Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I’ve had shifter senses for less than a day, but already, losing them is agony.
Before we left the apartment, my captors blindfolded me and inserted shifter-strength nose and earplugs.
Then, for good measure, they put a bag over my head.
I can’t see, hear, or smell, and I’m freaking out.
Everything feels surreal—every movement exaggerated—and if it wasn’t for the solidity of whatever I’m lying on, I think I’d go insane.
Every time the lack of sensory input from my eyes, ears, and nose starts to overwhelm me, I beat back the panic by focusing on the hard, slightly vibrating surface under me.
I think I’m in the back of a van or truck.
Maybe an SUV? And we’re in motion. But I can’t tell how long it’s been or where we’re going or anything like that.
Time seems to stretch out. How long is this taking?
I make myself take a deep breath of the musty air inside the bag and begin slowly counting in my head.
One…
Two…
Three…
Four…
Five…
By the time I reach ten, I’m calmer. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still freaked the fuck out, but I can think. The panic isn’t whipping away my sanity.
I just have to focus on the solidness under me and the beat of my pulse in my aching face.
Okay. Think.
My hands and feet are bound, but unlike Lily, I’m not gagged.
Probably because gagging someone who’s wearing nose plugs is a good way to suffocate them.
But before we left the apartment, they told me that if I made a sound, they’d kill Lily.
Given that all my neighbors are human and wouldn’t be able to help, I wasn’t prepared to risk Lily’s life or theirs.
Instead, I focused on dragging my vomit-splashed feet as much as possible, leaving a scent trail for the others to follow.
My feet are all scraped up now, but my street has CCTV cameras, and I know Percy can access them.
With a strong scent trail to show the team where we were loaded into the vehicle, they’ll be able to identify it and track it faster.
I hope.
Because unfortunately, they did pat me down and take away my phone.
The last I saw it, it was on the coffee table beside Lily’s, which was lit up with a call from Gideon.
Our captors briefly considered having me answer it and say Lily was in the bathroom, but then decided I couldn’t be trusted and that silence would be more benign.
Of course, they don’t know that I’d managed to get an alert out. Lily not answering in these circumstances isn’t benign at all.
So… team alerted. Scent trail left. Lily alive. Panic held at bay. There’s nothing else I can do until we get to wherever we’re going.
I’ve been trying really hard not to think about the fact that Dr. Tish is a sorcerer. It’s just a guess on my part, but I’d say he’s one of the sorcerers who created the DNA-altering weaves. I wish I’d asked David their names when he said he’d worked it out.
Not that it really matters.
What’s important is what they know. They obviously know that I’m no longer human… but do they know what we know? Or did we manage to keep it secret?
And what does Dr. Tish plan to do with me? If they were beginning phase two of their plan, then they wouldn’t need a phase one subject—would they?
I’m still turning it all over in my head and trying to work out what the best stalling tactic would be while I wait for the others to find us, when I feel a change in acceleration.
We’re slowing down. That makes me realize that we’ve been moving at a steady pace for a while now, no stopping and starting.
We must have left the city a while back.
I wish I hadn’t let panic overtake rational thinking earlier—if I’d been more aware of time, I could make a guess now as to what direction we went in.
Too late for that.
The vehicle slows even more, and then finally comes to a stop. Sharp, edgy butterflies take flight in my stomach, and I take a deep breath of musty bag air. I need to be ready for anything.
The vehicle rocks slightly, and I find myself straining in a desperate attempt to sense anything . My only warning is a slight displacement of air over my bare feet, and then I’m being hauled up and dragged out.
There’s dirt under my feet, not pavement or gravel. Dirt and stones and sticks. That’s another signpost seemingly pointing toward a rural location. Then my feet hit wood as I’m hauled upward again—steps?—and now there’s… concrete. Or maybe stone.
And it stretches endlessly.
The panic starts to rise, but I force it back down.
No. Count.
I need to try and judge the distance from the entrance to wherever I end up, so I begin counting, matching the pace to the jostling rhythm of my captors’ steps as they drag me along.
I’m glad I’m not being carried, as this at least gives me contact with something fixed, but my feet are getting really banged up by all this dragging.
