standing here?” I muttered.
A gentle nudge took the door the rest of the way with no more noise than a sighed squeak, and I stepped from my cell into the aisle.
Static tugged at the hairs across the nape of my neck. Natural suspicion kicked in, and my pulse thrummed a little faster.
To the left, nobody appeared. The same to my right. Ahead, the bars to the feline’s cage separated me from her.
Moving forward, I spotted Brook curled against her rear wall. The black glossy coat she’d adopted made her almost invisible. With the deepness of her breaths, and the absence of golden orbs to pinpoint her eyes, I presumed her to be sleeping.
My padding soles produced a quiet slap on each contact with the concrete as I paced from her bars, past the werewolf’s cage, to Kyle’s.
He still lay in the corner. A rapid check told me his cage remained locked. I sank down to my knees beside him.
His rear faced me. Slashes decorated the muscles either side of his spine—fingernails at a guess. A still raw wound left a gaping hole in his shoulder, the flesh there torn as though savaged by teeth.
“Jesus, Kyle.”
At my whisper, a twitch affected his right shoulder beneath the gnaw marks. A groan murmured from him—a sound so quiet, I couldn’t be certain I’d heard it at all.
Almost afraid to hope, I waited to see if he’d wake.
Catching the flex of his toes, my face spun that way, gaze skimming over more bites across his right hip.
Another groan—no more audible than the first—sounded.
As much as I wanted grab him by the shoulders and shake him to consciousness, some inner voice insisted I wait it out, that he needed to come round on his own. My fingers fidgeted beneath the brushing of my thumbs where my hands hung over my knees.
Contracting muscle beneath his shoulder blade preceded a jerked shift of his right arm. With great slowness and deliberation, as though suffering from stiffness or pain, Kyle reached his hand up toward his neck. His fingers hovered above the wound at his shoulder before he lowered them the final drop and prodded there.
“Fuck.” Deepness affected his tiny whisper. “Must be dead.” His temple scraped against the concrete with the slight move of his head; a gasp followed. “Bollocks.” Grunts suggested he tried further adjustments to his position, as did the tremulous up-draw of his knees. “Must be in hell.”
My chuckle snorted out and, along with it, a gush of relief.
“If I’m not mistaken, the bastards have killed my bud, and sent him along with me.” Each word adhered to the next to form the sentence—a mumbled jumble that made him sound drunk.
“Maybe you were in hell to begin,” I said. “And they just sent you back down here.”
Kyle’s body rolled toward me until his shoulders slapped against the concrete. He swung his head round, blinking like he struggled to bring me into focus.
Further open cuts, gashes, and punctures patterned his chest and hips. My jaw clenched as I studied them, crunching beneath the exerted pressure.
“I feel like shit,” he whispered.
“Really? ‘Cause … you look a lot worse.”
He breathed out a laugh, chasing it with a wonky smile cut short by his wince.
We remained quiet a moment. Kyle’s fingers made a slow tour across his torso. His knees lifted, sliding his bare soles over the rough flooring, and he peered down, assessing the damage, I figured.
Each time his hand traced a wound, he paused and craned his neck toward it. With each new discovery, the fondling of his fingers seemed to increase into manic twitching.
“Fucker bit me.”
Although sure he didn’t really need the confirmation, I said, “Looks that way.”
His expression sobered completely as something akin to fear crept into his eyes. “Why the hell am I still alive? How—”
“Later.” I reached in and squeezed his arm. “Need to see if I can find Gabe.
Still poised for speech, his mouth hung open, and his eyebrow lifted. “Sure … but …”
My thigh muscles bunched as I straightened and turned away.
“Ethan?”
I glanced back.
Kyle lifted his head from the floor, the movement drawing tightness to his eyes. “What … are you … You’re not in your cage. How the hell did you get out?”
“No idea. Woke to find my door open. That’s all I know.”
“But …” Grunts and groans accompanied his manoeuvre to his knees. “It could be a … um …” He held his hands out in front of him, flexed and un-flexed his fingers. “Could be a trap,” he mumbled, turning his palms up, and staring at those.
Something about his self-scrutiny seemed off—his actions, too.
To anyone else, he’d appear to be checking himself over. To me? The tense set of his shoulders told me he’d found something wrong.
I watched his visual scouring of each arm, of each hand, each individual appendage.
Had the venom or anti-venom had an adverse affect?
His gaze came back and latched onto mine. “Watch your back.” He cocked his head, side-to-side, linked and tugged at his fingers. The crunch of his neck action matched the crack of his knuckles. “You going, or not?”
I moved away.
“What the hell?” The voice of the vampire beside Lauren screeched even in a murmur.
I ground my teeth to withhold the retaliation and kept going.
“Hey, how’d you—”
I glared at him, growling through gritted teeth. “Shut … the fuck … up.” I resumed my journey before he could continue the discussion.
Hunching over and trying for stealth seemed like a waste of time, especially in a chamber filled with enhanced hearing, vision, and senses of smell. Still, I bent at the waist, and baby-stepped my way along the aisle as though it would be enough to conceal me from the watchful eyes either side.
