Ryan stood up in front of me, his shoulders slumped in resignation. “Once he’s out of the council’s reach, he won’t need me, and I’m sure I won’t live an hour past that point.” He ran a hand through sandy hair and met my eyes. “See, you’re not the only one with problems.”
Biting my lip, I declined to point out that he could always run. He could leave while Miguel was gone, and be out of the country before they even realized he’d left the house.
I didn’t say it because I was afraid he’d take my suggestion if he thought it was possible. I was afraid he’d leave us, and as furious as I was at him, he was better company than Miguel. And Eric. And Sean, if I wanted to be honest. Sean sounded like he might crack up at any moment, and the only thing more dangerous than an angry cat was a crazy one.
“Why would he be out of the council’s reach, Ryan?” My voice was low and dangerous. I heard it but I couldn’t help it.
His face filled with scorn, and I blinked. That was new. “Oh, come on, Faythe. Did you really think he was going to keep you here forever? You’re smart. Surely you knew this was only temporary.” In fact, I had, but I bit my tongue and stared at him, hoping for more information. “He has a buyer, Faythe. Some Amazon Alpha who wants a mate and is willing to pay big.”
My hands fell into my lap, ice cold, while my brain raced fast enough to give me an instant headache. Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit. It was my worst nightmare. Literally. And in that moment I realized something important: I knew more about Miguel’s plans than Ryan did.
My brother was right about one thing: he really had been forced into working for Miguel, at least according to his own skewed perspective. Ryan didn’t have the mind of a criminal. A lazy, naive coward, yes. But not a criminal. That bad-guy handicap had kept him from seeing the truth about Miguel’s scheme.
Miguel didn’t just have one buyer waiting in South America. Catching us was too much trouble for anything on that small a scale. He had to have at least two buyers, and maybe three or four. He’d used Sean to go after Sara, not because he wanted Sara in particular, but because Sean did, and Miguel needed help. But he never planned to let Sean keep her. Sara had been bought and paid for before Miguel ever crossed the U.S. border. So had Abby, and the third girl. And so had I.
If I was right, Miguel would use Ryan, Eric and Sean to get us to Brazil. Then he would kill them, probably with the aid of the buyers and their loyal tomcats, assuming they had any. And I was inclined to assume they did, because they would have to be pretty powerful to convince Miguel to kidnap several American tabbies. Either that, or Miguel was stupid. And I already knew he wasn’t stupid.
So, what did it say about me that I understood the way Miguel’s mind worked? Nothing I wanted to think about, not that I could keep from it. The obvious possibility was that I shared some kind of depraved thought process with him. But more frightening for me was the probability that Marc and my father had been right: without even realizing it, I had been trained to lead the Pride. Somehow I’d developed the ability to think like the enemy, a definite advantage for any leader to have. The only problem? I didn’t want to be a leader. I just wanted to be a survivor.
But both of those roles were out of the question, if I couldn’t get out of this damn cage.
In one corner of the basement, water dripped from a leaky pipe, dropping into a growing puddle on the ground. The drips seemed to count the seconds of anxious silence as they passed, urging me to say something. To find out the rest of what I needed to know.
“When is he leaving, Ryan?” I asked, trying not to frighten him with the strength of my stare and the intensity of my voice. I gripped the bars so tight I could almost hear them groan, although realistically my fingers would snap long before solid metal bars would. I stared at Ryan, trying to slow my pulse and keep panic out of my eyes. Of course, he chose that moment to clam up completely. But who could blame him?
“When?” I shouted, and he jumped, eyes wide. I hadn’t meant to scream at him, but I couldn’t help it. If I could have reached him in that moment, I’d have squeezed his throat until his eyes popped out of his head, for being such an idiot.
He glanced at the stairs, obviously listening for footsteps. “They’re leaving in the morning, and plan to make the grab sometime after dark. They’ll be back the next morning, and we’re all leaving that night.”
