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She neared me with the needle, and just as she was about to press it into my skin for the umpteenth time, something clattered loudly beyond the door, the brief sound of shouting following it.
My captor looked toward the door. While she was distracted, I leaned forward with all the force I could muster and headbutted her right in the temple.
She yelped and toppled over with a thud. She didn’t move.
“In here!” I shouted, my ears aching with the bellow of my own voice.
I heard quick, boot-clad footsteps on concrete floors before the door suddenly burst open, swinging so widely that it smacked the corrugated steel wall. I was hoping for Houston, or maybe even other members from my grandfather’s pack, but the person standing in the door frame was neither.
Lanky, limber, and smelling of turpentine, the person scanning the room was none other than Curt Fowler. The very man I wanted to take a long walk off a short pier.
“What the fuck?” I blurted.
“My thoughts exactly,” he said. “They got you with bike locks?”
“Tell you what,” I griped. “You switch spots with me, get injected with mystery drugs, and tell me how easy it is to get out of these bonds.”
“I’m not into bondage,” Curt responded flippantly.
He walked over to Ms. Paulson, who lay motionless on the floor. I worried for a moment that I’d hit her with enough force to kill her, then I saw the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of her chest.
Unconscious. Good.
Curt crouched next to her and manhandled her. I watched him closely. Regardless of whether or not I hated the woman, I wasn’t about to watch her be taken advantage of while she was unconscious. Luckily, though, he mostly just adjusted her limbs and weight while he looked for something.
He produced the item after a few seconds: a lanyard attached to two keyrings with about fifty tiny keys divided between the two. Curt let out a long, discouraged sigh.
“Great,” he said, scowling at me. “Needle, meet fucking haystack.”
“Most people bring bolt cutters to things like this,” I pointed out.
“Most shifters don’t get abducted by humans,” he countered, hurrying over to me and starting to try every key on each of the four bike locks keeping me bound to the chair. “We gotta make this quick. We’re going to have company soon.”
“How many of you are here?” I asked.
“About two dozen, but this place fucking reeks, and some of them aren’t doing so hot.”
“Yeah, that’s what happened to us, too,” I said. “Have you been able to help anyone else?”
“Kinda busy,” was all he said, trying the fourth key on the ring.
I pressed my lips and clenched my fists. I really didn’t want to be an asshole, but he was the only link I had to any information. I was feeling a little impatient about getting all the information from him that I could.
We sat in tense silence for the next few minutes as he tried each key individually. Finally, he got one of the locks open, the one on my right arm. It popped free, and I made quick work of sliding my arm out from it, shaking my hand and rolling my shoulder to lubricate the joints that had become stiff and uncomfortable.
“Fuck, that feels good,” I groaned.
Curt fussed with the keyring until he managed to get that key off. He was about to throw it when I stopped him.
“Try it on the other ones first,” I said. “Sometimes they can key more than one lock to the same key.”
“That’s stupid. There’s no way they need this many keys,” he said. “That would mean there are fifty shifters in here.”
“Would you just fucking try, dickhole?” I snapped.
He growled and tried it on my left arm.
The bike lock clicked open.