My nostrils flared as I made short, rapid inhalations en route. I discovered scents that smelled the closest to human as I’d come across since arrival as well as shifter and were.
Amongst those, one as easily recognisable to me as any of the pack drifted across.
Gabe!
19
I followed the beckon of Gabe’s familiar scent. Two more steps along the aisle, a left slant of my head, and I spotted what my senses insisted had to be him—even if his physical appearance had diminished enough for me to question his identity.
Three cages down from the corner, the naked werewolf possessed the small cube. His side-to-side pacing from bars to bars lent him the manic air of a trapped animal, as did the jerked pump of each fist at his hips.
I moved across to his enclosure, my head twisting with each of his turns as he marched side-to-side, like watching a pendulum driven by rocket fuel— one bulked by the power of a fully grown werewolf on a teenager.
Filth coated his body and mingled with sweat to add staleness beyond pungency. Grease and blood matted his blond curls. None of those disguised his unique aroma.
Another pace. Another turn. Two strides.
He froze.
The flare of his nostrils revealed his intake of air. A shake of his head showed his uncertainty as did the couple steps he took before he halted again. More inhalations, deeper, longer—an obvious need to be sure—and a slow pivot of his body brought him around to face me.
His gaze met mine. He squinted, every muscle in his face seeming to tighten, and his lips formed an indistinguishable mumble.
The heavy beat in my chest broke into my focus, and a sigh eased out past my lips as I smiled. “Hey, Gabe.”
“Eth—” His shoulders heaved beneath erratic breathing. “Eth-Ethan?”
I nodded—a gesture he matched as though realisation sunk in that I really stood before him.
“Ethan.” One step, two, another stall. More tension claimed stake upon his features. “Aw, shit!” Three strides brought him to the front of his cage, and his face pressed to the bars. “I knew you’d c-come,” he whispered.
The tremor in his limbs lent vulnerability to his tough façade, exposing his youth and fear. I slipped my arms through and ruffed up the scraggy mop his hair had become, before offering an embrace I believed he needed.
“How’d you g-get in?” He continued to mumble, as though normal speech had left his abilities. “I c-can’t believe you got in. You f-fight your way through?”
I frowned as it dawned on me that Gabe had no idea Kyle and I had been captured. “Not exactly.”
“You need to be c-careful.” He pulled back, lifting his gaze the couple of inches to meet mine. “They c-come down a lot. If they c-catch you down here … You have the keys? To get me out? You g-got the keys, right?”
I took his face, peered at him. The dart of his eyes, an agitated left and right flutter, worried the hell out of me—as did the dull grey, which had replaced the brightness of his blue irises. “Gabe, I don’t have the keys.”
“Wha-wha-wha …” His mouth opened and closed with each sound in rapid succession. “Wh-what you mean? You c-came to get me out … that’s wh-why you’re here, right?”
“Yes, I’m going to get you out, but …” His stuttering speech creased my brow; it rumpled even further when his eyes went back to flittering. Just tell him. “But … I’m here because they got to me and Kyle.”
His wi
de stare froze in position. “No.” He gave a small headshake. “No, no, no. No, not you. Not Kyle.” His head shook again until his curls flopped about. “Oh, man, we’re fucked.”
“Mind your language.” I gave a mental eye roll at the admonishment I’d heard Shelley say too often.
“Sorry.” More eye darts.
“And we’re not fucked, yet,” I said. “I’ll figure something out.”
“Like how to get me out from these bars.”
“Sure.” I tilted my head for a better view. “How badly have you been hurt?”
“I’m sweet.” He stepped across to his door, tugged at it a little. “You … um … have another way to g-get me out, or something?”
“Sorry, no—I’m working on it.” I shifted right to bring him back into my sights. “How badly are you injured, Gabe?”
“Why aren’t you in a c-cage?” Confusion clouded his fidgeting eyes. “D-didn’t they put you in one?”
I hesitated for only a beat before nodding.
“But you g-got out?” He nodded and didn’t wait for an answer, striding away toward the rear of his enclosure. The turn of his body revealed similar wounds to Kyle’s across his back, but faded to scars—some to white, others red and raw, most of them raised welts. “Of c-course you did.” His murmured words held deepness. “This is you, right?” His grunt arrived with a spasm that twitched his shoulder muscles until taut. He slapped his hand over the twisting flesh, his fingers kneading there. “How?”
I frowned. “How what, Gabe?”
He dropped his arm as he spun. “How’d you get out your cage?”
“The door was unlocked when I woke.”
“That’s not g-good.” His eyes went back into shifty mode. “That’s really bad. Has to be a trick.” His utterance sounded more like he spoke to himself than to me. He marched back over. “You need to get back in your cell. Now. Right now.”
“I don’t think they’re respons—”
“You have no idea who you’re d-dealing with.” His fingers curled around the bars separating us.
Caged Page 14