Distracted, he didn’t see the shot come until it was too late. A large boom exploded right next to him, catching Thorn in the side. The blast from it knocked him off the ground and threw him backwards. When he landed, it was on a slope and he went rolling downward, hard and fast.
Rocks and sticks cut into his side and hit him hard in the head. Upon the impact of hitting the ground, he turned once more to human. His whole body hurt, and another hard hit--to his head this time—and things started to go dark right before he hit a body of water.
Chapter Twelve
Katrina stopped running when she heard the loud boom. Breathing hard she turned in the woods and was able to see a very big wolf shot down, then start to fall backwards and down a hill. Standing there, trying to catch her breath, she watched the wolf fall and roll. With each hard hit, she witnessed the change from a wolf to a man.
Why she wasn’t still running away, she didn’t know. And why she was just standing there as he fell, she couldn’t say. When he hit the water she flinched and waited a few seconds to see if he would come back up or not. He didn’t. With her own groan of frustration, and asking herself why she had to do this, she turned and started to run in the direction of the water. Once she reached the edge she jumped in, head first, arms stretched out in front of her.
The water was cold when she hit it, but she didn’t let the cold hold her back. She swam downward, toward the body that was sinking quickly. Her captor was human again, naked, eyes closed, arms and legs spread out and blood coming from a side wound. Katrina swam as hard as she could to reach him, all the while thinking she wasn’t going to make it and she was going to have to go back up to the top to breathe again.
He stopped at the bottom and she reached him. Wrapping one arm around his massive chest, under his arms, Katrina kicked hard from the bottom up and used her one free arm to swim for the surface. Just as she feared she might not make it did she finally did, her breaking above the water and sucking fresh air into her burning lungs.
Thorn’s head bounced on her shoulder as she breathed hard a few more times before starting the swim to shore. He was out cold and she was afraid he might be dead. Hell, it had her thinking she might’ve risked her life for nothing after all. Then she asked herself why the hell did she jump into the water into the first place?
Her feet touched the bottom of the shoreline and she was able to drag him to the side, but not all the way. His lower body was still in the water when she finally dropped herself, exhausted. Still breathing hard she rolled to her back for a few seconds, staring up at the night sky, then she rolled over to see if he was breathing. He wasn’t.
Katrina climbed up on him, straddling his waist and pushing hard on his chest. She administered five compressions then breathed into his mouth. Again, she pushed on his chest, then breathed.
“Come on,” she said, pushing hard. “Don’t make this chase boring for me now.” Another couple of breaths she gave him. “Come on!” she yelled, hitting his chest now with her fist. After a few more compressions, she slapped him across the face. “You fight you stupid fucking animal, or I win. Now breathe, damn it!” She struck him in the chest again, gave him one more breath and he started coughing.
Katrina moved off him and rolled his heavy body to the side. Thorn coughed again, and water came out of his mouth and he took a deep breath. She slumped down on her rear, watching him as he rolled back over to his back, his chest rising and falling on his own. When his eyes opened she stood up, her legs a bit shaky. He blinked a few times then looked up at her.
“Now you owe me,” she said, turned and walked away, leaving him there.
* * * *
Thorn was too weak to go after her. Instead, he stayed on the ground watching her go. When he couldn’t see her anymore, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The last thing he would’ve ever expected of her was to save his life.
“Thorn!” Logan’s voice sounded like music to him. He opened his eyes the second Logan came to him, and his hands grabbed him under the arms, dragging him the rest of the way out of the water. “Shit, what happened?”
“Where’s Katrina?” Dannie asked.
“Gone,” Thorn said in a raspy voice.
Logan hissed, “This is bad, man.” He touched the side of Thorn’s body, where he’d been shot. “Need to stitch you up.”
“Logan!” Dannie screamed.
Logan stopped messing with Thorn and turned toward a couple men attacking them. He growled and lunged, knocking both of them away. Thorn didn’t need to see to know that Logan just ripped out one’s throat and snapped the neck of the other. He could hear it and smell the blood.
“Why would she save me?” Thorn asked Dannie.
“Because she isn’t as you think,” Dannie replied. “If she’s gone then she’ll go back to our mother for answers and that isn’t good.”
“I know.” Thorn sighed.
“We need to go,” Logan said, coming back up to them. He took hold of Thorn’s arm and bent him forward. Thorn groaned loudly.
“We can’t go without Kaz,” Dannie said the second Logan had Thorn up and slung over his shoulder.
“We have no choice,” Logan said.
“Logan, please!” Dannie begged, following behind him as he started to walk back towards the camp. “What if my mother hurts her?”
“She made the choice to go back,” Logan said.
“Thorn, please,” She tried again. “Do something. She’s my sister.” When he didn’t say anything she went on, “She just saved your life! For Christ’s sakes, help her.”
Logan stopped and put Thorn down, slumped him against a tree. “Stay here. I’ll go get the van.”
“Good idea,” Thorn said.
“Thorn, please,” Dannie begged again when Logan was gone. “You can’t just do nothing.”
