Chapter 18 #2
“Gal, I need you to come here and put pressure on this spot while I remove the bandage. Be ready to apply more pressure to the brachial artery if I say so. We’ll have to clean and stitch this one up fast. How’s it coming over there, Fiona?
” Galen called over, never looking away from Nico, hands constantly in motion. His tone was matter-of-fact, calm.
“I’m good. Once I check Keir’s lower body, I can move to the next person. That would be Brax,” she stated after a cursory glance.
“Good. Keep it moving, reassess periodically, and adjust as needed. If any of you note a change in yourselves, let her know,” her granddad said with quiet authority.
As the work continued, the two captives grew restless.
They were sitting on the floor, backs to the wall.
Their hands secured behind their backs, their ankles bound together.
Pieces of cloth wrapped around their heads and mouths kept it so all they could produce were sounds and muffled words, but nothing understandable.
They were showing less fear and more frustration at their predicament and lack of attention.
I wanted to tell them that they didn’t want to be the focus of our notice.
It was a good hour before everyone was patched up.
Galen stood and stretched his body as he spoke.
“I’ve got him as good as I can here without better equipment.
He should go to one of our hospitals for further assessment.
They have the diagnostic equipment I don’t.
He’s not in danger of bleeding out, I don’t think, though infection is a worry.
I can’t know if he has any internal injuries to worry about. ”
“I don’t feel that anything is in danger of killing me inside. My ribs on the left side feel broken. Some organs are probably deeply bruised, but again, I don’t think I’m internally bleeding. I know what signs to watch for,” Nico replied.
I should’ve been reassured, but his voice sounded weak, and he remained ashen.
He hadn’t sat up either. That wasn’t like him.
Galen came over to give each of us a cursory assessment.
He seemed satisfied with what he saw. He nodded and patted Fiona on the shoulder, whispering, “Good job,” to her.
He’d already told Gal he did a good job as his assistant.
“Alright, if everyone is fit to travel, we need to get things wrapped up. I arranged with the funeral home that took the young man the other night to allow us to use their crematory oven. I told the owner we might need his services in a professional capacity. He was more than agreeable. I know we have mostly humans to get rid of, but it’s better to just dispose of them all this way.
Here at the cabin, we’ll make sure the inside and outside stay as pristine as we can make them.
However, we have these two to question. We’ll do it here first, then take the bodies to be disposed of.
This place has more privacy than anywhere else,” Brax shared his thoughts.
None of us saw any problem with his plan, so all of us agreed, even the Katzes.
The two men wiggled and made more frantic sounds when they heard the plan.
All of us stared at them. Their fear increased.
I saw it in their eyes. I saw one guy’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard.
As we stared them down, Fiona went over to Galen.
She had him lower his head. She whispered so softly I wasn’t able to hear what she said to him.
When she was done, he was solemn, but he nodded.
“Where will you do this? It’s bound to get bloody,” Fiona stated calmly.
“There’s an old shed behind the cabin. Not sure if you noticed it. It’s mostly empty. We’ll lay down plastic tarps to cover the floor, and we’ll try not to fling blood on the walls. It’ll do. I went ahead while we waited and set it up for our use,” Gunnar stated.
I knew Gunnar intentionally said that part about not flinging it on the walls to scare the men. It worked. I wondered if they had any clue who they were sent up against. If they’d been doing this for a while, they surely knew they were facing shifters. We couldn’t be the only ones who fought back.
“I know what you’re wondering. If they’ve done this before, how? They weren’t that hard to defeat,” Royal chimed in, as if reading my mind.
“I was. So is this an all-new crew?” I replied.
“We’ll have to ask that, but I think I have a good idea how they didn’t sustain too many serious injuries or losses in the past when they did this.
They were carrying shotguns and handguns equipped with darts.
That was in addition to regular guns and knives.
I bet if we analyze them, we’ll find the darts are filled with a strong tranquilizer—the kind used on wild animals.
The sneaky bastards got close and then hit them with darts before they could fight back. I’ll bet money they did,” Brax growled.
“The sooner we can get them out of there, the better. Do what you have to. I’ll stay here with Nico. Gal will help me keep an eye on him,” Galen offered.
