Mollie gulped and edged away from her bars as some of those in the cages closest to her growled low in their throats. The noises they released made the ones she issued earlier sound human as they crept closer to their bars and wrapped their hands around them.
A shiver of unease ran down her spine. She’d vowed to examine the locks on some of the other cages more closely the next time she had some light, but with those noises, she’d prefer not to be anywhere near some of the other prisoners. Mollie edged further away from the bars when she saw a flash of red in some of their eyes, and that red had nothing to do with the backup lights on the truck.
That can’t be possible; it just can’t.
But no matter how impossible it was, Mollie suspected she’d been tossed into something she couldn’t begin to fathom. Out of all the horrific possibilities for her current situation, she had a feeling she hadn’t hit on the truth yet.
Mollie didn’t dare look at the occupants of those cages again; she’d lose her mind if she did, and she couldn’t risk doing that. Some of the others wept as they cowered in the corners of their cages and pleaded to be left alone. They’d already given up.
She would not be one of them.
Mollie pressed against the bars at the back of her cage. Behind her was nothing but the wood wall of the barn, but she still felt as if eyes were boring into her nape from the shadows. Shivering, Mollie wrapped her arms around her knees, but she didn’t give in to the impulse to look behind her—mainly because she feared coming face-to-face with two vibrant red eyes blazing out at her from the dark.
She ignored the prickling sensation on her neck as she watched the offloaded bodies being tossed into cages. One of her captors stalked toward her with a large male draped over his shoulder. He opened the door on the cage next to her—the one Aida had resided in—tossed the body inside and slammed the door.
She glimpsed the golden patch on her captor’s black coat when he turned away. Earlier, she’d seen it well enough to know the patch read “Security,” but she couldn’t make out the word on it now. All the others who freely entered the barn wore the same patch on their coats, but what they were the security of, or if they were the security of anything, Mollie didn’t know.
She glanced at the new, unmoving occupant in her sister’s cage and tried not to think about what his presence there meant for Aida. Her sister was all Mollie had left in this world. Aida couldn’t be dead.
Mollie had worked relentlessly to give Aida as normal a life as possible and to let her sister live her dreams after their mom died. Those dreams could not be lost now.
Aida was going to college in the fall—something Mollie had happily sacrificed doing to take care of their mom after she got sick, and then to finish raising Aida after their mom passed. They’d done the college tours together and chosen the classes Aida would take after she finally settled on a small college in Rhode Island. The school was close to home and reasonably priced. They’d still see each other often, and financial aid would cover most of her tuition. Aida enjoyed the idea of small campus life, and she’d loved the dorms.
They’d both been happier than they’d been in years, but now it could all be gone.
What were any of her dreams, or even her life, worth if she lost Aida?
Unable to think about the possibility, she studied her new neighbor. The only sign of life he showed was the subtle rise and fall of his shoulders. Judging by the amount of him curled up in the cell, she guessed him to be around six three, and with his broad shoulders, he had a much tougher time fitting into the cage than she did. He was going to be really uncomfortable when he woke.
With his face turned away from her, all she saw was the back of his sandy-blond hair. She was unreasonably disappointed by this fact since she wanted to see more of him.
Her attention returned to the front of the barn when a door shut and the truck pulled forward. The barn doors closed, and darkness descended again.
Chapter Four
“You’re awake,” a gentle voice said from beside Mike as he tugged uselessly at the bars surrounding him. He’d heard of bars that could withstand a vampire before, but he’d never encountered them.
Mike released the bars and turned toward the voice. In the dim moonlight filtering around the edges of the large double doors at the far end of the building, and through the cracks in the boards surrounding him, he detected movement in the cage next to his. Then the sweet scent of apples and the crisp scent of spearmint drifted to him. From the voice, he’d known it was a female; from the smell, he knew she was human and enticing.
“Who are you?” he demanded, unable to make out much of her features, but she probably couldn’t see him at all and only knew he was awake because of the noise he’d made while yanking at the bars.
Mollie opened her mouth to say her full name but decided against it. This guy appeared as screwed as she was, but she didn’t know anything about him, and it was better to play it safe.
“Mollie. Who are you?”
“Mike. Where am I? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I mean that I know nothing about this place and the people who put us here. Yesterday, or at least I think it was yesterday, I was taking an extended road trip with my sister, and today I’m in a cage.”
Mike contemplated her words as he turned his attention to the numerous cages inside what he was beginning to realize was a barn. Glancing at the loft over his head, he picked out bits of hay sticking through the slats. He hated haylofts.
As a child, he’d spent a couple of weeks at his grandparent’s farm in western Massachusetts every summer. When he turned ten, they sold the farm to move to Florida, and he started staying home with his friends. When he was really young, he’d been forbidden to enter the hayloft on their farm. Which, of course, meant it was the one place he wanted to go. At five, he gathered the courage to climb the rickety ladder into the loft.
