Below me, the van was a two-tone spot of light on the ground: white from the headlights, and red from the taillights. I was already too high to make out the occupants—if they were even still there.
The woods stretched out for miles to the right of the van, and we flew over them. From my horrifying new perspective, the skeletal deciduous branches were as thin and tangled as steel wool in the moonlight, the evergreens dense spots of darkness. And in that moment I hated my abductor for turning my beloved forest—my refuge from all things human and artificial—into a place of nightmares.
And still I screamed. I screamed until I lost my voice. My arms and one leg went numb from being gripped so tightly. They felt like they’d be ripped from my sockets at any second. I chattered uncontrollably. If it was cold on the ground, it was literally freezing in the air, and my toes tingled painfully. I couldn’t feel my hands. Couldn’t move my fingers.
After several minutes, I lost it. What little composure I’d had could not survive two hundred feet in the air, with nothing to catch me. Nothing but the ground to break my fall. No way to save myself. I could see calmness in the back of my mind, but it cowered in the corner like a little bitch, leaving panic to rule the roost.
My free leg flailed uncontrollably. My arms tried to twist themselves from the bird-bastard’s grip, though part of me knew that would only lead to my death. My mouth opened and I screamed again, though no sound came out.
I wouldn’t survive this. No one could survive such torture. Cats don’t fly without airplanes. We can’t survive it—not physically, not psychologically. And if dangling two hundred feet in the air was enough to fracture my sanity, what must it be doing to Kaci?
Kaci. Fresh panic flooded me, oddly warm in my numb extremities. I lifted my head and forced my eyes open again, this time resisting the silent scream my abused throat wanted to indulge. I couldn’t see her; it was too dark, and the wind too harsh. I couldn’t hear her; the thump thump of giant wings was too loud. Then, just as my eyes started to close, a cloud shifted, gifting me with a weak beam of moonlight.
I twisted carefully to the left for a better view. Kaci’s white jacket and reflective shoes were the last things I saw before a giant wing slammed into the side of my head.
“Faythe, wake up!” Kaci whispered, and something shook my left arm fiercely. “Faythe!”
“What?” I groaned and rolled over on the lumpy bed. My sore left arm flopped off the side, but I kept my eyes closed.
Wait, lumpy bed? I had a good mattress, and it was big enough that my arm shouldn’t hang off. Alarm spiked my pulse. My eyes flew open as a barrage of unfamiliar scents flooded my nose. Raw meat, not all of it fresh. Wool and steel. People. And poultry. Lots of poultry.Shit!
I sat up and glanced around the small, dingy room, taking everything in at once. Bare, wood-plank walls. Scarred hardwood floor. A single twin bed with a rough wool blanket and no pillow. One window made of a single pane of glass, flooding the room with daylight too weak to be anything but late afternoon.
And Kaci, who sat curled up next to my feet on the other end of the bed.
“Where are we?” I whispered, as sounds from the building around us began to filter in. Squawking, screeching, and human speech. Heavy footsteps, and light, sharp scratches against wood. And a television. Somewhere, someone was watching Looney Tunes. The one where Bugs Bunny directs the opera. My favorite episode.
“I don’t know.” Kaci’s hazel eyes were wide with fear. She sat cross-legged on the twisted wool blanket, her hands clenched in her lap.
“How long have we been here?” I slid my legs off the side of the bed and onto the floor, then stood carefully, hoping neither the mattress nor the floor would creak and reveal that we were awake.
“I just woke up,” she whispered. Kaci started to stand with me, but an old-fashioned metal spring groaned softly beneath her, and I waved one hand, silently telling her to stop. Then I dug in my front pocket for my cell. But, of course, it was gone.
“Do you have your phone?”
She shook her head. “It was in my backpack.” Which she’d left in the van when she ran.
Great. “Are you okay?” I kept my voice as low as I could; I knew she would hear me, but wasn’t sure about the thunderbirds.
Kaci leaned against the wall and pushed one sleeve up to expose her upper arm, which was ringed with a single deep bruise, thicker on the front than the back. “Just bruises.” Talon marks. I pushed my own left sleeve up as I inched slowly toward the window, trying to avoid creaks in the obviously aged wooden floor.
