“What the fuck?” He turned to Jenn then, heart rate kicking up.
“I know.” She hurried to stand next to him. “We’ve not been here long.”
In the middle of the clearing stood a huge tree. Suspended from it was a cage, roughly four feet across, with Jason inside it.
Daryl opened his mouth but shut it again, words failing him.
“Nice of you to join us!” Jason shouted down, peering through the bars but staying well back from them. “’Bout time.”
Daryl couldn’t help the grin splitting his face. Seeing Jason for himself sliced away a huge chunk of the tension he’d been carrying with him all morning. “We got a little lost.” Reluctant to look away
now they’d finally found him, Daryl gestured at the cage. “Any idea how we get you out?”
“Yep.” Jason sighed. “But I’m not allowed to help you, or it’s back to London for me.”
Daryl grunted. He wasn’t surprised, but he needed Jason out from behind those bars and on the ground where he could touch him, scent him, feel for himself he was really okay. Looking at him from the ground wasn’t enough. The low growl rumbling through his chest stopped the conversation around him.
“Daryl?” Jason’s voice held a warning.
Daryl glanced up to see Jason rubbing a hand over his chest. Their eyes met, and a crackle of electricity shot through Daryl’s veins. He shivered, then rolled his shoulders, pushing away that nagging voice that said something wasn’t quite right.
Focus.
We need to get him out of there.
“I’m fine. Just frustrated.” Turning to Jenn again, he gestured to the cage, specifically the padlock on the front of it. “I take it we need to find the key?”
Jenn fished in her pocket and held up a shining silver key and passed it to Daryl. “I reckon we already found the key to the cage.” Taking his arm, she tugged him around until he faced the huge trunk of the tree; she pointed to a big padlock attached to a chain wrapped around the base. “What we need to find now is the key to that one.”
Daryl followed the chain’s path to a hand winch, locked in place by the chain and padlock.
“Fuck. I take it that lowers the cage to the ground?”
Jenn nodded. “And the key we found is too small for that lock, so I think it’s safe to assume it’s the key for the cage.”
Looking up, he found Jason close to the bars but not touching, staring down at them. Daryl rubbed at the sudden ache in his chest. “Can’t we just throw it up to him?”
“I’m not allowed to help in any way,” Jason interrupted. “The lock needs to be opened by someone other than me.”
Bollocks.
The branches above the cage looked sturdy enough to hold someone’s weight, and the tree trunk had enough handholds to scramble up it. “Why don’t we climb the tree, then drop onto the cage from above or the side and open it that way. Pretty sure it should hold our weight.”
“And if it doesn’t,” Kara chimed in. “It’ll fall to the ground. Win-win.”
“I don’t think plummeting to the ground is a viable option!” Jason yelled. “I don’t want to spend the next two days healing broken bones.”
The thought alone made Daryl want to snarl.
“You’re not that high up.” Kara squinted in the sunlight, appearing to gauge exactly how high up he was. “Maybe fifteen feet?”
“High enough not to want to hit the ground at speed in this thing.” Jason waved a hand around him. “And I’m pretty sure I recall Alpha Cornell saying they’d intervene if anyone was at risk of serious injury.”
“Not happening,” Daryl growled. He might be dubious about the extent a fall would injure Jason, but they weren’t risking it.
Jenn nudged him. “That’s not the only thing.”
“What?”
