by Chloe Adler
“Sam,” I called out in a loud whisper. A loud bang sounded from below. The basement. Of course.
I looked around for an entrance or a stairwell. Nothing. No hurricane cellar, like in the South. No fish cellar, like in Alaska. But there was . . . something. Going to the walls, I started tapping on them, remembering the passageway into the mansion where the Scrim had holed up last year.
Tap, tap, tap—something hollow. I pressed on the wallboards and one of them pushed up, affording me a small space to crawl through. On the other side were narrow stairs leading down into darkness.
“Sam,” I whispered again, “I’m coming.”
A high-pitched moan resonated below. Was that her? I moved cautiously down the stairwell, toward the noise. When I reached the bottom it opened into a large, dusty space, and there was the outline of my sister. She was bound to a chair and gagged, against the far wall. At least she hadn’t been caged. I couldn’t take another caging after what the Scrim had done to my friends last year.
I ran to her and tried to free her from the ropes but they were knotted too tightly. Pulling off her gag, I threw my arms around her instead.
“It’s a trap,” she hissed, and of course, I had known it was, somewhere in the back of my head, but I hadn’t cared and now it was too late. A rough sack was thrown over my head from behind. I writhed and kicked. I was about to force myself to change, hour limit be damned, but the sting of a needle came first and I slipped from consciousness. Right before I passed out, I screamed as loudly as I could for Alec. But my voice was just a whisper to my ears.
Chapter Fourteen
When I came to, I was tied up just as my sister had been. I couldn’t see anything. It was pitch black but that was the least of my worries. I couldn’t shift. How was that possible? What had they injected me with? Something to inhibit our shifting abilities? I hadn’t even known such a thing existed but then it made a kind of sense. How else had they been able to kill so many of our kind over the years without getting killed themselves? There had been talk of some sort of anti-shift medication, but we’d all thought it was nonsense. Apparently not.
“Sam?” I whispered. At least I hadn’t been gagged.
No response. I struggled in my binds. My sister. I had to save her. Was she passed out? Hurt? “Sam!” I said louder, my voice rising with urgency.
A flashlight beam appeared in the darkness, wavering. My breath stilled.
“Please keep calling out to her,” came a deep, gruff voice from behind the waving torch. Then it swung to the side, illuminating my sister. She was standing next to the voice, unbound and calm looking, not in distress. Her eyes were trained on the floor, her limp hair hiding her face.
“Sam, what the fuck?” I yelled.
“Now, now, faggot, no cussing in a house of God,” came the patronizing voice. It was the same one we’d heard in the crystal. The Trackers’ leader. “Samantha,” he said and motioned to me with an arm. “Your brother deserves to know the truth, wouldn’t you agree?”
Sam’s eyes moved up to mine, shining with tears. “I’m so sorry Jared. I . . .” She looked down again as a tear cascaded down her pale cheek.
“Tell him,” spit the man, “or I will.”
Sam started shaking and the man put his arm around her, still holding the flashlight, bathing my sister in a sickly yellow glow. I watched, disgusted, as she leaned into him. He caressed her head as though she were his pet. “Go on,” he said in a much gentler tone.
“I’m with them now.” My sister exhaled the words in a single breath.
“What the fuck does that mean? You helped them kill our parents? Trash our house?” The Sam I’d known as a child was not capable of such hatred and violence, and yet—here she stood.
The man snorted.
“No,” cried Sam, “of course not!” She craned her neck toward the man. “Landry, sir, please let my brother go. He’s not your target.”
“No, sweetheart, he’s the bait.”
“Bait?” I repeated. “For what? Who?”
“You’re not really in a position to ask questions, now are you, faggot?”
“What are you going to do? Kill me like you killed our parents?”
“Ah yes, your parents. An unfortunate misfire,” Landry cooed. “If they’d quit asking questions about Samantha and stopped trying to find her, they’d still be alive. Maybe.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Again with the profanities in the house of God? Samantha,” he turned to my sister, “be a good girl and show your brother what we’re capable of when we’re disobeyed.”