“I’m sort of out of action right now.”
“And I’ve seen how fast you guys heal.” Thorn met Dannie’s eyes. “I’ll do anything. Just please, save my sister from her. You know what my mother might do to her.”
Thorn stared up at Dannie for what felt like a very long time to him. She had a couple of great points. One, Katrina did save his life. Two, if she was indeed going back, their mother wasn’t going to be there with open arms. That bitch was crazy and he would put his last dollar down that she would indeed hurt her child if it meant getting some information.
“Fine,” Thorn groaned. “Stop nagging at me. Once I’m healed I’ll go get her back.”
Dannie sighed and smiled. “Thank you.” She also knelt down and kissed him on the cheek.
“Don’t do that!” Thorn snapped. “You’ll have Logan wanting to finish the job of killing me.”
* * * *
Katrina met up with a couple of the men her mother sent deep in the woods, only they weren’t sent by her, but by her mother’s partner, the man she never was allowed to see. They didn’t really say anything to her, either, and that had her questioning if the choice she made to run away was a good one or not. Her gut was screaming not.
They took her to a waiting car, put her in the back, got in the front, and drove away. She did manage to get one of them to tell her that they were indeed taking her back to her mother. Katrina thought that might give her some comfort, but what it did, instead, was give her a very bad feeling.
The sun was starting to come up when they pulled up to a warehouse that she had never been at before. Still wet from the swim and very cold, Katrina got out of the car and walked up to the door. She turned her head to the camera so that whoever was on the other end would know it was her and that she was alone.
Seconds felt like hours before the lock turned and the door popped open. She went inside and looked around. The place was empty and for a moment, she wondered if she might be alone, until she heard that familiar click of her mother’s heels.
“There she is!” Vintina came out from another room, a big smile on her face and her arms spread wide. She seemed happy and it put Katrina
at ease immediately.
“Mother,” Katrina sighed, going up to her and into her welcoming arms.
“Everything is all right now,” Vintina soothed, brushing her hair. “You’re safe. Where’s Dannie?”
Katrina closed her eyes and hugged her mother tighter, but the mention of Dannie had that dreaded feeling come back to her stomach. She pulled back slowly to face her. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get Dannie back. Everything happened so fast.”
“I understand. We’ll get her back and make them pay for taking you both.” Vintina reached up and touched the side of her face. “You must be freezing. Go and change. Get out of those wet clothes. I’ll have something brought up for you to eat and you can tell me everything.”
With a nod, Katrina moved away from her mother. Standing right behind her was a guard, which unnerved her since she hadn’t heard him enter.
He took her arm and led Katrina away to another part of the building that served as living quarters. Inside a bedroom that didn’t even look like the rest of the place, but remodeled to feel like a normal bedroom she showered and dressed in fresh clothes. Food was brought up and she ate everything, knowing that her mother sometimes got upset if she didn’t eat. Once finished she took the tray and went in search of the kitchen, but instead saw a few things that didn’t make any sense to her. One being why there were so many armed men around and why did they act as if they had one of her pets here? A fresh one who has yet to be drugged and trained, as her other pet liked to say.
Katrina started to head back towards the room after she finally found the kitchen and left her dishes. She had hoped to get some rest when she saw her mother come out of a door that led down into the basement, with a man right behind her. A man who instantly provoked fear in Katrina, and strangely enough she got the impression that her mother also feared him. He seemed so cold, but at the same time, she picked up that there might be a connection between him and her mother. Keeping to the walls, she moved closer with the hope of hearing something. Being kept in the dark so long was starting to drive her nuts. And she needed answers, just like her mother seemed to think she needed them.
“So, yours came back, not mine,” the man said.
“Yes. And soon Dannie will be back also.”
“It won’t be good for you, if she doesn’t.” He moved around her mother, sticking to the shadows still so Katrina couldn’t see his face. “Who would have thought the animal would come home. I would have expected her to stay with her own kind.”
“Katrina doesn’t know what she is, so why would she stay? Besides, there is no trace of animal in her.”
“Animals are loyal to each other, Vintina. She has their DNA. She will turn on you—one day. They are all rabid dogs, and dogs like that need to be put down.”
“If that day comes then I’ll do it.”
He made a humphing sounds and started pacing again. “So how much longer are you going to hold him? That dog needs to be put down.”
“A couple more days. I want to make sure that I have everything I need. So far, he’s given me the rest of the group’s location, and cabinet members. I think for the next few days he’ll just suffer in pain before you put him down.”
“Two days more then and that’s it.”
“You shall have him.”
“Keep an eye on your daughter. Having animal in her is enough to worry me. And when she turns, I get her as well.”
“If she turns, you can have her. I have no use for animals.”
Katrina stuffed her fist into her mouth to silence her cries. Hearing the way her mother talked about her, and discovering that the man was Dannie’s father had her wanting to scream and be sick at the same time. Not to mention that everything Thorn said about her being one of them was true had her wanting to sink to the floor. But she held it together and kept herself hidden.
