Claws and Effect

by Jessica Sims

  I felt like I hadn't been warm in forever. Or covered. Even when Andre had me in his basement, it didn't matter how cold it was down there, all I ever got was my ratty bikini.

  I left my wet clothes on the floor, considered the door once more, and then decided that I didn't want to make my shapeshifting captor madder at me than he already was. I found a corner (since my bed was currently without a mattress), huddled in it, and waited for him to return.

  He did after a bit, with a bucket of fresh water. "I sprayed some cleaner on the mattress, but that stuff bothers shifter noses so we need to let it air out for a bit," he told me casually, hauling the water to the small kitchenette in the cabin. If he noticed I was huddled in the corner, he didn't comment on it. Instead, he put a metal teapot on the iron-bellied stove, filled it with water, and then picked up my wet clothing and disappeared with it outside.

  Ellis returned a few minutes later, sat down at the table, and looked at me. "So, Becky, you going to talk?"

  I tucked my body closer to the wall, averting my gaze.

  "No rush," he said easily. "I'm not going anywhere."

  He didn't, either. He puttered around the cabin, a one-sided conversation constantly going. He made hot tea, poured me some in a mug and set it down in front of my feet on the floor. "Drink all of that," he commanded. I did so, too terrified to object despite his pleasant tone. If he was commanding, I'd obey.

  He cleaned up the cabin, too. Everett had apparently made a mess with his cooking, and Ellis grumbled good-naturedly about his twin's thoughtlessness even as he scraped plates and rinsed them. Ellis, it seemed, was more of a neat-freak than his careless, happy-go-lucky twin. Once he was done, he took some of the hot water, made a big bowl of oatmeal, and set it down near my feet as well.

  "Eat," was all he said.

  I ate. It was flavored like maple syrup and was the first solid thing I'd had in nearly a day, ever since Andre had died. It was delicious, too. I scraped my spoon along the sides of the bowl, getting every morsel, and when Ellis noticed my scraping, he made me another bowlful and put it in the same place. "Eat."

  I ate again. By the time I was finished eating and had drank all my tea, I was getting exhausted. My belly was full of warm food and I was clean. I still felt weak, but it wasn't the dangerous, shaky weak I normally had when Andre had fed too much. This was just a pleasant sort of exhaustion, and I leaned my head against the rough wood of the cabin wall and closed my eyes, drowsing, as Ellis cleaned the tiny kitchen again.

  Chapter Three

  I drifted off to sleep.

  A hand touched my arm, waking me out of a nightmare of teeth and vampires and blood everywhere. I screamed, coming to with flailing limbs, and the back of my hand connected with a bristly chin.

  A man grunted. Hands grabbed me, arms pinning me down. "It's okay, Becky. Calm down."

  Becky? I swam out of sleep, startled to realize that I was pinned to the floor, a hard form over mine. Through the haze, my eyes focused and I recognized the face close to mine. Ellis. His eyes were gleaming green in that unnatural way, and I shivered, trying to scrunch down smaller.

  "Sorry," he breathed, body pressing against mine. "I wanted to put you to bed."

  Bed. Bed? Oh. I blinked repeatedly, trying to process that as Ellis got off of me. He stood, and offered a hand down to me. I ignored it, cringing away.

  "Okay, if you don't want my help up, at least get to your feet," he said, and his voice was slow and soothing. "You want to sleep in a nice warm bed, don't you?"

  I did want to sleep in a bed. Ignoring his extended hand, I used the wall to push myself upright, ignoring the protest of stiff muscles. The mattress was back on the frame, and while I'd been sleeping, the blankets had been neatly laid on top. Exhaustion swept through me - I hadn't slept well since I'd killed Andre. Maybe longer. Maybe I hadn't slept well in six months. But even as I approached the bed, I wondered.

  How was this going to work? There was only one bed in the cabin. Was he going to chain her again and leave? Sit at the table all night and watch her? She stared at him, waiting.

  He pointed at the bed. "Go on, get in."