Agitated, Sam shook her head but Landry’s hand brushed aside the hair covering her face and shone the torch at it. A fresh wound, red and angry, ran from her temple to the corner of her mouth.
“Monsters!” I shouted. “Sam, what’s going on? Why would you let them do this to you?”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about your sister, little poof.” He let go of Sam and nudged her toward me. “Why don’t I leave you two alone to get . . . reacquainted.”
She took a hesitant step in my direction.
“If you untie him, Samantha . . .”
She looked back at Landry.
“I will kill him. Your choice.” And with that, he tossed the torch to my sister and left.
I waited until the sounds of his steps faded up the stairs before unleashing my anger. “What the fuck have you done? Please, Sam, tell me this is a nightmare. Tell me I’m asleep. Pinch me.”
She wobbled toward me and pulled up the chair they’d used to stage her capture.
“Jared.” She kept her voice low. “I don’t have time to explain everything. I left Sitka all those years ago after I bonded with my mate. I left to save our family. I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn’t know they would kill Mom and Dad. I didn’t know. You have to believe me.” Her tears flowed in earnest now down her swollen cheek. I turned away.
“Well, you know now, and you’re obviously here working for them.” It was probably a good thing my arms were bound.
“It’s complicated,” she sniffed.
“Complicated, my ass. They killed our parents in cold blood. They’re killers. You’re a killer.” She flinched. Good.
“Under the circumstances,” she looked around, “I did what I thought was right. What I thought would save you.”
“Whatever you need to tell yourself so you can sleep at night, right, Sam?”
She stood up abruptly. “I don’t expect you to understand, even if you had all the facts.”
“The facts? I have the facts and they stink.” I shook my head. Footsteps sounded down the stairs. Landry was returning. “Untie me, Sam. Untie me now and we’ll get out of here. I’ll save you. I’ll listen. Please.”
To my surprise, she nodded and crouched behind me, working on the ropes. But they were tight, and she wasn’t fast enough.
Landry’s beam trained on me. She must have known she’d get caught, there hadn’t been enough time. Had she tried anyway in order to gain my trust? Or to lose his?
“Samantha,” Landry drew her name out, “you’re disappointing me again. I thought I’d made myself clear.”
Sam stopped working on the rope and threw herself at Landry. “I’m sorry, I love him. He’s my brother. Surely you can understand that. You have Mitchell.”
“Do not bring Mitchell into this conversation. You know he does not feel the same way about you.”
Who the hell was Mitchell?
“Mitchell loves me,” cried Sam.
Landry laughed, a loud guffaw. “You think because you sullied him once with your whorish ways all those years ago that he loves you? You were nothing but a jezebel. Who turned your life around? Who purified you? Who gave you a chance at salvation?”
“You did.” Her voice was soft and weak.
“I did.” He reached out and stroked her hair again. She didn’t recoil. “And now, just to make sure that Mitchell never looks at you
with lust again, I will mark your other cheek.”
“No, please!” She tried to pull away but he grabbed her hair, yanking back her head.
“If you resist me, I will kill your brother. We don’t need to keep him alive once his pansy boy rescues him.”
Sam stopped fighting and let him lead her away.
“Men,” Landry called loudly into the darkness, and footsteps descended the stairwell. “Turn on the overheads.” The room lit up with blinding fluorescents.
Several men wheeled a metal gurney in front of my chair. They were dressed in jeans and plaid button-downs, unlike Landry, creating a clear distinction in authority. They kept their eyes averted, not looking at me, as though I was either not worth their time or too foul to behold. The men laid my sister supine, tying her arms and legs to the gurney. She didn’t resist. One tied a gag around her face, forcing the filthy fabric into her mouth.
“So you won’t accidentally bite off your tongue,” purred Landry, petting her hair again.