He’d strode out to the middle of the hay stacked within it before realizing the bodies of a couple dead barn sparrows lay scattered amid the bales. He loved to watch the birds, and his grandfather would often lift him to peer into the nests when the baby barn swallows were born. Seeing them this way stole his breath and his courage.
Suddenly, he was no longer on the adventure to explore the unknown that he’d started out on. He became convinced monsters were up here, slaughtering the birds, and now they were all focused on him, the far larger, more meaty prey. Those monsters hid behind the bales, and every creak of the old barn was the sound of their approaching footsteps.
Frozen in the middle of the loft, he hadn’t known which way to go to evade the monsters, as he was certain they would head him off before he returned to the ladder. An hour later, his grandfather found him there, still frozen in place and with urine sticking his pants to his legs.
Lifting him, his grandfather carried him from the hayloft and down the ladder. Mike was sure he’d be sent home afterward or spanked for disobeying. His grandparents agreed his imagination had been punishment enough, especially once he started blubbering on about monsters and never going into the loft again.
He learned a couple of years later that if he’d gone ten feet further, he would have stepped on some rotten boards his grandfather was planning to fix. He most likely would have fallen through the boards to the concrete floor below. And it wasn’t until years after, when Beth changed him, he learned monsters were, indeed, real.
Mike tore his attention away from the loft and back to the present. “Who brought you here?”
“I don’t know. I’m assuming the same people who brought you here,” she whispered.
Lured in by the scent and sound of her, Mike found himself leaning closer to her. “Were you at the bar too?”
“The bar?”
“Yes, the bar,” he said impatiently. “Did they take you from the bar too?”
“No, we weren’t in any bar. My car got a flat ti
re; I was on the side of the road changing it when someone stopped to offer their help.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know!” Mollie cried. This guy did not know how to listen. “A man came up and asked if we needed help. I told him no, and that was the last thing I recall. I don’t know what he did to me, what they did to my sister, or where she is now. Do you know who brought you here?”
“No.”
“Then stop asking me. And no one else here has any idea either, though only a few of them will talk to me.”
“Were others brought in with me?” Mike asked as he scented the air for Doug and Jack, but there were too many aromas for him to differentiate his friends from the numerous others. If they were here, they weren’t close to him.
“Yes. They brought in about twenty with you. They’re locked up too.”
“Doug! Jack!” he called, but he got no response from his friends. If they were here, they must still be unconscious. He refused to believe they were dead.
“Shh,” someone hissed from the shadows. “Sometimes they come back if someone makes too much noise.”
“And then what do they do?” Mike demanded.
He was up for a fight against these bastards, and if they killed him, so be it. He suspected he’d prefer death to whatever these assholes planned for him.
He ran his hands over his body as he searched for any weapon his jailers might have left on him. They’d taken his coat and weapons, but as he felt the pockets of his jeans, he realized they’d left him with his Zippo. They probably didn’t see any threat in letting him keep it, or they hadn’t found it when they searched him.
“No one knows what they do,” someone else whispered. “Everyone they take never comes back.”
In the cage next to his, Mollie’s breath sucked in and her heart rate skyrocketed. Mike froze in the act of pulling his Zippo from his pocket when her distress beat against him. His hand clenched around the lighter, and his teeth clamped together as he was seized by the irrational urge to destroy whatever upset her.
“Never?” she croaked.
“Not that I’ve seen,” another murmured. “But I think I’ve only been here for a few days.”
“But they took my sister!” Mollie lunged toward the front of the cage and gripped her bars. “Aida wasn’t making any noise, and they took her!”
“Sometimes they take hum—ah… others, just because,” a woman whispered.
Mike didn’t miss the near slip from the woman he assumed was a vampire. “Sometimes they take humans,” was what the woman had been about to say, and there was no, “just because.” They took humans to feed on them.
Mike hadn’t gotten close enough to his captors to confirm what they were, but he had no doubt they were vampires, most likely Savages. And if they were imprisoning humans and vampires here, it meant one thing: they intended to starve the vamps until all they could think about was feeding and killing.
His blood ran cold when he realized they most likely planned to turn him and his friends into Savages.
Yes, he’d much prefer to be dead, because if these bastards succeeded in turning him, then all his nieces and nephews and all their children would be at risk.
Chapter Five
Mollie released the bars and shifted toward the back of her cell. A hush descended over the barn again, and her hand fell on the bobby pins tucked into her bra. Tomorrow, when the sun was up and there was more illumination in the barn, she’d try to get a look at the locks on the other cages and attempt picking hers again.
Rustling in the cage next to her drew her attention, but she couldn’t see what Mike was doing. Then something clicked open, flicked, and light flared. Mollie scurried toward the flickering flame he held.
“Put that out!” someone spat.
Mike ignored the command as he moved the flame over the bars surrounding him before locating the lock on the front of his cage. Leaning closer, he examined the steel frame of the door, or whatever metal this cage was made of, as it was stronger than steel. He banged his fist against the back of the locking mechanism before throwing his full weight against it. The cage didn’t have the decency to pretend he had any effect on it.
“Stop that. It’s pointless, and they might come for you,” someone else said.