Finally, finally , I’m dumped on the floor.
The side of my face hits it, and the pain flares again.
I lie there, the gritty, cold surface beneath me a lodestone, it and my aching cheek my only contact with reality.
In the next moment, someone hauls me to a sitting position and yanks the hood off.
Cool air filters over my face, and I gasp it in, shivering.
I hadn’t even realized how stuffy and musty the air in the bag really was until this second.
Next, the earplugs are yanked out, then the nose plugs.
My senses come screaming back online, the rush of input almost painful after being without, yet so, so welcome.
It’s a pain I will gladly embrace. I struggle to sort through what I’m smelling and hearing—a voice giving orders, others responding…
the soft hum of some kind of machinery. An air conditioner?
I can smell Lily close by and at least three others.
Dr. Tish, and one other who was in my apartment.
Underlying everything is the sharp bite of disinfectant.
The blindfold is whipped off, and I squeeze my eyes shut against the bright light.
“I’ve dimmed the lights,” Dr. Tish says. “Open your eyes.”
I consider disobeying, but ultimately it serves my purpose to see where I am—and make sure Lily’s okay.
So I squint one eye open, checking the light level, and when my retina isn’t seared, I open the other as well and take a quick look around.
I appear to be in an office-slash-lab. There’s an exam table, a wall of racks containing test tubes and petri dishes, some medical-science-looking machines, a long stretch of stainless steel counter, a desk with a computer, a small seating area, and two big demons—including the asshole who hit me—standing guard at the door.
And Lily. Lying on the floor on her side a few feet from me, eyes open and alert, still bound and gagged but looking utterly focused.
Relief floods me. She’s alive. Lily will know what to do.
“I was very surprised when the news went out about the new member of the lucifer’s senior team,” Dr. Tish says, drawing my attention to him.
He doesn’t look any different from my memory of him nearly twenty-five years ago, which makes sense, since he’s apparently a sorcerer.
“How did my dear patient who died so tragically as a teenager end up working for the government? It was especially curious since he was supposed to be human.” He eyes me, a certain glint in his gaze scaring the shit out of me.
“But you’re not human anymore, are you, Sam? ”
Okay, that’s an obvious one and not something I can get around.
I may not know for sure how sorcerers differentiate between species, but I know they can.
I shake my head, wincing at the surge of pain the movement causes—my neck, my shoulders, down my arms to my bound hands.
“No,” I rasp through my dry throat. I stop, cough, and try to clear it.
“So tell me what happened, Sam.” Dr. Tish leans against his desk, his expression avid. “Did you change all of a sudden? Or was it more gradual? How old were you when it happened?”
He doesn’t know. Whatever information they have, they don’t know what we’ve been doing over the past… fuck, how long has it been now? Still only one day? Or two?
Never mind. What’s important is how I can make this work for us.
“I-it happened gradually,” I stammer, mind racing. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I wish I knew what had happened with his other subjects. What if he’s testing me? What if I say something that trips me up? I need to stick as close to the truth as possible.
And test some boundaries.
I sit as straight as I can, ignoring my screaming muscles.
“I’m not telling you anything else until you tell me some things,” I declare.
My defiance is weakened somewhat by the hoarseness of my voice and the fact that I’m tied hand and foot and sitting on the floor, but hey. You’ve gotta start somewhere.
Once more, I push aside my fear.
“Do you know what happened to me? Why I’m like this?” There. Let him think I know nothing about the weaves, that we’re all completely in the dark about his activities forty years ago.
His eyes narrow. “I’m asking the questions. You’re answering them.”
I shut my mouth and set my jaw stubbornly.
For a long moment, he stares at me. Then he turns his head to look at the guards. “Kill her.”
My eyes go wide, and panic explodes in me as the asshole steps forward, drawing a wicked-looking knife from a sheath at his hip. “No!” No . Lily can’t die. “No, leave her alone!”
The asshole doesn’t even hesitate, walking over to Lily and yanking her upward by the hair, bringing the knife toward her throat. She struggles against his grip and the knife nicks her, the welling blood sending me toward a meltdown.
“No! I’ll tell you, leave her alone!” I shout, thrashing around in a desperate attempt to get to her.