I did the math in my head. Two days. I had approximately forty-eight hours to get us out of there, or make contact with the council. But how? I needed Miguel to take another shot at me. I needed to get him to open my cage, or at least come near me with the key. But according to Ryan, he wouldn’t come back downstairs until he had the new girl. I couldn’t afford to wait that long.“You can stop him, Ryan,” I said, dipping my head to catch his eyes. I tried to project confidence in my voice, rather than desperation. “Call Mom. You can stop him and save your own life.” I already knew he didn’t give a damn about mine.
“No.” He shook his head like a toddler denying he’d made the puddle on the floor. “He’ll kill me.”
I wasn’t sure whether he was talking about Miguel or Daddy, since either could have been true, so I went with what I hoped was a safe answer. “No, he won’t. I won’t let him. Just call Mom and tell her you saw something, or smelled something. Tell her you think we’re here, and have her send someone to check it out. That’s all it would take, and you’d be a hero.” Another positive spin. I was on a roll!
Ryan shook his head again, as if denying the existence of voices in his head. Or maybe his conscience. He shuffled backward toward the stairs. “I’m sorry, Faythe. I can’t do it. Miguel said they’d go after Mom if I help you.”
Mom? They’d take Mom just to get back at Ryan? Boy, they knew where his loyalties lay. But surely it was an empty threat. Going after Sean’s sister was horrible, but it made sense. Snatching Mom didn’t. What would they want with a tabby who was past childbearing age?
“Ryan, they won’t take Mom. They’re not going to waste that much time and energy on revenge. Besides, they’d never be able to get near her.”
Ryan bumped into the hand rail and glanced around as if surprised to see the stairs behind him. “They got you,” he said, backing onto the first step. “Do you really want me to take that chance on Mom?”
How the hell was I supposed to answer that? I knew deep down that they’d never get close enough to snatch her, but Ryan had thought the same about me, and we all knew how that theory had panned out.
He read my answer on my face, and turned his back on both me and Abby, taking the steps two at a time.
Frantic now, I appealed to his sense of self-preservation. “So you’re just going to let Miguel kill you, and leave your corpse for the jungle cats to snack on?”
He stiffened, and his hand shook on the doorknob. Without turning, Ryan squared his shoulders, then opened the door and stepped into the kitchen, leaving us alone again.
He’ll change his mind, I thought. He has to.
The door closed with a final-sounding click, and I dropped onto the edge of the mattress, glancing in disinterest at the remains of my meal. I looked over at Abby, barely registering the raw terror on her face. But I did notice that I could still see her pretty well. Overhead, a single seventy-five-watt bulb illuminated our basement cells with depressing clarity, in spite of the darkness outside.
At least this time he left the light on, I thought. Sometimes, you thank God for the small things, especially when they’re all you have.
Twenty-Four
After Ryan left, I hit a new low, lying on my back on the mattress because that was the only comfortable position I could find. My stomach was threatening to return my latest meal, largely unused. I was sticky with sweat and I ached all over.
Two days. I had two days to break out of a welded aluminum cage before Miguel sold me as a combination sex toy/baby factory to a Brazilian jungle cat. And the only member of my family who knew about it was helping my captors instead of me. It was enough to make me wonder what kind of monster I’d been in my previous life. Really, it had to be karma. There was no other explanation for my horrible luck.
But if I was dispirited, Abby was truly despondent. She lay on the edge of her mattress, staring at nothing, her sweat-damp curls spread out behind her. She’d been like that ever since Ryan left, taking any hope of a rescue with him.
I felt as if I should comfort her, but I had no idea what to say. I wanted to believe my brother would change his mind. I was desperate to believe it. Surely even he wouldn’t be stupid enough to hand over his life to Miguel without a fight. Or maybe he would. Ryan had never been much of a fighter.
After I’d indulged in at least an hour of bitter self-pity, brought on by fantasies of grape Popsicles and air-conditioning, Abby’s gentle snoring interrupted my reverie. I envied her the oblivion of sleep, but found it impossible to achieve for myself. I was too busy thinking. About everything. I thought about Marc, and about Jace. I thought about how worried and angry my father must be. I thought about my mother, wondering if she’d decided to reclaim her seat on the council now that their decisions once again directly affected her life and the future of her Pride. And I thought about Eric and Miguel, wondering which of my friends’ lives they were about to ruin.