“I hope they do,” Mike muttered as he used the Zippo to examine the rest of his cage, but he didn’t see any weaknesses in the welded seams of the bars.
“Can I have the lighter?” Mollie asked.
He turned the flame toward her and froze when it illuminated her face. Her black hair was pulled up on her head, but much of it had straggled free to hang around her shoulders and frame her narrow face. Enough of her hair remained up that he recognized the remnants of a French twist. He’d listened to his niece, Vicky, prattle on enough about hair over the years to have picked up on a few things.
The straight edge of Mollie’s nose had a small upturn at the bottom. Her rosebud lips were compressed into a line as she stared at the dancing flame with a ravenous gleam in her eyes, and those exquisite eyes stole his breath from him. Not only did she smell of apples, but her eyes were the exact shade of a green apple.
He’d never seen anything like them or the woman herself before. She wasn’t pretty or beautiful, but she was striking, and she fascinated him so much that for a minute he forgot all about their surroundings and circumstances as everything in him became focused on her.
“Mike.”
Mollie frowned as he continued to gawk at her like she was something straight out of a spaceship from Mars. She had to look like shit, who wouldn’t after being stuck in a cage for hours on end? But she wasn’t a freak show, and he didn’t have to look at her like she was.
Or at least Mollie didn’t think she was a freak show, and if she was, she didn’t care. She had far more important things to worry about than her appearance.
“Mike,” she said again.
“What?” he asked, and his hand jerked.
Mollie bit back a cry when the flame sputtered before surging back to full strength. “Can I see your lighter?”
“Put it out!” someone hissed.
Those in the cages closest to them recoiled as far as they could from the two of them. Mollie ignored them as she remained focused on Mike’s royal blue eyes as they sparkled in the flame. His broad face and square jaw gave him the look of a man who belonged in a shaving commercial, especially with the blond stubble lining his jaw and cheeks. The sandy-blond hair on his head stood on end as if he’d been running his hands through it.
Normally, a man as good looking as him would make her feel self-conscious, but now all she cared about was getting her hands on his lighter. If Mollie could see one of the locks, if she had a better idea what she was dealing with, she might be able to get this damn cage open.
Then she’d find Aida and get her somewhere safe no matter what it took.
“Can I see your lighter?” she asked again.
“What are you going to do with it?” Mike asked.
“Hopefully, it’s going to help me get out of this cage,” she said.
“You’re both going to die,” a voice promised.
“Fuck off,” Mike replied before focusing on her again. He didn’t bother to ask her how she planned to break out; he suspected they didn’t have much time before their captors returned. “You can have the lighter if you agree to release me too.”
“Deal,” she said and thrust her hand through the bars toward him.
Mike hesitated before holding the Zippo out to her; he liked having it, but there was nothing he could do with it. He had to trust she would use it to her advantage and keep her word about freeing him.
Mollie snatched the lighter from him and scurried to the opposite corner of her cage. Ignoring the pain it caused her knees, she knelt on the bars and held the flame out toward the cage next to hers. She couldn’t see the lock on Mike’s cage, but this one was turned toward her. When Mollie snaked her arm through the bars, she was able to get
a good look at the lock.
Mollie recoiled when the man inside hissed at her before scurrying into the opposite corner of his cage. Mollie’s trembling hand caused the flame to sputter. She swore she’d seen a flash of red in the man’s eyes before he retreated.
No! Not possible! But her hand still shook.
“It’s okay, he can’t harm you,” Mike assured her as he glowered at the vampire. If the man tried anything with her, Mike would find a way to make him pay for it, and he wanted the vamp to know that.
Mollie bit her lip and gathered her flagging courage. Red eyes or not, she had to see one of the locks better if she had any chance of getting free. Aida, Mollie reminded herself. She crept closer to the bars and extended her arm through once more.
Cowering in the back of his cage, she saw no red in the man’s eyes as he stared at her. Mollie examined the lock for a minute before returning to the one in the center of her cage. Setting the lighter down, she pulled the pins from her bra. She pictured the lock on the other cage as she bent and twisted the pins into a position she hoped would work.
Watching her, Mike couldn’t help being a little skeptical about her intentions. However, the concentration on her face fascinated him. “Do you think that will work?” he inquired.
“I don’t know.” Mollie spoke around the bobby pin she’d placed between her teeth. “But I’d rather they came back and killed me for trying to escape than sit here and wait for them to rape me or sell me to the highest bidder.”
He didn’t tell her they had far worse plans for her; she didn’t have to know that unless it became necessary. Besides, he agreed with her attitude.
When she assumed she had them about right, Mollie removed the pin from between her teeth and stretched her hand around the cage. The metal was cool and smooth beneath her fingers as she searched for the keyhole until she found it.
She couldn’t see anything, but she closed her eyes while her fingers felt over the keyhole. Going on instinct, she slid the first pin into the top part of the hole and held it there while she used her free hand to maneuver the other pin into the bottom.
Consumed: The Vampire Awakenings, Book 8 Page 3