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I sighed. “Thanks, buddy.”
I needed to get out of here. First, I needed to get out of this pit. It was five feet deep, but the barrier was another five feet at least. The gate in the barrier was locked from the outside. The ring was small, though, and perfectly round. If I took a run-up, I could use centrifugal force to get myself up the wall high enough to snag my fingers on the edge of the barrier.
Another bang on the door made me flinch. “Dude!”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath and gently put my battle goose down. “I can do this.”
Dwayne honked. I looked down. In his thoughts, he was resigned. Sad, even. The men outside were his keepers; they were here to take him away. They were strange men, powerful. High-tech gadgets and magical charms blinked and shimmered in their hands.
They were coming here to secure the battle goose. They were going to lock him away. The enclosure he showed me in his thoughts was big, with an artificial pond. But it was still a cage. He’d be alone, which he was okay with. But nobody would love him.
Nobody would ever love him.
Tears welled up in my eyes; I tried blinking them back, but they kept coming. Oh, shit. It was finally happening. My mental breakdown was long overdue. I picked up the goose again, burying my face in his silky feathers, and sobbed like a baby.
The door banged again and crashed open.
Fuck.
Chapter Eleven
A man’s face appeared over the barrier, looking down at me. His curly blond hair was a nice little mop, and he wore a boxy cropped t-shirt. He blinked down at me. “Ohhh,” he drawled forlornly, taking in the scene. “This is most non-triumphant.”
Another man’s head popped over the barrier. This one had dark floppy hair, and a matching vacant expression on his face. He wore a black vest over a t-shirt. “Whoa. Most bodacious babe, do you require any assistance?”
“Oh, no,” I said, wiping the tears from my face. “I’m okay. I’m doing just fine.”
With twin expressions of disbelief, the strangers looked at the mangled corpses on the concrete, the body hanging over the barrier, and finally, at the two enormous pit bulls munching on the corpses in the corner. “Just fine, huh?”
These men were so strange. I stared at them, mentally cataloging the outfits, the hair, the odd, gleaming thick metal bracelets on their wrists. Their eyes were intelligent and sharp; their expressions didn’t match the dumb nineties rock-dude accents.
It wasn’t just a cover. These two weren’t even slightly human.
The goose wasn’t some military experiment. He wasn’t from this dimension. Of course, the keepers who’d come to get him weren’t either.
I cocked my head. “You boys aren’t from around here, huh?”
The blond turned to his friend, wide-eyed. “Dude, I told you! You gotta pick a reference from this decade.”
“Bro,” the dark-haired one replied, fiddling with a thick gold bracelet. “I did choose a reference from this decade. This excellent male is one of the most popular dudes in this realm right now.”
The blond let out an exaggerated huff of exasperation and turned to face me. “Most beautiful babe,” he called down. “Let us assist you. Pass us our little bird friend, there.”
“No.”
They both frowned in tandem. “Naw?”
“I won’t let you take him.”
They blinked, confused. The blond one cleared his throat loudly. “Uh… I don’t want to scare you, babe, but that lil guy is most bogus. He is unfortunately dangerous.”
“Well… yeah. But so am I. I think he should stay with me.”
Twin expressions of disbelief rolled over their faces. “We’re good dudes, I promise,” the dark-haired one called out. “He’ll be in most excellent care.”
I stared at their thoughts for a moment. I couldn’t make sense of most of the images I was seeing—puffy figures with gentle expressions bounced around slowly within their auras, a little like marshmallow men cavorting happily on the moon. Was that their actual form?
“We gotta keep him safe, babe,” he added.