  After a moment's hesitation, she did. She noticed absently that she'd been asleep long enough that her hair was now dry. It was still tangled and matted around her face, but it smelled fresh. Maybe it was because I was clean and warm and clothed, but my guard was down. I climbed into bed and pulled the covers over me. I just wanted to go back to sleep, and the fact that I had a bed was close to heaven. My eyelids fluttered as I laid down, and I struggled to keep them open. I needed to know what was going to happen with Ellis.

  I still didn't trust him. I was still waiting for the chain to go around my ankle, and I wouldn't fight that. I just wanted to sleep.

  A light clicked off, and the cabin was dark.

  A moment later, the mattress dipped. I stiffened in fear as a big, masculine body crawled into bed next to me. My body was board-straight with fear. Now it comes, I thought. Now comes the rape.

  Ellis's arms went around me and he adjusted his body, tucking mine against him. I whimpered with fear.

  "Go to sleep," he told me in a low voice.

  Hot tears began to spill out of my eyes again. I began to weep in the darkness.

  "I'm not going to touch you, Lily," he said. "It's cause and effect. You run every time my back is turned, so I can't turn my back on you. Not for a minute. And that includes sleeping. Once I can trust you, you can sleep on your own."

  I wanted to scream and protest. I wanted to wail in fear. His big body pressed against mine, his scent overwhelming. His arm was a cage holding me in place, and no matter how much I squirmed or shifted, he didn't budge.

  "You might as well relax," he said after a few minutes of this. I looked over and his eyes were closed. He looked as if, oddly enough, he were trying to sleep despite everything. "I'm not going anywhere."

  Sleep? Relax? With a big stranger holding me down in bed? I remained rigidly in place, waiting. Waiting for him to jump me. Waiting for him to bite. Waiting to see those frightening eyes gleaming in the darkness to tell me he was about to go on the hunt and I was his prey.

  But nothing happened. His breathing grew heavy and even, and mine followed suit.

  And at some point...I fell asleep.

  ***

  My captivity started to fall into a pattern. In the morning, Everett would show up to relieve his twin of the night shift. He usually brought a book, and spent most of the day on his phone, texting, or reading. He never chained me again, but he did keep between me and the door, and I stopped trying to escape. For the most part, though, Everett ignored me. He fed me, but after the chastising from his twin, that was all he did.

  I had nothing to do during the daytime. I didn't want to talk to my captor, and while he read, I mostly stared out the windows at freedom...or I slept. I slept a lot.

  Sometime in the afternoon, the twins would switch out. I'd wake up from an afternoon nap to find that the twin at the table now had sleeves of tattoos, or the whistle of the teakettle would wake me up. Everett drank coffee, Ellis drank tea. Everett had his nose constantly stuck in a book. Ellis was determined to talk my ear off despite the fact that I never responded.

  Everett showed me all of the attention that one would a stray dog. Ellis called me Becky and curled up around me at night and slept.

  The chain never came back.

  Slowly, my guard was coming down. Little by little, I found myself relaxing in the presence of the two men. I was never totally comfortable, of course, but I was starting to suspect that I wasn't going to end up in a shallow grave somewhere. Hopefully.

  They fed me, they kept me warm, and they gave me new clothes to wear every day. They never touched me in a sexual way, and no one drank blood. As captivity went, it wasn't so bad...yet. I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  And I didn't talk. I learned a lot more by watching and observing, and listening to Ellis rattle on in his one sided conversa
tions. Tonight, as we went out to the pump so I could take a quick 'shower', he was telling me about his day at work.

  "One hundred goats," he told me as he handed me a bar of soap. "One hundred goats with bellies full of worms and hooves that needed trimming. And babies, too. Babies as far as the eye could see. I was shocked when I went out there. I mean, I knew the guy had a farm, but jesus, a hundred goats?" He shook his head and primed the pump a few times, watching the water spill in the bucket as I scrubbed my arms with the soap and wet washcloth. "I asked him why he had so many goats, and he told me they were good eating. Shit. I don't care what animal you shift into, the last thing you want to eat is a goat riddled with worms." He shook his head, disgusted. "It's hard on the goats, too. And they're sitting there, jumping all over me, and the junkyard, and I'm trying to give them shots, and Old Bill is trying to haggle me down in price. What a day." He snorted.

