Chapter 15
Officer Barnes didn’t bother to wait for my team even though I asked him to. This man didn’t give a damn about anything other than locking me up. In his eyes, I was a menace to his small town. After driving down a dirt road, we finally reached a red brick building. There were no windows or parking spaces, and there was certainly no sign out front indicating that this was an official police station. It also didn’t look like a legit Breed jail. Those places were large with multiple stories.
“What is this, redneck hell?” I shivered from a cracked window blowing air into the back.
He shut off the engine. “You might be able to get away with flaunting your gifts in the big city, but out here, people pay attention. I’m the only officer in this town who knows about Breed, so it’s my job to take care of people like you. It’s bad enough I gotta deal with all the Shifters running around and getting into territorial disputes.”
“Don’t they have a Council out here?”
He snorted and opened his door. “Honey, this is West Virginia. You might have Councils in the big city, but when you’re a stone’s throw away from tens of thousands of acres of national park, a Council is pretty damn useless.”
Officer Barnes stepped out of the vehicle and opened my door. I reluctantly slid out and followed him to the building, my hands still cuffed. He used a key on his ring to unlock the heavy door, and once inside, he switched on a light.
The steel door ahead had a small opening wide enough to peer through but not to poke your hand through. It was nothing more than an additional barrier between the prisoners and freedom. The room we were in didn’t have any furniture except for a giant locker on the left.
He patted me down and removed the small push dagger strapped to my belt.
“Wait a second,” I said, thinking about the isolation of this place. “You’re not gonna leave me here by myself, are you? Don’t you have a secretary or deputy?”
He snickered and opened the heavy door. The next room was pitch-black. Light poured in from the front room and spotlighted the jail cells. There were a total of six, each with bars in the front and walls between.
Each cell had chains attached to the far wall.
Fight or flight kicked in, and I came to a hard stop.
Officer Barnes caught the direction of my stare. “Don’t worry, those are for the Shifters. Some are less likely to shift with a cuff attached to their ankle or neck. I had a problem a few years back with a boa Shifter. Slithered right out of his cell. The chains keep them in line. Nobody wants to break bones or strangle themselves.”
I let out a nervous laugh and stepped into the cell after he opened it. “What do you do about Vampires?”
He slid the door shut. “Turn around.”
When I did, Barnes unlocked my handcuffs. If they chained Shifters to keep some of them under control, they probably staked Vampires to keep them from breaking the bars. Hopefully this guy didn’t get any ideas to put a stunner in me.
An incessant pounding came from the outside door.
“I take it those are your friends?”
I gripped the bars anxiously and watched him exit the room. Since the door was farther to the right, I couldn’t see anything.
But I didn’t need to see.
I heard.
“This is a real dandy little setup you’ve got here,” Christian said, not holding back on his annoyance. “And what would the other guards say about your kidnapping innocent people?”
“Innocent? Your friend here broke the law. We don’t allow public displays of Breed gifts, and she was flashing down the street.”
“It’s only a crime if there were witnesses.”
“I’m a witness.”
“You hardly count, you insipid little man.”
“My friend does not mean to insult,” Viktor cut in. “Can we speak for a moment?”
Footfalls overlapped, and I moved to the corner of the cell to try to catch a glimpse.
“You’re gonna have a hell of a time backing that RV outta here,” Officer Barnes said.
