Caged (30 page)

He removed his hand from my mouth, flipping it about to help emphasize his soliloquy with gestures. “I tried to remind them that if it hadn’t been from a little help on the inside, you never would have been able to pull off this little stunt. An error that would certainly not occur again. All potential sympathizers have been identified and eradicated.”

“So you’re sending me back?” I whispered, realizing that death really wasn’t the worst fate I faced.

He scoffed at the innocence in my voice.

“Well not back there, you’ve made that impossible. But there are others who would have you for similar reasons. You’ll go to the highest bidder,” he said, thrusting his body up against mine again. “What would you have me do? I’m a businessman, Ruby. It’s nothing personal. Never was. I’d hoped to win you for myself given the bond our wolves had, but a better offer presented itself and I took it. Now that offer hangs in the balance, so I have to right it, whatever the cost may be.”

“This is what he meant. You’re nothing more than a lowlife sellout. Everything he said about you was true,” I said with a sense of awe and regret hanging in the air with my words. Sean had said that Eric was only interested in himself and that he’d known from personal experience. “So what was it with you two? You owe me that!”

He seemed to consider my demand for a minute before he offered anything up.

“We know more about each other than you could ever possibly understand, but I’ll tell you what you want to know anyways. We
were
once brothers. I was PC. For decades I served beside him and the others, maintaining the balance between worlds. One day I met Marcus, and he made me a better offer,” he explained, pausing slightly. “Like I said, I’m a business man. He Changed me that day, and has been my mentor ever since.” His expression changed from indifferent to anger in the blink of an eye and my anxiety spiked instantly. “His death will be avenged. Your little wolf cub over there hardly counts as restitution on that front.”

With that he grabbed me by the arm and started to lead me to the door. Apparently our moment of sharing was over. I’d hit a nerve and it zapped him right back into business mode. He was taking me down for transport to wherever my new “home” would be, and once again, nobody would know where I’d gone. That little theme in my life really needed to change; it was really getting old.

“Wait!” I yelled, trying to startle him into stopping. I had no plan, so stalling was the default in hopes that Sean was closer than I thought. “How did you get in here in the first place?” I asked, realizing how weak that sounded even as I said it. He laughed at me, looking all too aware of what I was trying to do. He surprised me when he actually answered.

“Simple. You left the door unlocked. Not a very smart move for a single woman living in town.”

SHIT! I really have to stop doing that.

“And the pizza guy? What did you do with him?”

I had noticed the smell of pizza in the apartment and realized that they must have shanghai-ed the poor sap when he came to the door.

“Ruby, I’m not a mindless killer. I paid the man and told him I was heading up to the party,” he said, looking truly affronted. “Really, six pies? You’re going to lose your girlish figure at that rate,” he said condescendingly.

After a moment he dropped the facade of concern and started marching me out the door. I assumed his humor had run out for the evening. Funny, so did my luck.

I threw subtlety out the window and went for obvious attempts at Changing. I panicked and tried to drive myself into a fear-based state that had worked so well in the past. I flailed, screamed and tried to think of every awful thing that had happened to me over the last few months, but nothing worked. The group of them laughed and clutched their stomachs at my juvenile attempts to gain the upper hand. The one nearest to Coop fell at his feet in comedic agony, wiping the tears from his face. I glanced at Cooper and nearly collapsed - his eyes were open.

He mouthed something to me, but I had no idea how to read lips. He tried to lift his right hand but hadn’t the strength or nervous input to carry out the act. He winced with pain. I made a desperate move and dove for him, past the man on the floor. My landing wasn’t pretty, but it put my face right up against his. With one last breath of strength he whispered the words “Take…ring…off”, directly into my ear.

I hadn’t a clue why that was important, but without time to analyze his wish, I did what he asked. I slid it off just as two arms went around my waist, yanking me to my feet. My ring flew through the air to land on Cooper’s chest. I felt a sudden surge of power, like a dam had been opened within me, hitting me with all that pent up fear and anxiety at once. It wasn’t overwhelming but empowering. An uncontrollable smile spread slowly across my lips as I broke free of the hold Eric had on me and turned to look at him.

As the blood drained not only from his face, but also from the faces behind him, I got a glimpse of what they were seeing, what had so quickly turned the tide. In the mirror, over the shoulder of the last of the men, were two glowing red eyes. My Change was going to occur, and they all knew it. Death was coming for them.

And she was some pissed off.

43

There was nothing but a carnage obstacle course to get to Eric, who had maneuvered himself conveniently behind his minions. It was no matter; an RB couldn’t be stopped. It took little effort for me to cut through his not-so-human bodyguards, the rampage taking just under a minute. It was surprisingly unsatisfying and unchallenging. Anticlimactic even.

The shock and horror appeared to have frozen Eric in a state of half-Change. His stature was that of a human but his eyes, teeth, and hands were in a blended state. Claws protruded from his fingertips, and sharp canines made his mouth shut awkwardly, though it was agape at the time. His eyes glowed an inhuman yellow and they read fear. He was afraid of me.

I quickly became aware that it wasn’t really me that had him petrified, but more so the crazy person who was at the helm of my body. It was as if I was somewhere in the backseat of a careening sports car and couldn’t reach the brake. The driver was reckless, impulsive and a little crazy. I envied her immensely.

She waded through intestines and questionable matter slowly and with a catwalk swagger. She smoothed down the tunic that was understandably disheveled and slipped off her hat. After meticulously untying the braid that bound the still-wet curls, she ran a delicate hand through my hair.

Our hair.

