Chapter Ten
CHAPTER TEN
“Jac! Let me out!” Dash yelled from the other room.
“Just ignore him,” Jac said to Sammy, the vet tending to Heebie’s leg. Sammy was an older, salt-of-the-earth woman who’d earned her stripes working for several zoos before opening her practice about fifteen years ago. She mostly dealt with farm animals these days but was always gracious with her time and cost structure when it came to the sanctuary.
“Welp,” Sammy said, “if you got that man in a cage, I know it’s for a dang good reason.”
“Yup.” Jac watched Sammy finish setting the leg while Heebie lay there doped up. “How long do you think it’ll take for the bone to heal?”
“Kittens are very resilient, but figure on at least six weeks. Then we’ll see.”
“Thank you so much, Sammy. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Sammy grabbed her things and put them into her leather backpack. Her mobile vet RV out front had everything from an X-ray machine to surgical equipment, so this was an easy call in comparison to what she usually dealt with.
“You could try paying your bills on time, but I know things are tough for the sanctuary right now.”
Jac groaned. “Thank you. I’m working on getting everything caught up.”
“No problem. You just give Larry a big hug for me. Such a tall stud that one.”
Jac smiled. Larry the giraffe had a thing for Sammy, always bending his neck all the way down to give her a full-body lick when she did his checkups.
“I will.”
The two walked out together, passing Dash’s cage as Sammy headed toward the exit. She stopped and gave Dash a look.
“Boy, if you’re going to piss off a woman, next time make sure she doesn’t carry a tranquilizer gun.” She laughed. “Or deal with large carnivorous animals.”
“This is kidnapping. And now you’re an accessory,” he snarled.
“Silence, beast,” Jac said. “Or I’ll go get Maynard.”
“Who the fuck is Maynard?” Dash asked.
Sammy laughed and headed for the door. “See ya, Jac.”
“See ya!” Jac said.
“Who’s Maynard? Your other male prisoner?” Dash asked.
“He’s our resident Gila monster. Came to us with a rare fungal disease. He’s all better now, but given how poisonous he is, we couldn’t afford to pay the tens of thousands of dollars it would take to ship him home to his natural habitat.”
“What kind of place is this?” Dash asked.
“It’s Salome Hufferman’s Animal Treatment Sanctuary.”
“SHATS. Seems fitting. Does Salome know you keep men here, too?” he asked bitterly.
“She passed away about six years ago. I took over.”
“How unshatty of you,” he said flatly, unimpressed.
“Well, all right then. I need to check on a few of the animals, but when I get back, you and I are going to talk.”
“It’s a little late for talking.” His blue eyes narrowed.
“Right there. That’s the problem. How can I let you go when I’m convinced you’ll hurt me?”
“I’m a male stripper, Jac, not an assassin.”
“Then why did you show up uninvited if you’re not a threat?” she asked.
“To get my fucking cat.”
“You mean the one that you haven’t even asked about once since you woke up?” He didn’t seem to care that the animal was injured.
“Heebie will be just fine.”
“Yeah,” she argued, “because I just paid three hundred dollars I don’t have to make sure his leg is set and he’s kept comfortable.”
“Money wasted.”
How could he say that?
“So what’s it going to take to let me out of here, huh?” he added.
“I’m not sure yet.”
“You want your bartending job back? Fine. It’s yours. Have it. Are we done now?”
Jac wished. “No, because the second I let you go, you might do something. I need a guarantee.”
“Like?”
She turned to leave, knowing she had some thinking to do. “I’ll be back later with water and a sandwich.”
“You’ll pay for this,” he said in a menacing tone, his eyes holding his promise of death. Oddly, it didn’t scare her anymore.
“So I guess I was right about the cage, then.”
He wrapped his strong hands around the bars. “Do you have any idea who you’re messing with?”
“You’re in my world now, stripper boy. So behave.”
She was almost out the door when he yelled, “What if I have to use the bathroom?”
“There’s a bucket in your cage for a reason.” She exited the building, hearing Dash screaming something weird about her being burnt alive or eating her charred flesh.
Wow. What kind of man said that sort of thing? She never should’ve gotten mixed up with this guy, because now she wasn’t so sure she could unmix this. Her alarm bells had been trying to tell her something earlier tonight, and they’d been right. He was dangerous.
After checking on the p.m. crew and finishing her evening rounds, Jac locked up the reptile building and headed to her cottage. She planned to eat, grab a glass of wine, and then have a long hard think about what to do next. She couldn’t keep Dash locked away forever, nor could she call the police, claiming he was a threat.
How do I get myself into crap like this? It wasn’t so dissimilar to how she’d ended up with over four hundred animals. Many came to her in need of care, but when they were healthy again, she found herself stuck with them.
Well, not stuck. She loved these animals, but she never thought through what came next. With Dash, she’d reacted first too, and now she’d backed herself into a corner.
Maybe she could drug him and take a bunch of illicit blackmail photos so he’d leave her alone.
No. He’s a stripper. He probably wouldn’t care if the entire planet saw his junk.
But maybe if I find out that secret of his… Dash had seemed pretty terrified earlier when he thought she’d discovered something hush-hush. He’d only changed his tune after he realized she’d been talking about a codpiece.
Jac made her way down the walkway, cutting between her large eucalyptus trees. “That’s it. I’ll make a deal with him.” If he disclosed his secret, then she’d let him go. After verifying he’d told the truth, of course. It would be a mutual-destruction kind of deal. She’d ensure his secret got out if anything happened to her.
Jac turned around and began walking toward the infirmary to have a discussion with Dash. As she got closer, she spotted the doors lying on the ground. They’d been torn clean off!
“Oh no.” She ran inside, discovering the bars to Dash’s cage bent apart.
Her eyes nearly popped from her head. How?
She went to check on Heebie in the next room. His cast was on the floor, and his crate was empty.
“I can’t believe it.” Those bars were made of solid steel. How had he bent them? And why would he remove poor Heebie’s cast?
Pissed off and confused, Jac marched outside, determined to find Dash and get that kitten the medical help it needed.
Just then, a shriek echoed through the night sky. She looked up to see…to see…
“What is that?” The thing had a wingspan of at least a hundred feet and a tail just as long with barbs on the end.
Suddenly, a giant fireball launched from the creature’s mouth and tore through the night, lighting up everything around her. She stumbled and fell back onto her ass, watching it fly away.
Holy shit. Was that a dragon?