“Ok, but if you start being a jackass I’m leaving.”
“Best behavior. Cross my heart and hope to die,” he crooned into the phone, “I’ll pick you up at one.”
“Fine,” she said and hung up the phone.
“It’s impossible for you not to be a jackass,” Veronica said from somewhere behind him.
He thought about it for a moment and nodded his head, “Yeah but she doesn’t know that.”
The feeling in his body began to come back before his vision did. He wished it hadn’t. He felt stretched and sore. Beside the pain he knew was caused from the beating he’d taken at the hands of the secret service dude, there was the pain in his wrists from being tied, in his arms from hanging from them, in his shoulders from being stretched at an odd angle and his neck from having been unconscious while his head hung forward. And his whole face was aflame, it felt like his sinuses were being ripped out, his nasal cavities were blocked and the back of his throat felt like it was full of cotton. Pretty good signs that he had a broken nose.
It would have been too much of a mercy for him to stay unconscious. He opened his eyes a slit, even that was painful, they must have worked on his face after he’d passed out. It wasn’t the first time he’d gotten his ass handed to him, and it probably wouldn’t be the last, but it was the first time he’d had a human do it and it was the second time he’d lost a fight and not healed from it. These guys must have supplied Big Dog with the herb that had kept him from healing after his fight with the Hellhounds. At least it felt like whatever they’d cracked in his chest had healed before they had a chance to give it to him.
He opened his eyes a little more, painfully blinking and letting his vision clear, expecting to see some kind of backwoods hellhole where he was hanging from a meat hook off the center beam of a barn.
His expectation was wrong. Hard florescent lights met his tender eyes, exposing the barren room as a sterile workspace, something he’d expect to see in a hospital. Not something used as a torture chamber slash dungeon.
The room had very little to look at, a stainless steel table, bare white concrete walls, a few outlets that almost blended in with the paint. He looked up to see what he was hanging from, the movement causing a cacophony of aches to flare in his body. It was some sort of machine on a long steel arm. A light like at the dentist’s maybe. He didn’t know, didn’t give a fuck, he just needed to get off of it and out of this little sterilized cell.
If he could. He looked down at his body, the bruises covering his battered torso. They’d left his jeans on so he couldn’t see his legs, but one seemed to be broken and dangling at a weird angle to the floor.
He tried to move it and the pain caused a white light to flare behind his eyes. It was definitely broken.
The door made a loud buzzing sound and a young man in his early twenties, if that, walked in wearing blue scrubs and a white lab coat and pushing a wheelchair. Following shortly behind was a suit.
This wasn’t one of the secret service suits, this one was obviously higher on the chain of command, his hair combed with neat precision, his suit clearly in a different class than they other guys, even the way he walked screamed, ‘I’m in charge here.’ Red hated him on site.
“So, Mr… Ryder,” the man sneered, “I hope you’ve been comfortable as our guest?”
Red didn’t comment. He knew that if he said the wrong thing it would go badly for him, and he wasn’t sure there was a right thing to say.
“Probably not, you look a little worse for the wear after your little skirmish with my security team. But I’m glad it happened, and you should be too. It gave you an opportunity to see what superior fighters we are. We’re faster, stronger, and if I dare say, smarter than shifters are even capable of being.”
The man seemed real pleased with his announcement. Red
“Best behavior. Cross my heart and hope to die,” he crooned into the phone, “I’ll pick you up at one.”
“Fine,” she said and hung up the phone.
“It’s impossible for you not to be a jackass,” Veronica said from somewhere behind him.
He thought about it for a moment and nodded his head, “Yeah but she doesn’t know that.”
The feeling in his body began to come back before his vision did. He wished it hadn’t. He felt stretched and sore. Beside the pain he knew was caused from the beating he’d taken at the hands of the secret service dude, there was the pain in his wrists from being tied, in his arms from hanging from them, in his shoulders from being stretched at an odd angle and his neck from having been unconscious while his head hung forward. And his whole face was aflame, it felt like his sinuses were being ripped out, his nasal cavities were blocked and the back of his throat felt like it was full of cotton. Pretty good signs that he had a broken nose.
It would have been too much of a mercy for him to stay unconscious. He opened his eyes a slit, even that was painful, they must have worked on his face after he’d passed out. It wasn’t the first time he’d gotten his ass handed to him, and it probably wouldn’t be the last, but it was the first time he’d had a human do it and it was the second time he’d lost a fight and not healed from it. These guys must have supplied Big Dog with the herb that had kept him from healing after his fight with the Hellhounds. At least it felt like whatever they’d cracked in his chest had healed before they had a chance to give it to him.
He opened his eyes a little more, painfully blinking and letting his vision clear, expecting to see some kind of backwoods hellhole where he was hanging from a meat hook off the center beam of a barn.
His expectation was wrong. Hard florescent lights met his tender eyes, exposing the barren room as a sterile workspace, something he’d expect to see in a hospital. Not something used as a torture chamber slash dungeon.
The room had very little to look at, a stainless steel table, bare white concrete walls, a few outlets that almost blended in with the paint. He looked up to see what he was hanging from, the movement causing a cacophony of aches to flare in his body. It was some sort of machine on a long steel arm. A light like at the dentist’s maybe. He didn’t know, didn’t give a fuck, he just needed to get off of it and out of this little sterilized cell.
If he could. He looked down at his body, the bruises covering his battered torso. They’d left his jeans on so he couldn’t see his legs, but one seemed to be broken and dangling at a weird angle to the floor.
He tried to move it and the pain caused a white light to flare behind his eyes. It was definitely broken.
The door made a loud buzzing sound and a young man in his early twenties, if that, walked in wearing blue scrubs and a white lab coat and pushing a wheelchair. Following shortly behind was a suit.
This wasn’t one of the secret service suits, this one was obviously higher on the chain of command, his hair combed with neat precision, his suit clearly in a different class than they other guys, even the way he walked screamed, ‘I’m in charge here.’ Red hated him on site.
“So, Mr… Ryder,” the man sneered, “I hope you’ve been comfortable as our guest?”
Red didn’t comment. He knew that if he said the wrong thing it would go badly for him, and he wasn’t sure there was a right thing to say.
“Probably not, you look a little worse for the wear after your little skirmish with my security team. But I’m glad it happened, and you should be too. It gave you an opportunity to see what superior fighters we are. We’re faster, stronger, and if I dare say, smarter than shifters are even capable of being.”
The man seemed real pleased with his announcement. Red
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