by Robin Roseau
“I would prefer to hear a verbal agreement,” I said.
“Agreed as you stated.”
“You will need to entertain me or I will sleep from boredom.”
She smiled. “I believe we can do that.”
“Angel,” I said. “I am sorry for getting you out of bed.”
“It’s all right. I was due for my shift anyway.”
Abigail returned. She had cold meats and bread. They fed me a few tiny little open-faced sandwiches until I was satisfied. “Thank you,” I told them.
“Abigail and Angel, you may go to bed. Karen and I will take the next shift.”
“I’m awake,” Angel said. “I can stay.”
“Angel,” I said. “She’s going to start questioning me again about the chopsticks or the belt.”
Angel didn’t say anything, but she soothed my face, then both girls headed upstairs. The door closed.
Elisabeth sat on the coffee table facing me. Karen handed her the belt and chopsticks. She set the chopsticks down and examined the belt carefully. Finally she asked me, “Why did you remove this?”
“A girl has her secrets,” I said.
Elisabeth grunted. “So be it,” she said. “One of her knives and the tape please.”
“You risk silver poisoning me,” I told her calmly. “I won’t be able to heal it indefinitely.”
“You can call it off any time. Answer the question.”
“Elisabeth, I would die before giving away real pack secrets.” I sighed. “Have it your way.”
Karen returned with one of my daggers and the tape. Elisabeth moved onto the sofa next to me, pulled my feet across her lap, then took the dagger and placed it flat against the bottom of my foot.
It began burning immediately and I began healing it just as quickly.
Elisabeth wrapped my foot and the dagger in tape.
“Give her whatever food and water she asks for. If she agrees to answer the question, remove the dagger as fast as you can and treat her foot in any fashion she requests.”
“Karen, please bring enough mild foods to feed three wolves. It is all for me, so if you want any yourself, bring more. I will also be going through a lot of water.”
Karen ran upstairs while Elisabeth stared into my face. I smiled at her. She shook her head. “You’re a cold one.”
“This is what I was for a long, long time, Elisabeth. I don’t like this fox. I like the fox you normally know. I am starting to think of ways to fight back.”
She scoffed at that comment.
She was still sitting on the sofa with my legs across her. She was wearing only a tee shirt and undies. And I had a silver dagger taped to the bottom of my foot. I smiled and pulled my feet up, snaking them under her tee shirt and pressing the bottom of my foot to her breast. She screamed, shoved me away, and flew off the couch, putting distance between us. The dagger was not completely covered by the tape, and I had pressed the silver against her sensitive breast.
“I know that was very foolish of me, Elisabeth. If this were a real kidnapping, and I thought it were hopeless, I would be trying to either free myself or force you to kill me. I’m worth nothing dead, so Lara wouldn’t have to pay some horrendous price.”
She was panting from the pain in her breast.
Karen came tearing down the stairs, then stopped, staring between us. “What happened?”
“The fox has fight in her,” Elisabeth said. “Damn, that hurts.” She narrowed her eyes at me then glanced at Karen. “Finish getting the food. I need to shift.”
“Don’t be such a baby, enforcer,” I said. Okay, maybe that wasn’t the wisest comment to make, but I was getting crabby.
“Finish getting the food,” Elisabeth said. “And then tape a second dagger to her other foot. Make sure someone holds her down tightly while you do it.”
Elisabeth slipped out of her clothes, lay down on the floor, and began her shift. I glanced over and saw a raw red mark on the side of her breast. I didn’t think I’d touched her that long with the silver. Karen went upstairs, and I looked between the two cameras and smiled before closing my eyes.
Karen returned about the same time Elisabeth was finished shifting. I opened my eyes and looked at her. “Are you ready to answer our questions?” she asked.
“What did you bring me for food?”
“More little bites.”
“May I have a little before you add the second dagger?”
She nodded, then knelt down in front of me and fed me and offered me water. “Thank you,” I told her.
“Doesn’t it hurt?” she asked.