My left arm was similarly marked, and I knew from the tenderness in my right arm that it would match. As would my right ankle. “Anything else?”
“I’m cold and hungry.”
“Me, too.” I made it to the window without a creak from the floor and noticed two things immediately. First, it wouldn’t open. It was a single pane of glass built into place along with the house. Or whatever kind of building we were in.
Second, we couldn’t have snuck out even if we could break the window without attracting attention. We were a couple hundred feet off the ground, jutting out over a cliff. And there was no balcony.
“Damn it!” That one came out louder than I’d intended, though it was still a whisper. I let my forehead fall against the glass and immediately regretted it. After my most recent flight, I wasn’t eager to see the earth from on high ever again.
“What?” Kaci whispered, and the bed creaked again as she leaned forward.
“We’re in their nest. And it’s not exactly built in the treetops.” The window was directly opposite the only door, so I edged my way along the wall to the corner, then made the turn, still hugging the wooden planks. The floor was much more likely to creak in the middle than along the edges.
“What do they want?”
“Oddly enough, I think they were trying to protect us.” From the violence they brought forth.
Kaci glanced from the window back to my face. “I don’t feel very safe.”
“Me, neither.” When I reached the door, I bent to study the knob. It was a plain, old-fashioned brass sphere with a small round hole in the center. Which meant the other side held a simple push lock. I twisted it slowly and the knob resisted. It was locked.
I could have forced the lock with one quick twist, but the pop might be heard, and I didn’t want our captors to know we were awake until we knew a little more about our surroundings.
“How the hell did they get us here?” I wondered aloud, barely breathing the sound. “There’s no way they could have flown us all the way here.” I didn’t know exactly where “here” was, but I couldn’t think of a single cliff of any size within several hundred miles of the ranch.
“They didn’t,” Kaci said, and I turned to see her twisting the edge of the coarse navy blanket in one fist. “I must have passed out when they were carrying us, but I woke up later, in the back of a car. Something like Jace’s, with a big area in the back for luggage and stuff. We were all tied up, and you were still out cold.”
“They tied us with ropes?”
Kaci nodded. “Thin yellow ones.”
Nylon. I glanced at my left wrist, but found no marks. A glance at my ankles revealed none there, either, which meant they hadn’t tied us very tightly. If they had, the ropes would have left marks even through our clothes. And we’d woken up unbound, barely locked into a room. Together.
Those were all good signs. They hadn’t killed us because they’d made a promise to Calvin Malone, and they obviously didn’t want to hurt us. At least, not until or unless we hurt one of them. Or pissed them off.
So, what now? Did they plan to finish slaughtering our Pride, then simply let us go? Had they already slaughtered our Pride?
My pulse raced, and I couldn’t stop it. Sweat broke out on my forehead, in spite of the chilly room.
“Faythe? What’s wrong?” Kaci scooted to the edge of the bed, and the old mattress let out a long, grating squeal. She froze, but the damage was done. Her eyes went wide and panicked, and her lip began to tremble.
“It’s okay.…” I crossed the room toward her, heedless of my own footsteps now; the nest itself was evidently holding up far better than the old furnishings. “We need to talk to them, anyway. We’re not doing any good just sitting here.”
Kaci bit her lip and blinked back tears. “You sure?”
“Totally.” Not that we could do anything about it if I weren’t.
From the hall came light, but obviously human, footsteps. Kaci’s hand gripped my good one, and every muscle in her body tensed. “Should we Shift?”
“I think it’s a little late for that. Besides, they might see it as an act of aggression.” The footsteps stopped outside our door, and the knob turned. “Don’t say anything unless I ask you something or give you a signal, okay?”
Kaci nodded as the door swung open.
The woman in the doorway was short, thick with muscle from the ribs up, and downright skinny from the waist down. She had a long, thin nose, almost nonexistent lips, and long, smooth dark hair—clearly her best feature. She was also completely nude.Kaci flushed and looked away—she was raised among humans—and the bird-woman tossed a curious, headtilted glance her way before focusing on me. “I am Brynn. Follow me.” That was it. No please, no smile, and not even a glance over her shoulder to make sure we obeyed.