  I said nothing, though inwardly I was amused at his disgust. It was clear after a week of listening to Ellis's monologues that he had a hot-button and that was the mistreatment of animals. It was a little ironic, really -- his dander was up about neglected goats in some man's junkyard and meanwhile he had to shadow me to prevent me from running back to civilization.

  "So I said to him, 'I'm not going to discount services for your goats, because medicine costs money'. And he tells me that he's willing to trade. That I can pick anything off of the lot and I can have it. Turn, Becky. Need to get your hair." He sounded disgruntled.

  I obediently turned and he dumped a bucket of cold water over my hair, massaging it to get all the conditioner out. His hand touched my hair once. I skittered away, and he didn't touch me again.

  "So I'm looking around at this junkyard and it's a mess," he continued on, priming the pump again for more water. "And while Old Bill and I are sitting there arguing about how much it should cost per shot for the goats, a big ol' billy came up and started eating the cuff of my jeans. Except I was so distracted that I didn't notice for a few minutes."

  I looked down at his feet. Sure enough, over one of his scuffed, mud-streaked boots, one leg of his jeans was ragged and about two inches shorter than the other. A long piece of denim dangled over one shoe like a tail. It was rather pathetic.

  I giggled.

  Ellis stopped fiddling with the pump and straightened, looking at me with surprise. A grin crossed his face. "Knew you were in there somewhere," he told me. He looked rather pleased.

  I didn't say anything else. We finished my quick wash up, I dressed in new warm clothes while Ellis waited outside of the cabin to give me some privacy, and we had dinner and eventually went to bed. I didn't crack again, but Ellis still seemed utterly pleased with himself, as if he'd made progress somehow.

  And I was unhappy that I'd cracked. What was wrong with me? These were my captors, and they weren't human, no matter the nice faces they tried to put on to fool me. Andre had fooled me once. I wouldn't allow myself to be fooled again.

  ***

  The next afternoon, I was on the bed, curled in the blankets and dreaming about school when a sound awoke me from my nap. I blinked my eyes open to see Everett disappearing out the front of the cabin. My hackles went up, and I closed my eyes again and evened out my breathing, pretending to sleep.

  Voices rose outside.

  "You know I don't agree with this," came a harsh voice, and I could have sworn that it was Ellis's. That surprised me. He never raised his voice to me. He was always pleasant, kind, and downright chatty. Maybe it was the wrong twin? But I could tell the cadence of Ellis's voice from Everett's now. Ellis had more of a rasp, a deeper bass in his throat when he laughed. And he laughed a lot.

  "It's not your choice," came another male voice, and I stilled in fear. Another man was here? The voice wasn't familiar at all, and I wanted to crane my head and look, but I didn't dare. If they saw I was awake, maybe they'd stop talking. As it was, their voices were muffled from the cabin walls.

  "She's a person, Beau. She just a young woman, and she's scared to death. If you'd just talk to her, you'd see that."

  "I am aware of it, Ellis."

  "Then have you seen the bite marks all over her? Because I have." There was anger in Ellis's voice. "No wonder she's fucking scared. She's been mauled up and down by those fanged assholes, and now you're trying to broker a deal with them?"

  "She killed one of their people, Ellis. As much as I'd like to take her side, she's human, and she killed a vampire."

  "A vampire who was keeping her captive--"

  "I know. But if she was a shifter, I could protect her like one of my own. She's not. She's human, and that's the problem we keep coming back to. All we can do for now is hide her for her own good."

  An explosion of breath. "I fucking hate this."

  "I know," said the other voice quietly. "Marie's not happy either. But in the end, I'm the leader, and I have to make the decision that's best for everyone."

  Silence. Then, an angry, "Are we done here? I need to get these guys inside."

  "We're done."

  The quiet fell again, and I burrowed down under the blankets again, still pretending to sleep. The door to the cabin opened. Someone came in. I waited. A box was gently dropped on the table in the center of the room.

