I suck in a breath and regret it immediately.
Salt. Rust.
Something damp and industrial under it.
My hand flies to my head. Fingers brush dried blood tangled in my hair and I hiss through my teeth.
Great.
Just fantastic.
For one second, I don’t move. I stay exactly where I am, eyes open, breathing slow through the ache, letting the dark settle around me instead of fighting it.
Figure it out.
The floor under me is metal. Cold enough to bite through my jeans. The air feels close, stale, but not fully sealed. Somewhere nearby, metal creaks low and hollow, followed by the faint slap of water.
Water.
Dock.
My pulse kicks harder.
I push up carefully, ignoring the way my stomach rolls, and the first thing my hand hits is a bar.
Not a wall.
Abar.
I go still.
Then I reach again.
Another one.
Vertical. Cold. Thick.
I look up.
At first I can’t see anything but strips of weak light and shadow, but as my vision settles, I make out more bars overhead, welded into a metal frame above me. Beyond that, a ceiling. Low. Corrugated maybe. The whole thing boxed in tight enough to make my skin crawl.
A cage.
Inside something bigger.
Shipping container.
I know containers. I know the shape of them, the feel of them, the way sound moves inside them.
This one’s been made into a fucking kennel.
My mouth twists.
Wow. New low.
I get to my feet slowly, one hand braced on the bars until the dizziness backs off enough for me not to throw up on my own shoes. The cage is maybe six feet across, not much more. Just enough space to stand, sit, pace if I really need to lose my mind properly.
Beyond the bars, I can barely make out more shapes in the dark. More metal. More partitions.