“Of course it hurts. But I am Alpha.” I smiled. “I will win.”
Her lips tightened. “No, Michaela. You won’t. Not eventually.”
“One more little bite, please, and a little water, then you have your orders for another dagger.”
She fed me and let me drink. “She told me to hold you securely.”
“I fought back, only to demonstrate I could. She is worried I will do so again. If you sit on my legs, there is little I can do.”
It was awkward, with me sitting sideways on the sofa, but Karen climbed on top of my legs, facing my feet, and lowered her weight.
“Your full weight might break them,” I warned her. “But maybe that’s what you want.”
“No,” she said. “It isn’t.”
I hissed for a moment when she placed the second dagger in place. “Answer the questions!”
“No. Tape it there. You have your orders.”
It was difficult to heal two burns at the same time. Karen taped the dagger in place then climbed off of me. I closed my eyes, healing the burns, but it hurt too much to offer to be pleasant.
“Please, Karen, keep feeding me,” I asked.
I was burning through the energy from the food as fast as my body could absorb it, and I was falling behind on healing. Karen fed me. I chewed, swallowed, and healed. Opened my mouth for more.
Elisabeth shifted back to human, and my feet felt like they were on fire. I was falling further behind.
“Are you ready to answer our questions?” she asked.
I shook my head slowly, then lay my head against the sofa and tried to heal. I wondered if Karen was right; would I lose in the end?
Perhaps, but it wouldn’t be now.
I healed and burned, healed and burned, and the burns grew worse with every second.
Elisabeth lay down to shift again. Karen fed me as much as I asked.
“You made her mad,” Karen said.
“She is embarrassed. I shouldn’t have embarrassed her. I will apologize if you remove the daggers.”
“Answer our questions.”
I began to zone out, fighting the burning.
“Answer,” Karen said.
I didn’t respond.
“If you answer one question, I will remove one knife,” she offered. “Why did you surrender the chopsticks? Or the belt? Answer, and I’ll remove a dagger from your foot and rinse it.”
“I am falling behind,” I told her. “I will start to silver poison soon.”
“You will beg to end this all the sooner, then,” she said.
“I won’t beg, but are you willing to let me die?”
“Damn it, Michaela! Answer!”
I zoned out, I don’t know for how long. The next voice I heard was Elisabeth’s.
“Michaela, you need to heal. Come on, honey, heal.”
The pain from my feet began crashing through me, and I screamed. And then I began to beg. “Please stop, please stop, I’ll tell you, please stop!”
“Promise, Michaela, promise and we’ll stop.”
“Promise! Please stop, I’ll answer!”
“We stopped ten minutes ago, Michaela,” she said. “Answer, then you need to heal .”
“It hurts, oh god, it hurts!”
“Answer us,” she said. “Why the chopsticks.”
“They’re pretty! Okay. I like them! I didn’t want them broken. That’s a
ll. I didn’t want them broken.” I started to cry. “I didn’t want them broken.”
“And the belt?”
“Gift from Lara. Shiny. I didn’t want it scuffed. Gift from my wife.”
“She’s lying.” It was Angel’s voice.
“Call her! She’ll tell you where she got it! Some shop. I don’t know where. It was expensive. Oh god, my feet.”
“Heal, Michaela. You need to heal.”
I tried. Elisabeth kept insisting I heal myself, and I tried, but I didn’t have anything left to heal with.
“I can’t,” I said, and began crying. “I can’t.”
I felt fingers on my face. She turned me to face her, then she pushed food against my lips, I whimpered, but she ordered me to swallow, so I let her force the food into me, and I choked it down. Then there was water, and more food, and more water. And slowly, I began to heal.
Finally, I was healed, or as well as I was going to. The pain wasn’t gone entirely, and I felt silver inside me.
I opened my eyes. Karen, Elisabeth and Angel were hovering over me.
“Everyone breaks, Michaela,” Karen said. “You lasted a long time.”