“Why are you doing this to her?” I asked, clenching my teeth to keep the shaking out of my voice.
“Ah, she didn’t tell you about her unrequited love? The reason she ran away and betrayed your parents?”
My head pivoted to my sister. Another tear cascaded down her ashen cheek. Was this true? Stall. “Sam would never do that.” Her wild eyes darted around the room. Why wasn’t she shifting?
“Silence, fruit,” Landry hissed, clenching Sam’s hair in his anger. She whimpered, and he immediately let go. “Shhh, baby girl.”
He cocked his thumb at one of the men behind him. “Inject her again, it’s time.”
The man approached my sister with a primed IV and jabbed it unceremoniously into her thigh. She yelped through the gag as he squeezed the bag, forcing the fluid into her body.
“The Devil made you and your kind, not the Good Lord Almighty and not our savior, Jesus. But with this,” he gestured to the IV, “we can deal with you good and proper. As the Lord intended.”
“The Lord made us, sir.” I had to try.
“You are an abomination, a soulless flesh puppet. God hates fags and he doubly hates you—shifter faggot.”
Sam tried to speak through her gag, coughing and choking with the force of her plea. Landry pulled the filthy cloth from her mouth, resting it on her chin. “Please let my brother go,” she pleaded. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
Landry tsked. “Sam-an-tha, you have a lot to make up for. You’ve betrayed my trust. I thought you had fully atoned for your sins. Were you lying to me all of these years? To your congregation? Have you returned to your wicked ways?”
Sam shook her head. “No sir, no.”
“You know your brother is possessed by the minions of Satan, you’ve said so yourself.”
“Yes,” she nodded and I held my growl, “but it’s not his fault.”
Landry nodded slowly. This nutjob was falling for Sam’s hyperbole?
A loud noise sounded from the room’s entrance. I fully expected to see Alec barreling through the door, but instead, a familiar-looking man had entered, apparently frantic. The last time I’d seen him, he’d been much younger but those eyes were unmistakable.
“Father, stop!”
“Ah Mitchell, my boy.” Landry held out a hand, which hung there in the air, untouched.
“What are doing to Samantha?” He rushed to her side but didn’t touch her.
“Why do you care what I do to her?” the madman snarled.
“She’s one of us,” Mitchell cried.
“Putting that cursed animal flamer before her chosen people?”
But Mitchell only had eyes for Sam, his eyes pleading silently with hers. For the first time since I’d come to this hellhole, my sister’s eyes were alight with something besides fear. Six years had passed, and there were obviously a lot of things I didn’t know about her. She was in love with this guy. And anyone who had eyes could see that he was in love with her too. And yet they were trying to hide it. Why?
A flash of recognition hit me. He was the person in the photos Sam had showed everyone over breakfast. Was this her mate?
“Why don’t you do the honors, boy? She’s your disobedient charge.” Landry stretched out his hand and one of his men placed a scalpel in it, the sharp metal edge glinting under the fluorescent lights.
Mitchell took the knife from his father and moved toward my sister, holding it out.
Or maybe that wasn’t love in his eyes after all, just pure crazy. “Don’t you fucking touch her!” I screamed.
Landry laughed, the laugh of a maniacal sociopath. Deep. Menacing. Not even the faintest hint of remorse. His laugher tasted like maggots and smelled of the sewer. “One nick for each betrayal, Mitchell,” he bellowed.
“Father . . .”
Was this even real? This was Landry’s son? Landry’s son was her mate?
“Do it, or I’ll do it for you and destroy the other half of her face.”
Never looking away from Mitchell, Sam nodded through her tears while I fought against my bonds. The scalpel flashed in the light again as he lowered it. I refused to look away, no matter how much I wanted to.
The knife sliced through her bonds. Landry backhanded Mitchell across the face, sending him flying.
Sam sat up and tried to jump off the gurney but his men were on her in an instant, pushing her back down.
