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My heart was still racing, but any sense of arousal had been extinguished with the cold reality of where I was. I closed my eyes, squeezing them tightly, but when I opened them again…
I was still in the cell.
Hell.
I shivered and wrapped my arms a little more tightly around my torso. I didn’t want to be here right now. I wanted to go back to my dream; hell, I’d go back to Alaska right now if it meant I could get out of here. I could still feel the ghost of Eli’s hands against my skin — the possessive tug of his fingers in my hair. Ancestors, how badly I wanted him here now, instead of just the memory of a dream. I didn’t want to bealone.
My wolf stirred, and I could feel disappointment radiating from her. I…I didn’t know what to make of that. I could only assume it was the realization that we were, in fact, alone. We’d been alone for so long, spending so much time with Eli had been different. She hadn’t been that active since I was a child.
Everything kept changing on her.
Everything kept changing onme.
I got a hand beneath me and slowly propped myself up, wincing at the harsh white light. I had no idea how long I’d been asleep, but I felt sore all over. Surely, sleeping on the tile floor hadn’t helped me, but the silver collar seemed to be affecting my natural ability to heal. I was healing, yes, but far more slowly. It was as if it took more time and energy, too. It hurt. I felt like I could fall back asleep. I felt like I needed to, but I didn’t want to just sleep the days away.
And there was that little matter of my medication, too…
While Dr. Brenner was obviously quite aware of my pacemaker, no one seemed interested in making sure I had blood thinners. I had left them with my things back at Eli’s condo. I had never planned on being gone more than a few hours. How long had I been in this facility? A few hours? A few days?
How long can I go without my blood thinners?
I sat with the uncomfortable thought and rubbed my face, staring blankly forward.You can figure it out, Iris. You can figure it out.
I had managedto fall back asleep, but my thoughtless rest was short-lived. At some point, the guards woke me back up, hauling me up by the arms. I was tired and disoriented enough not to strike out at either of them this time, and that was probably for the best. As much as I wanted to punch them, the last thing my heart needed was to get hit with another jolt of electricity.
Before I knew it, I was strapped to another chair and hooked up to various electrodes. Between the last visit to the room and the occasional food deliveries, I’d given up trying to speak to the guards. They rarely answered at all, and if they did, it was with one-word answers. Someone had trained them too well. They weren’t worth my energy.
I had precious little of that right about now.
The door opened back up and I braced myself for the smug Dr. Brenner, but it was actually the guards who walked back through. They were hauling another shifter behind them, and as they strapped her into an empty chair, I realized it was Cyn.
It took a moment for my brain to catch up with that, and I bit my tongue as the guards finished strapping her down and hooking her up, just like they’d done to me. I didn’t want to blow my chance to speak to one of the other captives — much less the one I’d been hired to find in the first place.
Once the other woman was strapped down and the guards left, I tipped my head. “Hey. Cyn, right?”
She startled, visibly shaken. “How do you know my name?”
I gave her a weak smile. “My name is Iris,” I introduced myself, not wanting to end this before it even started. “Your sister, Demi — she hired me to find out where you went.”
At once, the younger shifter began to tear up, her eyes going a bit glassy. “She did?” she asked, sounding a bit breathless. “Is she okay?”
I nodded. “She is, but she’s very worried about you.” I paused for a moment. “How did you end up here?”
Cyn sighed, turned her head to look straight forward. A single tear ran down her cheek, but she couldn’t wipe at it. “I don’t know,” she said miserably. “I got grabbed. Literallygrabbed, right off the street, like you see in those crime shows on TV. I tried to fight them off, but someone stabbed me with a needle and I don’t remember anything after that. I woke up sometime later…and I was here.” She turned back to face me. “Do you knowwherehere is, exactly?”
I grimaced and shook my head. “No,” I sighed, wishing that I did. “Something similar happened to me. I was checking out a house for sale and someone jumped me. Needle and everything…” It wasn’texactlythe truth, but it was close enough. I didn’t want to freak Cyn out by making her think her sister was somehow involved. There was no way Demi could have known there was someone hiding in a closet.
“Oh.” Cyn sounded disappointed. “I keep trying to figure out what I did to attract these people to me. Did you get ice cream before you were grabbed? Or…what else did I do? It’s all blurring together. Uh, donate blood?”
I shook my head again. “No…but I was looking for you,” I reminded her gently.
She sighed and nodded, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. “How…how long have I been missing? Time doesn’t make any sense in this place.”
“A few weeks,” I told her, trying not to make this any harder than it had been on me.
“Oh…” Her voice grew soft as she sniffed again, clearly trying to fight off the onslaught of emotion. “A few weeks. Holy shit.” She sniffed again. Her voice was thicker when she spoke again. “I just want to go home.”
“I know,” I said quietly, pressing my lips together. “We’ll do everything we can to make that happen. Have you seen like…I don’t know, any exits or anything?”
