“So what?”
“So, they got me around five this morning, and if they were here with you at dusk the night before, we can’t be more than six or eight hours away from the ranch.”
She rolled her eyes, unimpressed with my Nancy Drew routine. “Yeah, but that could be anywhere.”
“Not really.” I stood to pace the length of my cell, thinking aloud. “They’d be stupid to keep us in any of the territories. We’re in one of the free zones. We have to be.” Pausing in mid-pace, I closed my eyes to study the U.S. map I’d committed to memory back in junior high, overlaying it with the territorial boundaries I knew by heart.
Impressed with myself, I opened my eyes and smiled at Abby. “Mississippi is the only one they could have gotten to in less than eight hours.”
Huh. I guess my teacher was right after all; geography had come in handy in the real world. But I had yet to use an augmented matrix outside of class.
“How far is Mississippi from the Lazy S?” Abby asked, her eyes tracking my movement as I resumed pacing.
“You can drive to Jackson in about six and a half hours. How long did it take you to get here?”
She shrugged. “I have no idea. I was in and out of consciousness. But it felt like a long time.”
I frowned as if that told me something important. It didn’t, but I saw no reason to shoot holes in my own credibility. “I bet we’re in Mississippi.”
Abby was quiet for a moment, processing the new information. “Okay, so how does that help?”
Good question. It took me nearly a full minute to come up with an answer. “Knowing we’re in Mississippi means it won’t take the cavalry long to get here. The council’s meeting at the ranch now.” Not great, but it was the best I could do. And figuring something out, however small, made me feel useful.
“The whole council?” Abby asked, excited now. “My dad?”
“Yeah, and your mom too.” I used Marc’s shirt to wipe sweat from my face. My heart throbbed painfully as his scent triggered a jarring flashback of the night before.
“Faythe?” Abby stared at me, concern weighing down the corners of her mouth. “You were talking about the council…” she prompted.
I blinked, clearing my head as well as my vision. “Yeah. Daddy called a meeting yesterday.”
She stood, following me from behind her own bars as I resumed pacing across the front of my cage. “Do they have a plan?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t in on the meeting.” I just couldn’t tell her that I was getting drunk and laid while the Alphas were trying to figure out how to get her back.
We paced in silence, and I used my stride to measure the size of my cage. Fourteen steps across the front, placing my feet heel-to-toe. By my guess, the cell was about ten feet long.
In her cage across from mine, Abby lowered herself to sit yoga-style on the floor, watching me with huge, sad eyes.
“Abby?”
“Yeah?”
I wanted to ask her about Sara but was at a complete loss for a tactful way to broach the subject. I’d been waiting for her to bring it up, and could only think of two possible reasons to explain why she hadn’t. The first, and most preferable, was that she didn’t know. Sara could have died before they took Abby. In fact, Sara’s death might even have been why they took Abby. A new toy to replace the broken one.
The second possibility was much more disturbing. What if Abby hadn’t mentioned Sara because she knew exactly what had happened and wasn’t ready to talk about it yet? What if she’d seen what they did to Sara?
“Faythe?” Abby said, pushing a sweat-damp curl from her forehead.
“Sorry. I zoned out again.” I decided not to ask her about Sara. She’d tell me what she knew when the time was right. For her, not for me.Abby drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “Yeah, well, zoning out may come in handy later.” Her eyes drifted down to a spot on the floor between our cages, making it impossible for me to interpret her expression.
Oh, no, I thought, sitting across from her as she sniffled and refused to look at me. Because she was alive and apparently unharmed, I’d assumed they hadn’t touched her. At least not yet. But I was wrong.
Before I could work up the courage to ask her what had happened, wood creaked overhead, and her focus swung up to the ceiling. Mine followed automatically. It was the first sound I’d heard from outside the basement since regaining consciousness. I knew what it meant, but Abby said it for me.
“Someone’s coming,” she whispered, hugging herself in a gesture so automatic I was sure it was unconscious. She scooted away from me on her backside, putting as much room as possible between herself and the door to her cage. “Pretend you’re still out, and he’ll leave you alone for now,” she said, her eyes wide and shiny with unshed tears.