Landry grabbed his son by the neck with one hand and held him over Sam. “Now you get to see what your insolence has caused.” His eyes narrowed as he brought the scalpel down across my sister’s bare bicep. A blossom of crimson burst from her severed flesh and the scream I let loose, more like a howl, nearly deafened me.
Sam was sobbing quietly, the blood pouring onto the floor in rivulets. Mitch hung defeated from the madman’s grasp. When Landry brought the scalpel up again, however, the man twisted out and kicked his father’s hand, sending the weapon flying.
“You are not in your right mind,” Landry bellowed. “This jezebel has blackened your heart, separated you from Jesus, your Lord and Savior. You know not what you do!”
“Father, please.” He threw his body on top of hers. “Samantha has done all of your bidding for years. She’s a faithful servant who has proved herself again and again.”
“What has she done to you? I will kill her!” He raised his arm to strike again.
“Spare her, Father. I will remain with the movement and keep doing the work you ask of me; but if you hurt her further or kill her, I will leave forever.
Landry paused, scalpel raised, and then it clattered to the floor.
I exhaled and Landry turned back to me. “Pawn,” his voice was low and dripping with condescension. Turning back to his men, he waved his hand at Mitchell, his body still covering Sam as she cried softly into his neck. “Remove them and clean this up.”
Sam tried to fight them as they carted her away with her boyfriend, but in her weakened state, all she could do was mouth So sorry in my direction.
Fuck you, Sam, I mouthed right back.
I passed out, waiting for my bear to rescue me or for the killers to return. I lost track of time. The anti-changing serum acted like a narcotic in my system, fading me in and out of consciousness. Without the adrenaline of witnessing Sam’s “punishment,” my mind reeled with confusion, full of unanswered questions.
I was halfway convinced they had planned a slow and painful death for me via dehydration when a crash sounded above. Muffled yells and the roaring of my own personal savior severed the stillness. Pounding from above dislodged debris from the ceiling. My eyes snapped shut to keep out the churning dust.
When I opened them after more loud crashes, screams and roars, Alec’s bulky form was hoisting me up, chair and all. He was not alone however; men followed, shooting him with darts like he was King Kong. They looked so tiny in his wake. Where was Jessica Lange when you needed her?
If those were tranquilizer darts, it would be quite the trick to escape with me before they t
ook effect. He crashed through walls to set me free, with no thought to the integrity of the building itself. As he loped through the grounds with my limp form perched on his shoulder, I watched as the building containing my sister crumbled and fell.
After a short distance Alec slowed, his feet tripping, sending me flying. My landing, though bruising, splintered the chair and set me free. Checking first to make sure nothing was broken, I limped back to Alec. He’d changed back and was looking at me through lidded eyes, lying in the dark grass.
“Hey,” I kissed his face, exhaustion sweeping over me. “We need to move father away from the church.”
“We’re at least a mile. I can’t keep going right now. Just a short rest.”
“Alec, no.” I prodded him with my elbow as his eyes fluttered shut, mine threatening to follow.
“I can’t help feeling . . . bad . . . your poor sister,” he muttered.
Though I, too, was fading, my eyes lifted open. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Don’t know the whole story . . . must forgive . . . help Samantha.”
“Dude, you’re more out of it than I am right now. You’re not thinking clearly.”
His soft snores filled the darkness as he lay passed out in the dark grass.
Exhaustion spider-webbed from the perimeter of my consciousness. I climbed into the crook of his arm and hit dreamland like an avalanche of rocks falling from a cliff.
Chapter Fifteen
Throbbing pain throughout my body woke me. For several minutes I couldn’t remember where I was. The grass beneath me was wet and sticky, the pale sunlight driving nails through my eyelids. I sat up so quickly my head spun with the world’s worst hangover. Opening my eyes a crack, I was surprised to find myself in a cemetery, alone.
“Alec?” I called out.