Ch. 37

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN:

~Avery:

The painful pounding in my head woke me up. I registered everything slowly. My back felt stiff, I was laying on something cold and uncomfortable. There’s a kink in my neck. The involuntary shiver that ran through me really brought the pain from all over out. My eyes squinted, but as much as I blinked, there was no light. I rolled and pushed myself off the floor only to confirm it. There’s no light here. It’s completely pitch black. And cold. Another shover rippled over my skin.

I moved my hands all around me feeling nothing but hard rock. Cement maybe? I shifted my weight, reaching further away, trying to feel for something, anything. A wall maybe? Nothing. I moved further, stretching out, listening carefully to everything around but there was more of the same. No sounds, and no objects but rock or cement or whatever it was.

Is this some sort of dream? Nightmare? Was I dead? I kept feeling around, strategically heading in what I think was the same direction, until - my hand smacked into something.

“Owww!” I hissed aloud, pulling my hand back, rubbing it to try to ease the pain.

I’d gotten too careless and had been whipping my hand around.

Wait. I hit something! The relief of finding something became more important now. I reached out again, tentatively, and felt around it. A bar? A staff? I followed it down to the floor and then back up until it hit another bar, perpendicular to the floor. I used both hands spread out then, realizing what it was. A wall of bars. Like a jail cell or a cage.

Panic built up in my chest then, but to my shock, no magic came up with it. That has never happened since I discovered it. Hyperventilating I tried to pull up my magic but - nothing happened. What I thought I had always wanted suddenly hit me as totally wrong. It felt like I was missing an arm. How did I ever think I wanted to be without it?

Taking big slow breaths I strategized. I couldn’t afford to panic now. The memory of Drake sleeping soundly on the couch in that motel room came to mind, along with the memories of what had happened afterward. I had wanted to call out to him but couldn’t, and then whatever was put on my face made me totally pass out. I felt super creeped out. There was no way to tell how long it had been since I’d been taken, no way to know if I’d been - violated or something… I felt okay I guess, but the total darkness didn’t help at all.

I need to figure this out. I need to get to Drake.

I stood up slowly, ignoring the aches in my body, and felt along the wall. I went right, and after a few steps found solid rock again. I went around in a circle. Or, I guess, a rectangle, as that’s what I was in. A three-sided solid rock, one-sided bar wall thing. A cell. A cage. I was trapped. A new panic came to me then and I battled it down, stifling tears.

“I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay,” I repeated to myself in a whisper over and over like a mantra.

I had to hold on. I had to keep looking. And so I pushed it all down and continued around the cell again, slowly feeling every nook and cranny for some way out. I climbed up and reached low over every inch, but after so long I came to realize - there was no escape. There seemed to be joints and a box for a key or something. There was a door but no means of acquiring a key.

After what felt like hours I sat on the ground again. I had to stop and think this out. I felt along my skin searching for any signs I’d been hurt but besides the achiness in my joints from sleeping on this hard unforgiving floor, I couldn’t determine anything.

I’d kill for a flashlight.

Breathing out, I tried to think about this. I went over everything I knew so far. I’d been taken by at least five guys. Likely led by Drake’s evil Alpha to be used as a hostage, and maybe a bargaining chip. I wished I had asked Drake more about his situation, but I’d been stubborn and stupid and- and. Ugh. I take another deep, steadying breath, this time clenching my fists like I was trying to hold down my magic. The familiar feeling helped some.

I can’t do anything until something changes. I need light or a person. Maybe I could surprise someone who comes by? There’s got to be someone that has got to come by eventually. As for my magic, nothing is coming up, but that doesn’t mean I can give up. I have to keep tunneling down, maybe I can find a break in this, get at least a bit back to use on someone…

Hours pass. Or at least it feels like hours. I’ve been laying on the ground staring up at the blackness, unable to see anything. Where I was once afraid, I am now… pretty bored. I’ve gone around again through the entire cell, I’ve jumped as high as I could reaching for anything at all, I’ve thought out a few plans on how to get the jump on whoever might come through, I’ve done all I can think of. And now I’m just bored. Well, that and hungry. When was the last time I ate?