  Two tiny mews sounded.

  I blinked 'awake', startled, and sat up. That had sounded like...kittens? Looking over, I saw Ellis was seated at the dining room table, a cardboard box in front of him. There were lines on his face that made him look haggard and tired despite the fact he was probably about the same age as me - early twenties. He looked exhausted.

  Which was kind of funny, considering he slept like a log. I knew; he slept right against me.

  The mews came out of the box again. I stared at it, questioning, and Ellis gave me a faint smile. "Today," he said, getting out of the chair. "Has been a shit of a day." He picked up the box and came over to the bed and sat down next to me.

  I edged away to the far side of the bed. It was pointless, of course. I shared the bed with Ellis every night so he could make sure I didn't run off. Edging away now was kind of stupid. It was also habit, though, and habit was hard to break. Ellis didn't notice my reluctance, either. He simply set the box between us and lifted the lid.

  Nestled amongst an old floral towel were two orange peanut-shaped bundles of fluff. Kittens. Kittens so very young that their eyes were closed still, and their hair was no more than downy tufts. I gasped.

  "I know," he said apologetically, gently fishing one out of the box and handing it to me. I had no choice but to take it from him; it was no bigger than my palm. Surprised, I cuddled it against my breast and watched as he pulled the other one out of the box and held it to his chest. "They're only a few days old. There were six in the litter, originally, but when I went up to the barn to check on the mama, only these two were left." At my wordless question, he shook his head. "It was the mama cat herself that did it. Sometimes when they're left a bit wild, the hunting instinct gets too strong and they don't know how to handle babies. Either that, or if they have a bad hunt, they think it's kinder to eat their young than to let them starve. Either way, she was killing her babies so I rescued these two before she could finish them off." He shrugged. "And I figured since you and I weren't going anywhere, I'd bring them here."

  I gazed down at the kitten in my hand. It shifted, its movements no more than tiny tremblings, and then it set its head back down against my palm and went to sleep. I stroked a fingertip down the length of its head. So tiny and fragile.

  "We'll have to feed them every two hours and then eventually move it to every three hours. And they can't thermoregulate, so we'll have to keep them warm at all times."

  I licked my lips, and then, daring, spoke. "Thermo...regulate?"

  It was startling to watch Ellis's eyes light up at the sound of my voice. He looked so happy, like I'd given him a present. "Thermoregulate - their body temperature doesn't remain constant. Not when they're little like this. So we'll need to
keep them against our skin or on a heating pad to make sure that they stay warm at all times."

  I nodded.

  "It's good to hear your voice, Becky," Ellis said, holding the kitten close and fishing in the box for a few items. He pulled out medicine droppers and kitten milk, and a cord for the heating pad. "Kinda made my day a little better hearing that." He looked around, holding the end of the cord and the kitten in his other hand. "I need to figure out what to do with this."

  I tucked my kitten against the warm vee of my lap and took his from him. He gave me a grateful look and went to go plug the cord in. Ellis's kitten was slightly bigger than mine and kept burrowing in against my chest, and after a moment's thought, I pulled the collar of my t-shirt down and slid him into my bra. He nestled right in and went to sleep, and I could have sworn I heard a tiny purr that warmed my heart. I picked up the other kitten and did the same, tucking it against my other breast, leaning back against the wall of the cabin and watching my now-lumpy shirt with something like contentment.

  Funny how a few helpless kittens could make you have a new perspective on things. I tucked an arm around the kittens on the outside of my shirt, cradling them. I knew Ellis was a vet, but kittens that needed to be fed every two hours was going to require a lot of effort. And the way he'd handled them was so careful. They were just kittens, but it was clear he cared if they lived or died.

  That was rather...nice to see. And it made me feel better. I thought about the conversation I'd overheard. Ellis wanted to let me go. It was someone else that was stopping him. I thought back to the first day that I'd woken up in the cabin with the chain on my leg. He'd been so furious.

  And even though I was scared, I was starting to suspect that Ellis wasn't my enemy. He never touched me unless he had to, and never in a sexual way despite having to wash me and sleeping against me at night.