They have Neil.
Doyle nods along, then says, “I can be there in an hour or so. You’re okay holding him until then, right?” A pause. “Great. I’ll see you then.” He hangs up the phone and slides it back into his pocket, glancing at me. “Well, that was quick. I guess we’ll be heading home sooner than I expected.” He heads toward the door. “Let’s go.”
“Do you want one of us to stay behind and keep an eye on him?” asks the shorter praetorian.
“No. Just hit him with another dart so he doesn’t make too much noise. We shouldn’t be long, and he’s not going anywhere.”
I growl and lunge at the bars of the cage as the praetorian approaches, a small silver pistol in his hand.
Doyle presses the button the remote again, holding it down with his thumb as my muscles twitch uncomfortably. The sensation is enough to distract me while the guy with the dart gun draws closer and shoots me point blank in the shoulder.
Doyle presses the button once more, then turns to leave, motioning for the other two to join him. As the door closes behind them, I helplessly throw myself against the cage bars, growing slower and weaker each second as the drug starts to take effect.
The world goes foggy, blackness slowly creeping in at the edges of my vision. My last thought before my legs give out and I slip into unconsciousness is of Neil. And how I promised Raquel I’d die before letting anything happen to him.
Twenty-Six
Neil
OnethingIcansay for Rockcastle is, so far, they treat their prisoners much better than Doyle does in Vegas. Of course, that’s not exactly a high bar to clear.
Instead of a cell, I wake up to find myself in a small bedroom, though it doesn’t seem like anyone actually lives here. The furniture has a coating of dust, and the air is a bit stale, as if this room has been deserted for a while, any scent of its former resident faded into obscurity. There’s a window—nailed shut, I checked—and an attached bathroom. The door also locks from the outside, so this room isn’t quite as innocent as it appears, but it’s certainly better than a concrete floor, a cot, and a metal toilet.
Not having any clothes, however, definitely isn’t an improvement, so I wander over to the dresser and tug open the top drawer. Inside, there’s a random assortment of clothes. Some socks, a couple pairs of boxers, a pair of athletic shorts, and a T-shirt or two. Jackpot for me, I guess, because as much as I don’t want to wear someone else’s clothes, I even less want to face whatever’s about to happen bare-ass naked.
In fact, I might as well make use of the shower as well. Maybe it will help clear the lingering fogginess from my head.
I grab a few items of clothing, then pad over to the bathroom and set the clothes on top of the toilet tank. The pipes make a screeching noise when I first turn on the water, but quickly quiet again as I adjust the water temperature.
As soon as I step under the water, a spike of tingling pain travels down the back of my neck. Wherever I am, Blake isn’t here, or at least he isn’t close enough for the bond not to bitch. Taking a deep breath, I hunch my shoulders and turn the faucet all the way to cold, letting the chilly water dull the sensation a bit before readjusting it to a more comfortable temperature.
I make quick work of washing up, using the only soap I can find: a half-empty bottle of dog shampoo. I’m not sure if it’s meant to be some sort of joke or what, but at least it’s the skin soothing variety and the smell isn’t unpleasant or overpowering.
Stepping out of the shower and onto the bathmat, I glance around and curse under my breath. There are no towels. Such a tiny inconvenience in the scheme of things, but enough to make my eyes burn with tears after all the other bullshit I’ve gone through today. I close my eyes and take a few slow, deep breaths as water drips from my hair onto the bathmat and floor.
I haveto hold it together. I’m no use to Blake or myself if I give in to the despair threatening to drown me like I’m on a trek through the Swamp of Sadness.
Fate wouldn’t bring us together only to rip us apart again, right? Ihaveto believe that.
I take another deep breath, then open my eyes, sighing as I grab the T-shirt I got from the dresser and use it to dry off before putting the rest of the clean clothes on. Tossing the now damp T-shirt into the corner, I return to the dresser, pick up a dry T-shirt, and pull it on over my head.
Strangely enough, the clothes fit me rather well, as if whoever used to live here—or was held here—was similar in size to me. But that’s a mystery I don’t have time to decipher, becauseI’mhere now, and I need to focus on how the hell to get out of here before… who the hell knows?
I have no idea what I’m doing here or why those praetorians werelooking for me.
Trying to make good use of whatever time I have, I go through the rest of the dresser drawers as well is the single drawer in the nightstand, but find absolutely nothing of use to me. No weapons. No random set of keys that might unlock the door. No hammer to pull out the nails in the window frame. And no phone or other method of communicating with the outside world.
I sit on the foot of the queen-size bed and rack my brain, trying to come up with something I can do besides, well,sit here. A half-baked idea is just starting to form when there’s the sound of a key in the lock and the door to the room swings open.
Two of the praetorians from earlier, minus the one who shot me with the dart, swagger inside. One of them shuts the door and positions himself directly in front of it, crossing his arms over his chest while the other moves closer to me.
I rise to my feet and edge backwards, eye narrowed. “Why am I here? What you want from me?”
“It’s not about what we want,” says the shifter closest to me. “It’s about the story you’re going to tell when you’re brought before the Rockcastle Alpha.”
I squint at him, trying to figure out what the hell he’s talking about. The fact that I’m being taken before the Rockcastle Alpha isn’t a surprise—I mean, Iwastechnically trespassing—but why would it matter to these guys what I say?
“I don’t get it,” I say finally. “Why does a random praetorian care what I say to the Rockcastle Alpha?”