I hadn’t broken, I had lied, and done so convincingly. But I looked at Angel, and I thought perhaps she still didn’t believe me. Perhaps I hadn’t been entirely convincing.
“Elisabeth, is silver poisoning part of your plan?”
“No.”
“So you will help me flush the silver from my body?”
She nodded.
“More food,” I said. “Will you promise not to swing me for at least three hours?”
“Yes,” said Elisabeth.
“Or anything else that might make me throw up.”
“I can’t promise that, but I can promise we won’t do things with the intention of making you sick.”
“Fruit juice,” I said. “Orange is best, but whatever you have.”
Angel ran upstairs and returned with a jug of orange juice and a glass. Karen fed me, Angel gave me juice, and when I felt I was ready, I told them enough.
“Elisabeth, you will need to free my arm. I think I prefer my left. You will need to let me watch. I need a regular knife, no silver, and I need a long cut along the inside of my forearm. I will push the silver out the cut.”
“She’s full of shit,” Karen said.
“There is enough silver in me to kill me,” I said. I closed my eyes. “Choose.”
“Get me a knife,” Elisabeth said. “A regular knife.”
Angel ran back upstairs and was down immediately. In the meantime, Elisabeth was cutting my arm free from the tape. Karen handed her several towels to catch the blood.
“You may carry me somewhere else if you need to,” I said.
“We’ll do it right here, if you’re ready.”
“Tell me when you’re ready, then I will need several minutes to collect the silver there. Show me where you will cut. Four inches, and deep.”
I opened my eyes, and Elisabeth showed me where she would cut.
“I’m going to thrash,” I said. “You need to cut fast, but you need to hold me down. There aren’t enough of you to do all you need to do.”
“Get Gia and Scarlett,” Elisabeth said. Angel ran back upstairs again, was gone several minutes, then Gia came downstairs, and shortly after, Angel and Scarlett together.”
“Scarlett and Gia, follow Elisabeth’s orders for this. No questions, just do it,” I told them.
“Yes, Alpha,” Scarlett said immediately.
“Good girl.” I smiled weakly at her. “Elisabeth, someone with a steady hand to cut, and fast. It doesn’t need to be pretty, it needs to be deep and long, like we discussed. It’s going to bleed, that’s the whole idea. Make it bleed. Someone else is going to need to hold my arm. The rest of you to pin me down firmly.”
She nodded. “Karen, hold her arm. Gia, her shoulders. Angel and Scarlett, her legs and hips.”
They shifted around, and once they were ready, and Elisabeth nodded, I said. “All right. I will say when. Do not hesitate, Elisabeth.”
“I won’t.”
I closed my eyes and began to concentrate. I began to shudder almost immediately as the silver flowed through my body and, a tiny bit at a time, began to collect all in my arm, right below where Elisabeth would cut.
“Her arm is blistering!” Karen said.
“Not yet,” I said. I took the silver waiting in my feet, and moved it into place, and I thrashed and bucked. My arm was burning, and I couldn’t wait anymore. “Now!”
Elisabeth slashed instantly then clamped a towel over the wound, and the silver fled my body along with the rush of blood. I pushed all the silver waiting in my arm out, and then I slowly healed the slash.
I collapsed against the sofa, panting. That’s when I realized I’d been screaming.
Elisabeth’s phone rang.
“No,” I said in a small voice. “Tell her no.”
I started to cry.
“Tell her no, Elisabeth.”
Angel answered the phone and relayed my request before Elisabeth could stop her. Elisabeth hissed at her and demanded the phone. Angel handed it to her meekly.
“Were you calling to ransom her?” Elisabeth asked.
“Yes,” I heard Lara say from the phone. “I’ll pay your price.”
I started sobbing.
“No, Elisabeth, please.” I begged. “Tell her no.”
“You broke, honey,” she said gently, caressing my face. “So did Lara. It’s over.”
Lara knew I hadn’t broken. Angel suspected. I had fooled Elisabeth and Karen. I looked at Angel pleadingly.