“What do you mean?” I rose to grip the bars, dread twisting my stomach into knots.
“Shh,” she hissed. “Lie down. And don’t move, no matter what. I’ll be okay.”
Something squealed overhead: an old doorknob turning.
There was no time to consider the wisdom of taking orders from a seventeen-year-old. There was no time to do anything but comply.
Slick with nervous sweat, my hands slid down the bars. I dropped onto the mattress just as light flooded the basement from an open door at the top of a wooden staircase.
For one precious moment, the whole room was illuminated, but from my position, I saw only cinderblock walls and a third, unoccupied cell. As I watched with one eye slit open, a pair of boots appeared on the top step. They were unfamiliar, as was the voice accompanying them.
“Good evening, Abby-cat.” He closed the door, and the light winked out, blinding me again until my eyes had another chance to adjust.
Abby didn’t answer. I couldn’t see her without moving, but I heard her shoes slide across the concrete as she continued toward the back of her cage, now on her feet.
The boots clomped down the stairs, marching into view beneath a pair of faded jeans and a plain white T-shirt. The man wearing them had wavy blond hair and a build sturdy enough to strain the material of his shirt. He was a tomcat, and definitely not a stray, based on his smell. But try as I might, I couldn’t identify his birth Pride.
He sneered, twisting his mouth into a frightening approximation of a smile as he stepped down onto the concrete. “Aren’t you going to say hi, Abby-cat?”
“Fuck off, Eric.”
I almost laughed out loud. I’d never heard my baby cousin cuss before, but she did it well. I was proud.
“Now, that wasn’t very nice.” Eric pulled his shirt off, dropping it on the floor just outside her cage, and my heart ached as I stared at it. “We’ll have to work on your manners.”
He dug into his front right pocket and came up with a key, which he used to open the padlock holding her cage door closed. I couldn’t see him anymore, but the squeal of metal on metal assaulted my ears as he opened the door.
Abby’s heart rate increased, and I knew that as a cat, I would have smelled her panic.
Eric’s heart sped up too, but in anticipation, rather than fear. “Are you going to behave yourself?” he asked.
She huffed at him. “Are you?”
He laughed, and a chill traveled up my back, making my imaginary fur stand on end. “Never, Abby-cat.”
“Quit calling me that.”
Metal clanged as he swung the cage door shut, but I didn’t hear him lock it. “What would you prefer?”
“I’d prefer that you take a few deep breaths underwater.” Abby sounded scared, which I’d expected, but she also sounded weary, as if her big talk was merely to cover up how tired and hopeless she really felt. Lying there listening, I knew her rebellion wouldn’t go beyond words. She might have fought in the beginning, but now she was too worn down.
Eric’s boots clomped twice. Rubber slapped the concrete as Abby dodged him, presumably running for the cage door. She’d only taken three steps when I heard a scream, followed by a dull thunk and her moan of pain. Then there was nothing but twin racing heartbeats and his deep breathing.
I turned my head for a better look, but Eric was too preoccupied to notice my movement. He was using a handful of Abby’s bright red curls to press her face against the bars.
That’s how she got the bruise, I thought, fury scorching a path from my heart down to my toenails.
Eric’s free hand slipped beneath her shirt. Abby whimpered once, then her jaws tensed as she gritted her teeth. “That’s better,” he said in a falsely soothing voice. “See, it’s not so bad.” He ran his hand down her stomach and beneath the elastic waist of her jogging shorts. Abby stiffened and closed her eyes. A tear ran down her cheek.
Son of a bitch! I couldn’t just lie there and watch, no matter what she’d said. I sat up, fists clenched in my lap. “Get your hands off her,” I whispered, fighting to sound calm and in control, neither of which I actually felt.
Eric’s head swung in my direction, but he recovered from his surprise quickly. “Hello, tabby,” he said, visibly tightening his grip on my cousin’s hair.
“No, Faythe,” Abby moaned, but I ignored her. As long as my heart was beating, I couldn’t sit there and watch someone hurt her without trying to help.