Page 64 of Wolf Bane
Then it was quiet save for the crunch of steps through broken glass and low voices murmuring.Blood ran into my eyes.Every breath was fire.
I realized, distantly, I’d tried to shift in those panicked moments.One hand was curled into a claw, the other fully a wolf’s giant paw.
Someone bent close, and I had a vague realization I knew them.
“Hello again, Doctor Babin,” the man said with a small, polite smile.“Don’t worry.We’ll get you right out.”
“Daniel,” I rasped.“How…”
He bent lower, reached in and grabbed the front of my shirt to yank my head against the side of the car door.
Then everything finally did go dark.
ChapterSixteen
One day, I thought, I was going to make a fascinating case study for some researcher.I wasn’t sure in which field—whichever one studied people who got kidnapped above the national average.
“It’d need to be interdisciplinary,” a gruff, familiar voice muttered.“Psychology, medicine since you keep getting injured.You look like dog shit, by the way.”
I managed to get one swollen eye open.Tyler sat across from me, crisscross-applesauce, inside of a huge enclosure made of wire mesh.
“Are you in a chicken coop?”I muttered, pushing myself slowly upright.“And we’ve simply got to stop meeting like this.”
“It’s a homemade jail cell,” he sneered.“Don’t touch the wires.”
Blearily, I followed the direction of his pointing finger.“Are those jumper cables?”
“Pretty sure they were originally.They’ve rigged up something to electrify the metal if you touch it.”
I nodded, head jelly-wobbling on my neck.“Hey, so, just out of curiosity, are you a hallucination?”
“Not this time, pal.”
Grunting in acknowledgement, I stretched out and laid on my back, closing my eyes.“You sure I’m not dead?”
“I’d usually say no, but today, I won’t rule out the possibility.Hey, look at me.Can you tell me how many fingers I’m holding up?”
I didn’t open my eyes, but I did hold up one finger.
“Lucky guess.”
Somewhere in the building—house?—footsteps clomped.Voices threaded around a rumbling HVAC.Werewolves—goddamn werewolves—went about whatever they were doing.The place was saturated with the smell of them.With the stink of fear, of sweaty bodies.Blood and piss scoured with bleach.And earthy, sharp wolf.“If you’re real,” I said after a century—time was moving like molasses.“Why are you here?I thought you and Justin were in Houston?”
“Never made it past Dunning.They were waiting for us on the river road.I don’t know how they knew where to find us.”He hit something—the floor, the wall behind him—the meaty thunk of it unsettling in my already addled brain.“They kept Justin upstairs.”
“Upstairs,” I opened my eyes, staring at the grubby acoustic tile overhead, at the broken light panel.This space had been industrial, my throbbing thoughts decided.A school maybe?No, a hospital.“Where are we?”
“Not sure.I… I was out of it for a bit.We got run off the road.I didn’t get knocked out, but when I climbed out to help Justin, they grabbed me.Gave me a shot or something because I couldn’t shift and time was kind of funny.”
“Is Justin… well, is he okay for whatever measure of okay we’re using?Was he…”Dead?
Tyler made a darkly amused sound low in his chest.“He was okay.I think he was more pissed at being denied his lab than anything.”Pride colored his tone when he added, “He’s a scrapper when he’s pissed.He did some damage to one of the jackholes taking us.”
“Go Justin,” I said weakly.A new thought wormed its way in, twisting around my jelly-like awareness.“I couldn’t get Ethan to answer earlier.Is he?—”
“No.I’d know if he was.”Tyler’s chuckle was grim.“He’d have torn this place apart by now if he was.”
Then we were quiet for so long I wondered if Tyler had passed out too.Or maybe if I had.Things weren’t working right, brain-wise.“Are you hurt?”I finally asked when my head took a break from feeling like it was on a teacup ride.“They ran you off the road…”