“You’re right. Let’s do this. I don’t believe anyone is coming to back them up, but we should be safe rather than sorry. Who wants to stay with them?” Brax asked.
“I can stand watch,” Nico protested. He tried to sit and had to grab the couch arm to help pull himself upright.
“Like hell you’ll stand watch. I’ll stay. Someone has to make sure the dumbass doesn’t get up and fall flat on his face,” Fennick muttered as he gave Nico a steely-eyed glare.
Nico kept trying to protest, but we all ignored him. It was a rapid departure to the shed. Gunnar and Royal hoisted the captives over their shoulders to carry them out. Banner got the door while Brax took the lead. I paused to kiss Fiona. That was when I found out what she had whispered to Galen.
“I’ll be back as soon as—” I started to say when Fiona interrupted me.
“I’m going with you.”
“What? No, Piscín, you don’t need to see this,” I protested.
“I disagree. I want to hear what they have to say. And before you say it may get ugly, I figure it will. I’m able to handle it.
Did you see me fainting at the sight of blood?
No. And I doubt observing some torture will make me run screaming out of the shed.
But if it makes you feel better, if it gets to be too much, I’ll leave.
There’s the chance that they might say more with me there. ”
I tried to argue, but after a couple of minutes, my friends chimed in. They’d gone ahead of us out the door to the shed.
Let her come. You know how our women are. Argue, and you’ll be in the doghouse, Brax stated.
The others all more or less muttered the same, even if they didn’t have mates.
“Fine, you can come. But if you find it’s becoming too much, leave. Don’t stay to try and prove you’re tough or something,” I told her.
She gave me a smirk. “I am tough, what’re you talking about?” Then the woman sashayed her ass to the door. A shrug from Galen was all I got. Her brother grinned, and Fennick snickered, the bastard.
It was a short distance to the shed. I caught up and took Fiona’s hand. She smiled up at me.
“I love you, Keir.”
“I love you, Fiona. Don’t make me regret this.”
“You won’t,” she assured me.
Inside the shed, it was obvious that Gunnar had worked to set it up.
There was a pair of sawhorses in the middle of the mostly empty shed.
The floor was covered in plastic we’d brought with us.
There were pieces of wood and some tools scattered along the walls.
On top of the two horses were three thick sheets of plywood. It made a crude table.
Next to it was an old crate. One of the men was sitting on it.
The other had been laid out on the plywood “table”.
His arms and ankles were no longer bound together.
Instead, his arms were stretched over his head and anchored to the legs of the sawhorse.
His legs were the same on the opposite end.
His gag remained in place, though he was frantically trying to speak through it.
The guy on the crate was quiet. His eyes were wide with fear. Now, aside from the makeshift table and restraints, as shifters, we typically didn’t need or use much other equipment for sessions like this. We came naturally equipped with deadly weapons.
“Ready?” Brax asked Fiona and me once we joined them.
“We’re ready,” I stated.
He roughly removed the gag tied around the table guy’s mouth. As soon as it was gone, the guy started talking. His voice was raspy, and he had trouble forming words, probably because his mouth was bone dry.
“Let us go. We won’t bother you ever again. I swear. We won’t tell a soul what happened here.”
“We know that. You’ll be dead. And the last we checked, dead men don’t talk. Do they?” Royal asked the rest of us.
“Nope.”
“Only in movies.”
“Not that I’ve ever seen.”
Those were a few of the answers Royal got back.
“See, no worries. What you should be concerned about is how much pain you’ll have to go through and how long it’ll last before you die.
We’re feeling generous today. Tell us what we need to know.
Answer honestly and leave nothing out. If you do that, this will go way easier on you, and it’ll be over quickly,” Banner added.
“We don’t know anything,” the man, whom I dubbed Dim-wit One, half-whined.
“That’s where you’re wrong. You do know things. And we’re going to get them out of your head, one way or another,” Brax added.
His voice was gruffer and less friendly than Royal’s or Banner’s.
It was intentional. They were playing good cop versus bad cop, and Brax preferred the bad cop role.
Made you want to pity the ones he interacted with at his job.
His job as a San Bernardino County sheriff was perfect for him in so many ways.
However, he was always a fair man, despite what he might be showing Dim-wit One at this moment.