Eric clung to the wall as if it were his lifeline, plastered against it like a starfish. He still hadn’t closed his mouth. She would do this for him. Upon reaching his body she slowly crouched at his feet and with snakelike grace, uncoiled herself, sliding along the length of his body in a sexual way until virtually nose-to-nose with him. She remained pressed against him until she felt him unwillingly press back against her, at least part of him anyways. She laughed an unfamiliar laugh that was far deeper and huskier than my own.

Stevie Nicks with a two pack a day smoking habit…

She then sucked his bottom lip into a kiss that was more rough than sensual and ended with that lip caught between her teeth, being pulled to the point of pain. He winced, then moaned, leaning away from her. I was starting to get pissed off.
Was she not present in that dungeon with me? Did she not endure what I did, or did she actually enjoy it?
I ran these questions through my mind over and over. Then I realized that she’d stopped toying with him, unless holding him off the ground by the throat was foreplay I’d not seen yet. And I’d seen a lot in Utah.

He gargled something incoherent and she dropped him to the floor in response, seemingly amused with her own antics. He coughed violently for a moment, and then in a very hoarse voice repeated himself.

“You don’t want to do this. I can help you.” I’m guessing that the reply she gave him broke at least four to five ribs on his right side. When he regained his breath, he started again. “I can help you escape the PC,” he said as he braced himself for another blow. Instead, she cocked her head to the side as if intrigued with a painting she couldn’t quite figure out.

“Help me how?” she rasped.

“You forget that I was one. I know their methods of tracking, how they attack, operate, who they answer to. You’ll never escape them on your own. Nobody ever has,” he said gaining both strength of voice and will as he spoke. “You. Need. Me.”

Ever the businessman, he was hoping to negotiate his way out of this and to my horror, it appeared that she was listening.
No, no, no, no. Cooper, look at Cooper. Look at what he did to my friend, our friend! Eric is slime, the scum of the earth, and he’ll sell us out at the first chance he gets. He doesn’t care about us, he cares about what we can do to his bottom line. SNAP OUT OF IT!

I screamed those messages repeatedly inside my head to try and break her out of his hold yet again. I thought it was working when she pinned him against the wall with her forearm to his throat, but he was still able to talk, and that seemed to have a hold on her. I needed something else, something more tangible for her to grab onto.

She released him as he told her his plan of immediate escape. He seemed to have put together that the PC would be coming for us sooner than later. While he walked around her, he caused her gaze to land upon Cooper’s body sprawled lifelessly on the rug.

I seized my opportunity.

HE DID THAT! HE KILLED COOPER, THE ONLY PERSON WILLING TO HELP US WHEN NOBODY ELSE WOULD! KILL HIM!

Message received.

A guttural noise sprang deep from within her chest as she dove at Eric. He screamed for the briefest of moments until his vocal cords were strewn about the room, along with every other major organ contained within his body. She hovered over the tiny remains and shreds of clothing in front of her, allowing me a chance to take it all in. When I professed my satisfaction, she breathed deeply. A howl burst forth from her mouth signaling the kill.

It went unanswered.

Cooper!

She scurried across the slippery floor to his side and tried to pick his head up.
So much blood,
we thought in unison. She spotted the ring still perched delicately on his chest and reached for it, hesitating to put it on, knowing that last time the switch knocked us out for a few minutes. Cooper would be dead for sure by then, and we would most likely be as well. She took a breath and stared at the innocuous circle of platinum.

Thank you
, I whispered to her in our mind.

“No, thank you,” she whispered back before sliding the ring onto my right hand.

44

I awoke on my side staring at a wall so red that for a moment I really questioned if I had redecorated before I left. Then reality smacked me. I shot up onto my hands and knees and looked around until I found his body. Cooper still lay motionless.

I shuffled over until I straddled him, hovering over to get an aerial view of the damage. His chest looked like mincemeat and showed no signs of healing. I stood quickly and ran toward the bathroom for towels, antiseptic and gauze, anything that could be helpful, or at least make me feel as though I was.

I stepped on something resembling a spleen and came crashing to the floor. Maybe it had been a kidney, but I just couldn’t tell with my footprint embedded in it. Once on my feet again, I sprinted down the arterial-sprayed hall and dodged into the bathroom. I threw everything of inconvenience out of my way and collected my mission items, quickly turning and running back down the hall, hurdling any random flesh to avoid further incidents.

I didn’t have a clear plan when I got back to his body, but I had to do something. I plastered towels across his chest to stop the bleeding, and wrapped an Ace bandage tightly around them to keep them on, just in case he decided to spring from his position and inform me that he was only kidding. I tried to examine him further, but my vision was blurred with tears I hadn’t realized I was shedding. I was hysterical, and hysterically crying. Sobbing would have been a more accurate description. I tried to hear if he was breathing, but the only sounds I heard were the throbbing in my ears and wails escaping my mouth.

Deja vu filled my mind as I dropped onto the towel-covered body, carrying on as though the world was ending. Perhaps it was.

I cried so hard that I could no longer breathe through my nose, and was dangerously close to hyperventilating, or passing out. I cried with an abandon unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Nothing else mattered in that moment - not Eric, not Sean, not Utah - only Cooper.

Again I found myself begging him, incoherently, not to leave me. Over and over again I pleaded, bargaining anything I could think of with God so long as he let me have Cooper back. Then silently, I prayed.

I neither heard nor saw Sean come in. His voice broke through my prayers. Maybe he would answer them, I thought, or maybe he would send me to be with Cooper. I didn’t seem to care either way.

He called to me again, and I wondered how long he’d been standing there doing that, unsuccessfully trying to get my attention. Just as I slowly lifted my head to see him, he perched down beside me, gently lifting me up off of Cooper’s body. His eyes were kind, but his posture was still all business.