Bite: A Shifters of Theria Novel (10 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

NOW LEAVING ILIUM, COME BACK SOON!

Two feet stop at the foot of the doorway. The man on the other end grabs the handle. I try to hold the door shut, but my sweaty palms do nothing to stop the handle from turning. Freddie, still in nothing but his underwear, stands with a smirk in the doorway.

On the floor behind him is a dark-haired man in a black overcoat, facedown in a puddle of his own blood. I repress the inexplicable desire to jump into Freddie’s arms.

“Let’s go,” he says, reaching into the closet and grabbing my arm. He pulls me with force, nearly dislocating my shoulder. He doesn’t bother to redress. Instead, he scoops up the pile of his clothes and slaps them against my chest. “Hold these, will ya?” he says, pulling me through my apartment.

There are three dead men in my apartment, all dark-haired and dressed in black overcoats. Blood has been sprayed and spattered all over my doors, cupboards, furniture, and windows, and there’s still smoke billowing out from the fresh bullet holes in my walls. One of the dead men is face up. Across his face are long, deep, bloody gashes. Freddie doesn’t have a drop of blood on his bare body.

He tugs my arm again. “Don’t stop,” he says.

What the hell’s going on? What happened to these men? “How did you kill them? What happened to them?”

Another sharp tug at my arm nearly knocks me on my feet. “Come on,” Freddie demands, practically dragging me out from my apartment, past my front door into the corridor. The eyes of my neighbours peer through doors held slightly ajar. They all watch with curiosity and a good deal of confusion as I’m dragged by a half-naked male-model towards the stairway. As my eyes meet theirs, they recede into their apartments like frightened church mice.

Freddie leads me out of my building and pulls me towards the alley that Mel dropped into. The distant screaming of sirens is clear but the red and blue lights are still invisible. I had Freddie’s switchblade in the closet with me, not that a switchblade can leave gashes like that. Those gashes weren’t from any blade; they looked like an animal’s claw marks.

Revved up and waiting for us is a magenta ’69 Cadillac Coupe DeVille—a monstrosity of a car—with a beige fabric roof, lowered suspension, gold rims, and a golden naked-lady hood ornament. Mel sits behind the red and black zebra-print steering wheel. Freddie opens the back door and throws me in before hopping in next to me. The upholstery is ripped is more places than I care to count and foam billows out from the many abrasions. Some getaway car the idiots are driving; unless they plan on driving through a circus, we aren’t going to blend in with shit.

The car jolts forward with a loud groan before I’m able to sit upright. The old car’s tires screech, kicking up gravel and mud as we fishtail from side to side. Thanks to the lowered suspension, every little bump feels like we’re driving over a gaping pothole. I’m already feeling nauseous before the end of the alleyway.

Just as red and blue flashing lights tease the rear-view mirror, we squeal around the corner, onto the street, onto smooth pavement. Now wearing pants, Freddie lights a cigarette.

“You’ve got some powerful enemies, lady,” Freddie says, blowing out a lungful of smoke.

Mel slows the old Cadillac down in a stupid attempt to blend into the Ilium traffic. The door handle is within arm’s reach and the latch is up—unlocked. I can pull the handle, jump, tuck, and roll. There are plenty of people out on the street. I can scream for help. Maybe I can get put into some sort of witness protection program. Now’s my chance—Freddie is looking out his window and Mel is looking forward.

I take a deep breath and pull the handle, throwing my body weight against the door. It doesn’t budge.

“Door’s broken,” Freddie says with a snicker. He doesn’t even look over at me. “Been stuck for years now.”

Now leaving Ilium. Come back soon!

The row of apartment buildings that hug Ilium’s city limit shrinks in the rear-view mirror, vanishing into a haze of rainfall and exhaust from the rattily old Cadillac.

“Where are you taking me?” I ask.

Freddie pulls a strip of cloth out from the seat pocket. “Turn your head,” he says before covering my eyes with the cloth. “Do I have to tie up your hands, or will you leave it alone?”

“I’ll leave it,” I say grudgingly. He tightens the cloth with a swift tug. Fifteen minutes ago, I was getting ready to go to the bus depot, getting ready to start a new life. Now, I’m the prisoner of two thick-skulled, violent goons.

“You’ll go home when I get my territs.”

There’s that word again. Territs. What are territs? Did I miss the class on territs in high school? I ask him what territs are, and why they’re so important.

He laughs as if I’m pulling his leg. “Says the person gambling ‘er life to protect ‘em.” Freddie’s overly confident grin is audible in his voice. There is no convincing him that he’s wrong in his assumption. Whatever these territs are, they must be
very
important—worth more than just their weight in gold—roughly five hundred dollars according to the No Hold Gold.

I fall onto my side as we turn a corner. Freddie doesn’t bother to warn me, nor does he bother to help me back up. Instead, he laughs some more. As we straight out, the ride is suddenly bumpy, as if we’ve turned onto an old dirt road.

I could tell him I sold the territs to the No Hold Gold. If they truly were that important to him, I’m sure he would find a way to get them back. He killed three armed gangsters with nothing but a pair of four-leaf clover boxer shorts—knocking over a little Filipino man would be child’s play. Sure, I could tell him, but then what would happen to me? He killed those three men with a grin on his face. As far as I know, he’s a serial killer, some crazed nut job.

“Just tell me where you hid the territs, and you’re free to go. We’ll even drive ya home, right Mel?”

“You betcha,” Mel chimes in.

If it was only so simple.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE CARAVAN

I’m awoken by an aggressive tug at my arm. “Ow!” I cry, sitting up, looking around. It takes a few seconds of blind panic before I remember being blindfolded. I reach up to pull the cloth away from my eyes, but someone else beats me to it. I wince pre-emptively, expecting the sunlight to burn through my retinas, but there is no blinding sunlight—no light at all.

