Chapter 14
Blair
I woke up cotton-mouthed and groggy in a cluttered storage shed. The air in the cramped room spun with thick, heavy dust. My vision cleared in slow waves, and I could have sworn the metal bars around me were breathing.
“Wait, bars?”
I tried to sit up, but my muscles screamed in protest. Blinking rapidly, I focused on my surroundings, my heart stopping when I realized that I was in a cage.
My jacket was hung on a coatrack too far out of my reach.
Through the window, I could see soldiers passing by the battered wooden fence of Osid’s fortress.
Which was not at all where I had fallen asleep last night. I think…
“That motherfucker!”
Words could not describe how pissed off I was.
Scratch that. Yes, they could.
“OSID, I WILL FUCKING END YOU!”
I screamed for the kidnapping bastard to show himself, ready to tear that asshole a new one, but he never came.
Instead, I was stuck waiting in my cage like a neglected pet.
My only consolation was watching a few of the guards get knocked the fuck out by a wild triceratops that busted through their stupid shitty fence.
When the sun sank low in the sky, I did the only thing I could do: I slept. They couldn’t keep me in this cage forever. And I’d need my beauty sleep for when I broke loose and burned this place to the ground.
I woke up to a lion standing over me. Which was the worst way to wake up, and I should know, given my last few days.
I didn’t recommend it at all. Nor did I recommend you start swinging on that lion.
Because guess what? Every haymaker and uppercut you got ain’t gonna do shit to a lion but piss him off.
By the time the lion had its claws on my legs, my screaming had attracted the attention of the guard outside, who did nothing.
Absolutely fuck all but poked his stupid scarred face in to smile at my demise before turning away.
My hand reached for my gun, only to flail uselessly at my side.
I looked around for it wildly, remembering far too late that I had been stripped of my jacket.
“Stay away from me!” My fist struck an ear.
Snarling, the lion slammed its heavy paw down on my arm and leaned closer.
I turned my head away, sealing my eyes shut as I waited for death.
The hair on its long mane tickled against my neck as my heart hammered in my chest. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I screamed.
Wet, stank, nasty sandpaper scrapped against my open mouth.
“BLARPH—WHAT THE FUCK?” I cried, shoving the big cat off me. He tasted like rotted meat and old gum. I spat and frantically rubbed my face against a fistful of my T-shirt. “What the fuck? What in the actual fuck?!”
“Can you speak now?” asked a deep voice.
I slowly turned my head toward the voice, only to see the lion. I looked past him and saw another woman sleeping in the cage behind him. “Am I…still high?”
There was no way the acid lasted this long.
What did Beau sell me? That overzealous country bumpkin.
This was what I got for buying from hillbillies.
They always made their shit too strong. What was going on in those hills that they needed to make their acid strong enough to rival the greed they talk about in the Bible?
“Hello?” the lion asked.
I brought my knees up to my chest and held my hands to my ears.
“This isn’t real. I’m clearly still tripping.
Come on, Blair, just snap out of it and when you open your eyes, you’ll be back on Earth in your little apartment, with your phone blowing up with five hundred messages from Jackie’s needy ass because we haven’t spoken in more than two hours. ”
I took several deep, calming breaths. When I opened my eyes, the lion was still there, sitting patiently a few feet away.
“I am not Jackie,” said the lion.
Sighing, I let my head fall to my knees. “Yeah. I caught that.”
The lion stretched like an oversized housecat, then moved closer to rub his head on my side as he lay down. “I’m Toto,” he offered.
“Of course you are.” I laughed breathlessly.
Curious amber eyes studied my face. “Do you know why the ugly one wants me to kill you?”
Goosebumps rose along my arm. “The who wants what now?”
“The ugly one.” Toto nodded toward the door. “The ugly scarred one outside. He wouldn’t let me lick his face to give him the talking magic, but even the greenest lions recognize bloodlust when they smell it. Why else would he drag me in your cage instead of the others, or with my girl?”
I lifted my head to inspect the cage beside us. In it lay a dark-gray alien and a redheaded woman wearing a gold halter top and bell-bottoms. On closer inspection, I realized it was the same woman I saw running around on the spaceship a few days ago.
Funny, so many strange things have happened since then I somehow completely forgot about the woman and her lion.
Though, if I had known the lion could talk, it might have stuck with me better.
Thousands of questions ran through my mind, yet my brain was still foggy from the aftermath of my trip.
Settling on the first question that came to mind, I asked, “Is there a reason you haven’t eaten me? ”
“I’m saving my appetite for the other gray men. They may have ambushed me, but I’ll have the last laugh while I’m licking the marrow from their bones.”
“I like you.”
With a haughty lift of his chin, he said, “Most people do.”
Toto shoved more of his weight on top of me, as if the lion were trying to climb into my lap for a proper snuggle.
Bright sunlight nearly blinded me as the door opened.
Osid stepped inside, holding a steaming bowl in his hands.
Which promptly fell to the floor and shattered when he caught sight of Toto and me.
In an instant, he was at the door of my cage, all but tearing the latch off while barking gibberish words I had no way of understanding.
It didn’t matter. With a click, the latch unlocked, and the door wasn’t even fully open before I cocked back and swung. Pain shot up my arm thanks to his stupid rock-hard face, but the satisfaction of seeing his head snap back before he threw my ass to the ground was worth it.
Several guards flooded the room as the door to my cage flew open.
Toto and I were torn apart as Osid dragged me out.
The lion roared and slashed at the alien, but his claws were all but useless against his armor.
Still, the big cat shoved his way free of the cage and damn near tore the throat out of the scarred alien that had laughed at my plight only moments before.
I tried shoving away from Osid, ready to clock him right in the throat.
He pinned my wrists in one of his hands and ran his other along the cuts on my legs.
Smoke billowed as I was forced into a separate cage from the lion, kicking and screaming.
The door to my new prison shut, and Osid whirled around and kicked the scarred alien in the chest. Lots of intangible yelling ensued, then the door to the redheaded woman’s cage opened, and the unconscious alien beside her was dragged off.
I slumped against the bars of the cage. “What is even going on?”
Toto laid down in his new cage. “Do you ever just wanna bite somebody?”