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The man grabs my left arm, his fingers digging into my skin as he yanks.
I stumble, forced to follow along or fall.
“What did you give me?” I demand, still struggling.
The woman doesn’t move, merely watches me with her small silver tray.
And the man? He drags me down a long white hallway, seeming not to notice my pleas for answers.
Chapter43
Everleigh
The pale, bland man is reaching a white keycard to a wall sensor when I realize he’s distracted. He’s not that much taller than me, and he’s lean. His grip on me is strong, but maybe if I surprise him, I can break it and escape.
I twist at the same time I kick him in the knee, wheeling around to retrace my steps up the white hallway he dragged me down.
A man in white peels off a wall and backhands me.
I didn’t see the man, and I most definitely did not see the blow coming. My face explodes in pain as his blow drives me into the wall with a cry.
Before I can crumple to the ground, a familiar grip closes around my left arm and then the blank-faced blond-haired man is dragging me through an open doorway.
A woman is yelling something, but with my head still ringing, I can’t make out what she’s saying.
A short line of white cages is barely visible with my eyes streaming from tears as I hold a hand to my stinging cheek.
Metal screeches, and then I fly forward, landing in a heap on my hands and knees.
A solid thump echoes behind me. A soft tread of footsteps moves away, and another, softer door announces my captor’s departure.
Lifting my head, I absorb my new situation.
It’s a horrifying one.
I’m in a cage.
That man—whoever he was—injected me with something and locked me up.
My prison measures about five feet by five. A skinny pallet bed has been pushed up against one corner, and that’s it. If I need to use the bathroom, I’m going to be in trouble. If I want to eat or drink, I’m going to have to wait for someone to give those things to me.
And sunlight? A window? What are those? I must be underground for there to be a complete lack of natural light in this dim space.
I lift my right arm, and under my cell’s single lightbulb, I study my skin. I can barely—just barely—spot the tiny pinprick from the needle. It didn’t even bleed.
“Are you okay?”
The soft, husky female voice coming from my right makes me jump. I shove myself to my feet too fast because my vision blurs and I stumble.
Catching myself on the cage wall, I blink until I focus on a dark-haired, olive-skinned woman wearing an oversized white dress. She peers at me through the cage bars of the neighboring cell, and from her fudgy sweet scent, she’s an omega.
Despite the stains on her dress, the tangles in her long hair, and the circles under her big, brown eyes, she’s beautiful. And young, maybe a little younger than me, if not the same age.
I’m not sure I’ll ever be okay again with Della probably dead in Pack Ashe’s mansion and my captor’s talk of auctions, but I nod. If only to stop myself from falling headlong into a bout of screaming panic that won’t help anyone, least of all me.
She gives me a small smile and crosses over to her thin pallet bed, which hugs the corner of her cage and mine. It’s only when she sits, revealing her profile, that I realize why she’s wearing a baggy dress.
A hint of her rounded belly makes me catch my breath.
