Chapter 5 #2
“Can’t.” Her legs buckle and I catch her.
Her pained expression ties me in knots, but she doesn’t utter a single cry, even though I’ve inadvertently grabbed her by several wounds.
Despite my eagerness to leave, I have to give her a chance to stretch and acclimate.
I wait while she flexes muscles and works on her balance.
I can carry her, but not in wolf form. Our chance of escape is better if we can both shift.
When she appears steady, I remove my arms, but stay close in case she wavers. A slight smile appears through a wall of blonde hair. “I’m good now. Thanks.”
“Good. Shift. I’ll get you to a safe spot in the woods, then return for the other shifters.”
A graceful arm lifts and slides her hair aside, revealing a fucking metal collar… with spikes pointing inward! If she shifts, she’ll slit her own throat.
I don’t bother holding my curse. “Fucking animals.”
“Funny, that’s what they always call me. An animal.”
“Nothing about this is funny, Angel.” Gently, I gather and pull her hair up so I can get a better look at the spiked collar. It looks like some torture device from medieval times.
When my fingers accidentally brush over one of the burns on her back, she cries out in pain, then quickly silences herself.
I hate everything about this. That she’s been tortured, locked up like an animal, and that she doesn’t even have the freedom to cry out in pain without risk of alerting the humans she’s loose.
“I’ll be more careful.” I caress her hair once, hoping to give her some sense of comfort before I resume examining the collar.
It’s solid steel, with a hinge at one end and a lock at the other. How the fuck do I get this off?
“I knew humans could be cruel, but this… this is downright… Fuck, there’s no word for this.”
“I think the word you’re looking for is inhumane.” A bitter edge creeps into her otherwise spirited voice. “Ironic, isn’t it? They call us animals.”
I tip her chin up slightly, all-too-aware of how she has to move carefully with that spiked collar on. “Don’t go dark on me, Angel. Stay with me.”
She presses her lips together and nods, but I don’t miss the wetness pooling in her eyes. She’s scared, and right now, I am too. If I don’t get this off her…
“Tell me how you knew the code,” I say, to distract her. We both need to think clearly.
“Usually they shoved me in the crate backwards, so I couldn’t see, but one time they forgot. I pretended to be sleeping when they unlocked it. It did me no good, though. I could never fit my hand through the bars.”
I slip a finger inside the collar to test the hinge, but she winces. The tight space pushed her into the spikes.
“I didn’t want to trap anyone.” I hear the sorrow in her voice, like she needs me to believe her.
I glance back at the fucking dog crate…. “No one could possibly think that.”
“If we can’t get the collar off, and more guards come, you need to leave, Garrett. Don’t risk yourself any more than you already have.”
“I’m not leaving you here, Angel, so stop thinking like that.”
“I can’t shift with this on—”
“We’re going to get this fucking collar off. And if we can’t, then we’ll come up with another plan. Either way, I’m not leaving you here.”
My eyes scan the few crates I opened, hoping to spot something I can use to pry open the collar’s lock.
“Garrett, the truck… the engine’s started up again. They must be ready to climb the hill. You have to go.”
“Trying to get rid of me already?” I sniff under an arm. “I don’t smell that bad, do I?”
That brings a smile to that beautiful face. “I won’t be responsible for your capture.”
“I know you won’t. Because they’re not going to catch me. Do you know how much flack I’d get back at my pack if I got caught? Shit, my team would never let me live it down.”
Her eyes fixate on the cargo van doors, and I doubt she’s absorbing half of what I’m saying, or that she’s shivering from the cold. I pull her in against me, wrapping my arms around her, and let her talk while I warm her with my body. When she stops speaking, I worry she’s going into shock.
“Talk to me, Angel.”
“About what?”
“Anything. Better yet, the key to the collar. Where is it?”
“Schneider has it in his front pants pocket.”
“You’re certainly observant.”
“He makes me watch him jerk off. I focus on anything but his dick. I stare at the outline of the key in his pocket.”
I struggle to keep my wolf’s growls subdued and my claws retracted. Talk about wanting to shred a human to pieces… That luxury will be for another time.
“Which one’s Schneider?”
“The taller of the two.”
As I insert a nail from one of the crates into the collar, trying to pick the lock, she gives me more details about what they made her do. Images I don’t want in my head right now, because the urge to murder the guards is distracting me from my goal of getting her out of here.
“Why not close your eyes?” I say, to keep her talking, distracted from the fact that I can’t get this fucking lock open.
Her hand goes to one of the burns on her hip and immediately I curse myself for asking.
“They’ll pay for ever touching you,” I whisper in her ear as I look to the glass window to figure out which human will get his head ripped off today.
That’s when I realize the truck has stopped.
The humans are no longer sitting in the cab.