“Give me the phone, enforcer, please,” Angel said.
Elisabeth handed her the phone, and Angel said, “Alpha, we will tend to your mate, and we will call you back shortly. We love her. Will you trust us?”
“It’s hard, Angel,” she said, and I heard the pain in her voice. “Yes, I will trust you.”
“We’ll call back, it might be an hour. We’re going to kill the feed. She is here with us, she is coherent, and she is looking at me hopefully. I won’t let anything happen to her, Alpha.”
“All right.” And they hung up.
“Kill the feed,” Angel said. “You three go upstairs. I am going to talk to her.”
“She broke,” Elisabeth said. “So did Lara. They both broke.”
I didn’t respond.
“Please, Elisabeth,” Angel said.
Gia did something with her computer, then the three of them got up and went upstairs. The door closed.
“Water, please,” I said. Angel shifted me so my head lay in her lap, then she gave me a little water.
“I am your friend now, not your kidnapper,” Angel said. “There are no pack secrets between us. You must keep them from everyone but me. If this continues, I will not share your secrets. You lied.”
“Yes.”
“You haven’t broken.”
“No.”
“You don’t want Elisabeth to know you lied. Did you lie to stop the pain?”
“No, I lied to stop the poison. It was killing me, and I knew that was further than anyone wanted this to go. Angel, there’s more silver. We only got half. I need more food.”
She fed me a few small sandwiches, leaning past me to the coffee table to reach them. They were only two or three bites each. Fox sized.
“Lara broke,” Angel said.
“She thought you were killing me, too. She’s not stopping my pain, she’s stopping the silver.”
“She knows you lied?”
“Yes. She knows the secrets. She knows all my secrets.”
Angel caressed my face while thinking, then she reached past me and picked up Elisabeth’s phone.
“If you say a single word, Michaela, I will accept Lara’s offer.”
I nodded my understanding, and she called Lara.
“This is Angel,” she said. “I am talking to Lara, not the Alpha.”
“Is she
okay?”
“Mostly. Why did you stop us?”
“You were killing her. Angel, let me pay for her. You have to stop. She’s not going to break. She didn’t break. You know that.”
“I know,” she said. Angel looked at me. “Michaela, I am going to ask you yes and no questions. If you say any word other than yes or no, then we accept Lara’s offer, and this is over. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Were we killing you?”
“Yes.”
“Is that why you stopped us?”
“Yes.”
“If it were not for silver poisoning, would you have stopped us?”
“No.”
“Are you in immediate danger of dying?”
“No.”
“Will you beg to be ransomed before we might accidentally endanger you like that? Understand we wouldn’t do so intentionally.”
“What was the question?”
“Will you make sure we don’t kill you?”
“Yes.”
“All right. If the price of your life was someone’s in the pack, would you have stopped us?”
I couldn’t answer that as yes or no. I looked at her pleadingly.
“I will rephrase. Would you have traded Lara’s life for yours?”
“No!”
Elisabeth’s? Angel’s? Kaylee’s? No to all. Angel gave more names, names of people I barely knew. No to all.
“I will allow a long answer, but do not anger me,” she said. “Whose would you trade for yours?”
“I don’t have any names,” I said. “But there are still members who would hunt me if they were allowed. I’d kill them myself in a heartbeat, and I would easily trade their lives for mine.”
She smiled briefly. “No more words now.” She spoke to Lara. “There will be no more risk of silver poisoning. We will do nothing further that might be truly dangerous. Withdraw your offer, Lara.”
“Oh Angel, I can’t,” she said.
I started to cry again.
“Alpha, you need to trust your mate.”
“Angel,” Lara said. “When I call and offer to pay the ransom, you are supposed to say yes. Bring me my mate!”
“She thinks you dishonor her, Lara. She thinks this is not enough.”
“Angel. I am not paying for her, I am paying for me. I can’t watch anymore. Bring me my mate.”
Angel looked at me. “I’m sorry,” she said.