How could her mother keep such a thing from her? Hell, how could her mother keep her from knowing what she was? And what happened to her father? Did her mother kill him like she killed everyone else? An inner voice screamed yes.
Hiding, she waited for her mother and the man to leave, then Katrina pushed herself away from the wall and went to the door. Twisting the knob slowly she bit the inside of her lip, hoping to not make too much noise as it gave for her. Pushing with her hip, the door opened and she looked down at dark stairs leading into an even darker space. Looking over her shoulder to make sure that they weren’t coming back, she slipped inside and closed the door.
She slipped quietly down the stairs. The space was open but dark and smelled of dried blood. She looked around, not sure where to go but decided on going to the left. Walking deeper into the dark, the smell of blood became stronger. Clearly, someone was down here. More likely one of her pets that she was torturing instead of using for stud sessions. But that wasn’t what she found. What she discovered deep in the back of the basement had tears coming to her eyes and her stomach turning.
A man hung by his wrists from the ceiling. His clothing was gone, and his whole body looked as if he had been whipped repeatedly. On a table nearby were needles and several small bottles. That meant he had also been drugged and by the look of things he was hanging on to life by a thread.
She didn’t think, only reacted. Looking around she saw what held him up and went to the lever. As gently as she could she lowered him down to the ground and once his body touched the cool floor he groaned and woke up. Katrina went up to him, taking hold of his wrists and freed them.
“Who are you?” she asked as she worked on his wrists.
The man looked right at her. Eyes glazed over. “My God, you look like him.”
“Like who?” she frowned.
“Your father,” he exhaled.
“Who is he?” she rushed out. “Who are you and why does she have you?”
“Revenge,” he said in a weak voice. Freeing both wrists Katarina stilled when his hand came up and touched her face. “You have his eyes.”
“Who? Who is he?” she asked again.
“My friend. Richard.” His hand dropped, as did his head. “I’m dying. Take me to my son.”
“Who’s your son?”
“Logan.”
Katrina stared at him with an open mouth. She didn’t know what to do or how to get him out for that matter. “Why would she want revenge? Please, tell me what’s going on here?”
“I need to see Logan, before—before I die. Please.”
Looking around for something he might be able to wear, Katrina spotted a blanket off in the corner of the room. She went for it, wrapped it around his shoulders, and helped him up. “Come on. I might be able to get you out of here.”
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Katrina knew a few things being around Logan and Thorn for a short time, and one of those things were that they were strong, solid men. The one she was helping to his feet now felt frail in her arms as if he might break at any moment.
Back up the stairs, they went, and when they got to the door, she pushed it open slowly and peeked out. When she was certain everything was clear, they walked out and, as fast as she could move him, headed for the front door. Fear hit her with how quiet the place was and how easy it seemed to get him out of here. At the door, she unlocked it and held it open for him. He went out first. As she took a step forward, a powerful explosion of energy hit her. It dropped her to the floor, and the man she had just helped stopped and watched her fall.
“Go,” she said. Taking a deep breath, she screamed at him, “Go!”
He turned and ran, or more like took off into a limping run. Shots came out around him, and one hit him. She screamed and tried to get up to go towards him, but another volt struck her.
“Run!” she screamed at him again.
Where he got the energy to run, she didn’t know, but the pleasure she felt at seeing him disappear into the woods was enough for her to have the strength to face her mother’s wrath.
Guards came up, bent, and grabbed her arms tightly, jerking h
er up to her feet. Katrina looked over her shoulder and saw two small rods sticking out of her lower back. That meant she had been shot with a stun gun. Holding her arms tight, the guards jerked her around and walked her back inside. Her mother waited there, lips thin, anger spread across her face. The man was also standing there next to her but off to the side so she couldn’t see his face clearly. When the guards had her standing in front of her mother Vintina slapped Katrina hard across the face, splitting her lip open.
“How could you betray me like this?” Vintina yelled.
“How could you betray me,” Katrina tossed back, the tears falling free now. “What am I, Mother? A daughter or a pet? I’m one of them, and you never told me!”
Her mother slapped her harder, again and again, making Katrina feel like her head might explode. “What you are is dead to me!” she hissed in Katrina’s face.
Katrina stilled, looking her mother right in the eye.
“Do what you want with her. She’s no daughter of mine.”
The man snapped his fingers and the guards holding her turned and dragged her back to the basement door and down the stairs. She could hear him walking slowly behind her as the men rushed to get her down to the basement, back to the very spot where the man she’d saved had been held. Her wrists were chained, not rope tied, and when a rope did get pulled she realized the chains were attached to the rope pulley and she was hauled up to her feet with her arms up over her head. At that very same moment, her mother’s associate reached the bottom step.
For a split second, she wanted to giggle at how ironic it seemed to be in a dungeon type setting with a man standing in front of her in a suit. But she didn’t giggle. What she did do was start to shake in fear thinking of what he could do to her.
He said nothing, only nodded to one of the men who grabbed her shirt by the collar and ripped it down her back. The strap across her back from her bra he cut.
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