CAPTURED: 9 Alpha Bad-Boys(102)

She wouldn't be lighting a match with those things on her, and she'd be  out long enough for him to do a search of her apartment. He had to make  sure she wasn't hiding anyone else like herself in there, after all.





Chapter Two

Cindy groaned as she surfaced out of the foggy dream she'd had. A dream  that left her with a nasty headache and a sore face. She couldn't even  remember falling asleep, and she didn't want to open her eyes or move  either. It was still dark. When did she take a nap? Had she missed her  dinner date with Jamie?

What a weird dream. Very weird and scary with all the struggling in the  dark, the sense of claustrophobia, and being unable to move. At the same  time she was kind of glad for it because in her dream Jack had been  alive. Her chest felt a little lighter just thinking about it.

He'd been alive. He's also been angry with her. Angry enough to attack  her. That was the scary part. The fact that in her dream he'd been a  hunter, and he'd hunted her.

Cindy shivered. She believed the dead could communicate through dreams,  and if there was something of Jack in that dream, well, she couldn't  blame him for his actions.

Too bad she couldn't tell him that now, or say she was sorry.

Cindy tried to stretch her hands above her head, but something hard and  metal was there, like a door or a ceiling, and she punched her fists  into it.

"Ow!" Cindy yanked her hands back to her chest and her eyes snapped open, but there was nothing but pitch black all around.

Even in her apartment with the curtains closed, she should've been able to see something.

There were heavy metal bracelets around her wrists that hadn't been there before.         

     



 

Cindy tried to pull her hands apart, but she couldn't separate them more  than the width of her chest. Her breathing picked up, and her heart  beat a fast and dull drumming sound in her ears as every tiny clue  clicked into place.

She tried to tilt and turn her body, only to be met with cold, metal  walls all around her. It was like she was trapped in a fridge with the  light burnt out.

This wasn't supposed to happen to her. It happened to other paranormals  who were careless or open with their powers, but it wasn't ever supposed  to happen to her.

Some paranormals called these boxes coffins, because now that she was inside, she was as good as dead.

Cindy banged her shackled wrists against the metal walls. She twisted  back and forth, slamming her body against every surface. The banging was  loud, and the noise was louder still when she screamed, but nothing  gave. She couldn't even summon a flame to see with.

Nowhere to move. No windows. No air!

Cindy's heart rate and breathing spiked. It felt like she wasn't  breathing at all as the sense of claustrophobia from her dream sucker  punched her a hundred times worse than what she'd felt before. Not a  dream. Not even close to being a dream. It was real. It was all real.

Terror gripped her heart and squeezed it nearly to the point of popping,  and the mind numbing panic worsened as she screamed and kicked and  punched around all sides of her until her feet and fists were aching.

She couldn't think and couldn't breathe. The box could be underwater and she wouldn't even know it. She could die in here!

The top of the box opened without warning. Bright light streamed inside  and blinded her. She had to close her eyes and turn away from it,  covering her face as the pain in her head flared.

"Will you cut that out already?" demanded a voice that Cindy never thought she would hear again.

"Oh my God," Cindy panted, lowering her hands from her face. Now that  she could see again, could look up and out of the box and know for  certain she wasn't being held underwater, or even underground, her lungs  were able to open and close once more. She could breathe.

Better than that, Jack was above her, holding the metal door of the box  open and staring down at her. Her heart fluttered at the sight of him.

"It's you."

She would've reached out to touch him, to make sure he was real and  solid, if her arms had the strength. This wasn't joy. It was stronger  than that because it was like someone had taken a needle and injected  her with liquid happiness. "Jack?"

Jack's hands reached in to grab her, yanking her out of the hunter's box  by her arms. It hurt a lot as his strong fingers squeezed too tight on  the soft flesh of her upper arms, but she didn't mind since she was at  least out of that damned coffin.

She was still wearing her dress from the night before, but her heels  were gone. The cement floor was cold on her bare feet, but her entire  focus was fixated in on Jack's face like a homing signal was calling her  to him, his hands, his body. She needed to drink in every part of him.  No dream could be this detailed. She could see the bags under his eyes,  that he hadn't shaved in a couple of days and needed to comb his blond  hair. Or at least give it a wash.

