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Chapter 9
Calax
If there was one saving grace to being a prisoner, it was that I had an actual room and bed.
Until...I didn’t.
My body was throbbing from a particularly bad beating, and I couldn’t see out of my left eye. I imagined I looked like shit.
What a shest,I groused, my lips tilting upwards at my unintentional use of Addie’s favorite word. Apparently, it was a combination between shit and fest. A shit fest.
It was evident they didn’t know what to do with me. It had been months since I had last seen Adelaide, and they knew as well as I did that the team would never stay in one location for too long. It pained me to know I was nothing but bait. Even the “interrogations” were just a pathetic excuse to beat the shit out of me.
But they needed me alive, at least for now, to lure Addie to them when they found her.
They’d removed me from my small room and deposited me in an even smaller space, resembling a cell, a few days ago.
Stereotypical villains much?
Gray, stone walls encased me, coldness permeating the air. Iron bars separated me from the walkway, and dried blood stained the walls and floors.
What type of building was I in that had a damn prison in the basement? A fucking medieval dungeon? The pungent scent of copper reached my nostrils combining with decaying flesh.
I was dirty, sweaty, and probably smelled something fierce. Still, I kept a small smile on my face as I tossed rocks at the bars, attempting to land one in an abandoned bucket a few feet away.
I pumped my fists in the air when the rock finally settled where I wanted it to.
“They’re going to break you, you know,” a scratchy voice said from the cell beside me. I jumped, hadn’t had known anyone else was around me. I had inventoried the cells when I was first brought down, but the voice was coming from the direction opposite the doorway.
“I’d like to see them try.” Smirking through the pain running rampant through my face and body, I picked up another handful of rocks and resumed my methodical throws.
Fortunately, there was a hanging bulb in the sparsely lit hallway. I might’ve gone insane - well, more insane - if I was plunged in absolute darkness.
“What’s your name?” the stranger asked. He coughed violently, as if his voice was unaccustomed to speaking for such an extended period of time.
Frowning, I considered my options quickly. While the guys upstairs knew my name and identity, I didn’t trust my fellow prisoner. For all I knew, he could be working with the assholes who had tortured me daily. The less he knew about me, the better.
“Callie,” I decided on at last, my heart warming at the nickname Addie had given me. That and “Big Guy” were her two favorites.
Addie…
The stranger chuckled, effectively pulling me out of what might’ve been a riveting daydream.
“Okay. Let’s pretend I believe that. Why are you here?”
My suspicions only grew. Here we were, shoved in cages, and the man wanted to focus on the past, not on a plan to escape.
When I remained stubbornly silent, tossing rocks into the bucket, he released a weary sigh.
“You can call me Doug,” he said. Another cough rattled him.
“Doug,” I repeated blandly. “And is that your real name?”
“Is Callie yours?” he retorted.
“No.”
There was no use lying.