Night has fallen. Even Ilium’s polluted glow is nowhere in sight. I can see the stars—a sign that we must be
very
far
from Ilium.

A black silhouette stands in the doorway, looking down at me, holding the blindfold in one hand. “Get out.” It takes a moment to place the voice, which belongs to Mel. “You okay?” He reaches a hand into the car for me to grab, which I accept.

“Where are we?” I ask, looking around. I’m in a field, God knows where. The air is dry; I can’t remember the last time the rain stopped. I spin around, trying to locate Ilium’s artificial glow—or any point of reference. One hundred yards away is a flickering orange light. Emanating from the flickering light is faint laughter, chatter, and music.

Mel steps behind me, ignoring my question. A cold burn squeezes my wrist. I try to pull my hands away but can’t. They’re stuck together behind my back. Mel grabs my arm, putting an end to my frantic flailing. “Calm down.” He slips a small key into his pocket—the key to the handcuffs that now hold my wrists. He leads me across the dark field. The tall grass brushes against my legs.

“You can’t just hold me prisoner,” I say. The sharp edges of the tight cuffs dig into my wrists.

Mel doesn’t respond. We’re headed towards the flickering orange light, which is obscured by a large black rectangle. The encompassing wooded horizon is obscured by a large black rectangles. Inside some of the rectangles are squares of light; others are all black. We walk up to one of the boxes, which turns out to be a trailer home, temporarily parked, still hitched to the back of a parked truck. Mel steps up a set of small steps and opens a door.

“We’ll be back in the morning, and we’ll see if you feel like talking,” he says.

Before I can say anything, I’m pushed into the trailer. The door slams as my knees smack down against the ground. The occasional burst of distant laughter penetrates the thin trailer walls. The inside of my mobile prison is black. Staggering to my feet, I move towards the door. “Hello?” I call out. I receive no response. “Is anyone out there?”

The air in the trailer is cold. A lap around the dark prison reveals nothing—no windows, no furniture, and no doors, save for the locked front door.

I’m not tired and I never fall asleep, despite trying for several hours. The only sign of the passage of time is the thin line under the door, which slowly ignites with coming of the morning light. I can’t count the number of times I’ve flip-flopped between my options: do I tell Freddie that I sold his coins, or do I keep lying? If I tell him, will he let me go, or will he kill me? If I lie, what do I say? How long can I hold up the ruse? And when will I get my chance to escape? That’s another option: I could escape. If I could find the highway, I could hitchhike to a new town, make up a new name, start a new life.

Finally, voices of men casually pass the trailer door. They laugh, but their conversation is unintelligible through the windowless trailer walls. I rush over and kick the door repeatedly with my foot.

Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Hey!” I call out. “Someone help! Let me out of here!”

The men’s voices continue to pass, fading into nothing as they ignore my calls. It’s another hour before anyone else passes—but everyone ignores me. Even a small group of women, who stop right outside of the door for a lengthy chat, ignore the banging and yelling.

I can no longer feel any sensation in my fingers, though I can very much feel the sharp pain from the tight handcuffs.

I do my best not to collapse to the ground and cry. If this is some kind of isolation torture, it’s working.

As if on cue, the door opens and blinding light floods my mobile prison. As I turn my head away to protect my eyes, a large man steps into the light and waits in silence.

He’s a big man, taller than Mel and thicker than Hannibal Hugo. He towers over the doorframe, wide enough to block almost all of the light from entering the trailer. His arms are as thick as my whole body.

It takes my eyes a whole minute to adjust. In that time, the towering man says nothing and remains as still as the door that preceded him.

“Don’t hurt me,” I finally say, breaking the silence.

“Freddie says you’re hidin’ somethin’ that b’longs to ‘em,” the man says. His voice is deep enough to pierce my body and rattle my bones.

“I told him: I don’t have his coins.” My voice is raspy and my throat is dry and broken from yelling all morning. I can’t remember the last time I drank any water.

“Freddie says y’know where they’re. Says y’ won’t say where.” It takes me a moment to understand his words through his thick, indistinguishable accent—like some bizarre combination of Irish, Yat, Minnesotan, Navaho, South African... Despite the colourful variety, his voice is entirely monotonous, totally void of emotion and his face is obscured in shadow, surrounded by a powerful halo of light.

“Ya goin’ t’tell me, now? Well then?”

The opening between the left side of the door and the giant’s legs might be wide enough to slip through, if I’m fast. I know I’m fast—the question is, am I agile enough, without the use of my arms.

“Miss?” the giant says, leaning over slightly, blocking my potential escape route.

“I just want to go home,” I say.

“Y’can’t. Not till y’tell us where the territs‘re.”

“If I tell you, you’ll kill me.” I take a step back.

“We won’t be killin’ ya. Just want t’know where the territs’re.”

“Yeah, right—and risk me going to the police and telling them that Freddie killed those people? Telling them you kidnapped me? You’re not going to let me go.”

“We won’t be killin’ ya. Just want t’know where the territs’re,” the lumbering giant repeats. “They belong t’ us. T’ Freddie. Those’re our territs. You’ll talk. E’ryone talks.”

The giant turns around to leave and I take my chances.

I sprint for the door and throw myself out from the trailer, landing face-first in the dirt.

“‘Ey!” the giant yells, but he’s too slow to react. Before he takes another step, I’m back on my feet, sprinting towards… I don’t know what I’m sprinting towards. All around me is light—and nothing else. I’m sprinting blind, my eyes taking their sweet time adjusting to the first light they’ve seen in nearly twenty-four hours.