"You...you're alive," she said.

Jack's mouth thinned. His blue eyes were frosty, and his face was solemn  as he reached into the tan leather duster he wore and pulled out a set  of folded papers.

With a snap, he opened them and shoved them in front of her face. The  logo of the hunters was sealed in gold on the top corner. A hawk in  flight.

"Do you know what this is?"

"I...yes," she said, and then stared back up into Jack's face. His blue  eyes were no longer cold, but incredibly, frighteningly, angry.

The brain-cell-killing panic from before slowly started to creep back  under her skin, making Cindy shiver. Her dream hadn't been a dream. Jack  had attacked her, he'd put her under with the hunter's drug of choice,  and then he stuck her inside a metal box.

Maybe it was obvious, but her brain was having trouble processing  everything and she asked anyway. "So, you became a hunter after all?"

Jack tucked what was essentially written permission from a judge for him  to hunt and capture paranormals-and do whatever he wanted to them until  they were collected-back into his inside pocket. Did he keep his badge  in there, too?

He actually sneered down at her. Cindy never thought she would see such  an ugly expression on his boyishly handsome face. In fact, he looked ten  years older than when she'd last see him.

"So long as we're here, you're not going to speak to me unless  absolutely necessary," he said as he grabbed her by the arm and yanked  her along.

"Ow! Jack! What are you doing?" Cindy yelled at his too-tight grip on her sensitive flesh.

Jack squeezed even tighter. "I said don't speak. You don't get to say anything to me."

"I didn't do anything! I never hurt anyone! You know me!"

"Shut up!" Jack yelled, and he shoved her. It was so harsh and  unexpected that Cindy couldn't even brace herself for it, and her back  and skull hit a concrete wall.

It hurt. A lot. Jack was strong. He always had been. Cindy yelled out  from the pain as she slid down to the floor, clutching her throbbing  head. She wasn't bleeding, but she couldn't stop her breathing from  picking up either.

She panted for air like she was back inside of that box as she shook her head.

This couldn't be real. This wasn't her Jack, the Jack who got offended  when a man didn't so much as open the door for a woman, or help another  guy get his car started when he was stuck on the highway. He would never  do this to her.

Cindy had to brush her hair out of her face. It was all over the place  now, and a dull, painful ache started up at the back of her head that  got stronger and stronger. Jack was staring down at her, his bright blue  eyes wide and his mouth slightly parted.

Whatever that expression was vanished fast as he kneeled down and  grabbed the steel chains that were holding her wrists so close together.  There were metal loops in the concrete wall, and he began shackling her  in place.

"Don't speak to me again," he said softly.

"Jack, if this is about your father or Aidan and Liam, then I'm so  sorry. You have to-" Cindy's body slammed back into the concrete wall  when Jack's palm came down hard on the side of her face.

She was absolutely still. She didn't move, and she made sure to keep her  eyes down so as to not look at him and provoke another hard slap.

"I said don't speak to me! You don't get to talk to me about that! And  you for damn sure don't get to talk about my family or say their names!  Do you understand?"

She dipped her head in a tiny nod, but that wasn't enough as Jack  grabbed her shoulders. She squeaked as he forced her to look at him

Cindy's heart raced. Blood rushed into her ears, and her cheek, and the  sound of her breathing seemed so loud all of a sudden as she stared into  Jack's hateful gaze.

"Do you understand?" Jack asked, his voice calm again. His hands trembled on her shoulders.

Cindy nodded quickly this time. Her body was shaking now, too, just like  Jack's hands, but that couldn't be helped. Her eyes burned like she was  about to cry. She hoped just hoped to hold it in until he was gone.

Jack pressed his lips together in a firm line. Those were the same lips  that had kissed her tenderly all over her body. The back of her hand,  her mouth, her cheek, her back, and even between her legs, everywhere.  The same mouth that had comforted her when she cried in his arms and  told him what she was.