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I know I can’t stay here out in the open. I’ll be recaptured in minutes, if not seconds. I can guarantee the guard already knows I’ve escaped. He’ll be raising the alarm. I need to get under cover quickly.
I look around for some kind of option. Running won’t cut it. Though maybe I’ll zip through the streets and lose them through the buildings.
I start running.
As I do, I hear the squeal of vehicle tires and shouts behind me. There’s no time to stop and decide if it is about me or not. I just run harder. Faster. But there’s footsteps coming up behind me in the silent sprint of a predator. True hunters do not yell warnings or snarl in anticipation. They chase and they catch.
This is what happens to me.
Once I was spotted, there was never any chance of getting away. The footsteps behind me cover more than twice the ground mine do. This escape attempt has been for nothing. I can only imagine what Avel will do when…
“FUCK!”
I scream the word as someone grabs me roughly. My first instinct is to assume that it’s Avel, but the hands that hold me aren’t as careful as his. When Avel grabs me, there is a thoughtfulness which ensures he doesn’t hold me in a terribly awkward way that will damage me. Whatever has me now has no such qualms.
I catch sight of a reddish orange tail swishing just as I am shoved into a big sack. Thick hessian-type fabric wraps around me. Adrenaline makes me gasp for breath, and the thick cloth up against my face makes breathing feel almost impossible.
I am handled roughly, dragged through dark saurian streets as if I mean nothing to the creature who has captured me. The bag is thrown into the back of something that moves. Because I can’t see where I am, I end up hitting the ground of the vehicle at an awkward angle, my knee and elbow hitting the floor painfully. I curse inside the bag and hear a laugh in return.
Goddamn it. Out of the pan and into the fucking fire.
Being captured this way is a whole fucking different deal from being caught by Avel. He’s careful, methodical, and most of all, honorable. Whoever has me right now is none of those things. The transport sets off at high speed. I am thrown around the back of what has to be a van, judging by the amount of space I roll back and forth around every time there’s a corner.
“You fucking animals, let me go!” I snarl from the interior of the bag, fighting to try to get the neck open. It’s no good. If I had a knife or if I was wearing my usual suit, I’d have a dozen ways to get out of this thing, but without tools, I’m basically helpless.
They’re not listening. I don’t think there’s anyone in the back with me at all. If there was, they might be able to steady me with a boot or something. Instead, I am an unsecured load, left to brace myself against the unexpected turns and try to keep from getting my head hit.
We must be in the middle of the city, judging by how frequent the turns are, and how relatively smooth the road is. I try to map the route mentally, but it’s bloody distracting to be beaten up by the interior of vehicle.
Suddenly, we come to a halt.
I find this out when I hit the front of the van abruptly.
The string of curses that escapes my mouth at that goes on until the doors open. I know they’ve opened because I can sense new light through the bag. I am dragged out again, into some kind of a place. I know that because of the bump I feel as I am pulled over the door frame.
“Pick the fucking bag up, you goddamn monster!”
I shout the words, and a second later I am banged heavily into the wall. I guess they’re not open to feedback.
I shut up, because it’s obvious that no mercy is going to be shown to me. That is proved moments later as the bag containing me is dragged down a flight of stairs. Bang bang bang bang.
There’s no good way to take these blows. I curl up and try to protect my head and neck and hope that we’re not going too much deeper. Being dragged along the floor is actually a relief once I hit the bottom.
A rough voice comes from somewhere in the shadows of the place.
“Did you get the meat?”
What meat?
“Yeah. We got the meat right here. Just where you said she’d be.”
The bag is grabbed and I realize it’s me. I’m the fucking meat. Not only am I the meat, but I’m apparently the predictable meat. How is that possible? I just escaped a jail cell I didn’t even know I’d be in until a couple hours ago. How could anybody else possibly know? Why would they care? What the absolute fuck is going on?
The bag is opened, rough fabric peeled back. A big saurian hand reaches in and grabs me by the hair. I am pulled out of the bag, scrabbling to get out so the thing stops ripping my hair out at the fucking roots.
Once out of the bag, I find myself somewhere underground. It looks like a cellar of some kind. There’re big bricks everywhere on the walls, which round up toward a sort of vaulted ceiling. There’s a heavy dullness to the way sound reverberates off them which makes me think we’re dealing with hard packed soil, clay and rock all around.
I find myself surrounded by saurians. At least half a dozen of them. Unlike Avel and Thorn, and others I’ve met who all have very long, glossy, glorious hair, these saurians have short hair and brutish expressions on their scaly faces. Not a single one of them looks at me with any kind of softness or curiosity. Their expressions are cold, calculating, and predatory. They’re all looking at me as if I am a snack they won’t possibly be able to share. There’s hunger and curiosity, and I don’t like either one of those things.