After the third grumble coming from my stomach, I hear something else. The break in silence and darkness has me sitting straight up. The gears in my head review my many plans, but nothing has me prepared for what happens.

Blinding lights from all over turn on all at once. The extreme change has me wincing my eyes, a hand covering my brow to try to block some of it out. I’m still blinking, trying to see anything besides these crazy all-encompassing stage lights, when a door somewhere through the bars up ahead flings open. Three figures rush in, running straight for the cell door in front of me, and I try to react but they all move much faster than I can.

My stance sways as the three hooded figures reach the cell door. Two put their hands on the bars, and the one in the center throws something down at my feet. A quick glance shows a brown paper bag.

“There ya are lass. Eat up. You’ll need your energy,” the man in the middle says.

I recognize the voice as the man who took me.

“What do you want?” I ask, cold, deadpan.

I want to ask what they did to me but I don’t want them to know it worked. I can’t give them any advantage here.

“That’s for me to know…” he said, words slow and drawn out. “And for the big boss to tell ya.”

They spun on their heels without another word. They moved quickly, and without sound. They must be werewolves too, or at least something like it. And then the lights went out.

“COME BACK HERE AND ANSWER ME?!” I screamed out, not able to hold back my anger anymore.

But nothing happened. It stayed dark and cold. Empty. I kicked the brown paper bag. Like hell am I going to eat anything they give me.

The anger inside me built. I wanted to hit something. I screamed more profanities and demands at no one until my voice became raw.

The sound of the door opening slowly got my attention right away. It had been maybe an hour since I’d stopped screaming, and exhaustion was taking a toll.

“Who’s there?” I asked, trying to keep a strong tone.

“Well, if it isn’t The Little Mermaid,” a man’s voice I didn’t recognize said, tone full of snide.

I didn’t even know what to say to that.

“Who are you?” I asked the voice.

I could hear as he moved in this direction. Not a werewolf. Couldn’t be. Then who was this? Some middleman sniper like those I’d found in the woods in the last few days?

“I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure of meeting…” he said, pacing to the right, then to the left.

I waited to see what he’d say next.

“Well, I guess you could say, we’re sort of family. But we haven’t met. Not yet,” he said, words ending abruptly.

Family? Were we related? I opted to stay quiet. Maybe I could get more information that way.

“See, we share a brother,” he explained, condescendingly. “Though I guess you wouldn’t see it that way. After all, you did desert him. But-” he took a large sigh, “maybe that’s what your kind just does.”

The word ‘kind’ was said with a sneer. I didn’t even need to see it to know that.

What was this guy talking about? I’ve never had a brother. Not one I know about anyway.

“Do you even remember him? Tyler?” he prompted.

Tyler. Tyler… I knew that name. I thought back to my previous identities, but couldn’t place it…

“Come on, Avery, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten him,” he said with venom. “I’d think killing his father would sear him away in your mind!”

Father. Killed his father. Tyler. Oh- no.

Tyler. My foster brother at one time, a long time ago. The boy I saved from his abusive father. My first kill.

He rushed to the bars then, smacking right into them. I felt the air change and just barely leaned back out of his grasp. Then the lights came on.

Through blinks and shading with my hand, my eyes focused and I saw him. My stomach sank. The man in front of me looked just like him. Like Mr. O’Dell. The man I had hang himself in the basement.

I couldn’t fight the gasp that escaped me at the sight. Same shade hair, same shaped face, the only thing that was different were his eyes. This guy’s eyes are tiny, like that crazy Mrs. O’Dell…

“I see what they say is true then. I am the spitting image, huh?” He said, scowl on his face, hands grasping the bars between us so hard his knuckles went white.

“Did you just think you could kill our parents and get away with it? Tyler told me everything,” he sneered again, baring his teeth.

“He- he was hurting Tyler. I had to stop him,” I stuttered out in explanation.

He threw his head back and laughed.

“Excuses! Excuses! Excuses!” He laughed like a maniac. “I KNEW you would have some excuse. You left us orphaned!”

I couldn’t place him. I didn’t remember this guy in front of me.

“And now,” he sucked in a breath, suddenly still all over. “You’re going to pay.”

He moved faster than I could interpret.

Smack. A gun in his hand.

He shot me.