The House (42 page)

The sound of
screaming returned as the door went up. I was amazed that the girl
had any throat left. It definitely sounded like they were torturing
her. Then I put it together. Talon had been talking about changing
people, runaways. She had to be one of them.

I’d never
changed anyone and, since I was true-born, I’d never been changed.
I’d spoken to people who had been though. Anyone who remembered it
remembered it as the most painful experience of their lives. I’d
heard one woman describe it as ten times worse than childbirth. The
pain didn’t let up as you changed. Of course, it affected everyone
differently. Hercules said that it had only hurt for an hour. I
assumed that it had to do with his healing, maybe that had been one
of the first things to change.

I knew that
the pain was worse if you were weak, or female, or not yet
fully-grown. There was more than one reason it’s against every rule
we have to change a young person. The chances of surviving the
change weren’t all that good to begin with. I didn’t want to
contemplate what she was going through if she was as young as I
thought she was.

The screaming
was cut off once they closed the door again. Eddie was sprawled
across the floor and the vampyre and Talon seemed to go back to
ignoring us all. It was almost like once you were in a cell you
didn’t exist for them. I was hoping we could use that for our
advantage but right then I didn’t have time to consider it, I had
to deal with Eddie.

I crawled over
to him very strangely because of my knee and just about managed it
without injuring myself further. I sat next to him, which was
awkward but I couldn’t kneel. I found a pulse at his neck, but I
couldn’t tell if he was breathing from where I sat. I should have
been able to hear the sound of the air moving. For that matter, if
I really concentrated I could have heard his heartbeat.

I put my cheek
next to his mouth and waited. Except that I didn’t feel the
telltale tickle of his breath; he wasn’t breathing.

I sealed my
mouth over his and pinched his nose. I put my breath into his body
and hoped that it would be enough. His chest rose, so it wasn’t
irrevocably damaged but I would have to breathe for him until he
healed enough to do it on his own. I was hoping that he would start
with that soon. He had a heartbeat so he was alive. If he didn’t
heal he was probably braindead and that would be bad. I took
comfort from his still beating heart; if it was a brain problem
surely his heart would have stopped.

I wanted to
know how Talon had hit him hard enough to do so much damage. I got
the impression that Eddie had a hard head. I also wanted to know
how he had the strength to hold me against my will. As far as I
knew he wasn’t a true-born so he shouldn’t have been stronger than
me. But I didn’t have time to ponder it; I had to keep breathing
into Eddie until he could make it on his own.

I knew enough
to know that without enough oxygen his brain was toast. I wished
I’d paid more attention to my first-aid classes at school. I hadn’t
thought I’d ever need them at the time. I was a shifter; that meant
that I shouldn’t ever have need of it. I was starting to see that
maybe I had been wrong. I was still hoping that I wasn’t going to
lead a life that required a lot of first-aid but I vowed to renew
my knowledge if I ever got out of that room.

I lost count
of the number of breaths I gave Eddie before he managed on his own.
I sagged back to the floor when he took that first solo breath. My
side hurt from the odd angle I had been leaning over him and my
knee was throbbing. I’d been breathing too deeply for too long and
I felt dizzy. It was not a good time for me to feel faint and I
fought to stay conscious myself. There was no guarantee that Eddie
would keep it going on his own.

I edged my way
to the clear wall for a better look at what was going on and left
Eddie lying in the middle of the cell. It wasn’t really big enough
to leave him there and have enough room to move around pain-free on
the floor, but I managed. I leaned against the clear wall for
support. A part of me wondered what it was made of; it wasn’t
anything I had ever come across before.

There were a
few people milling around in the main room. Again I found it odd
that none of them were paying any attention to those of us in the
cells. I wondered what would have happened if Eddie hadn’t revived.
Would they have left me breathing for him or would they have
brought help. I thought I knew the answer to that and I didn’t like
it. It wasn’t Eddie’s fault he’d come here. It certainly wasn’t his
fault that his parent was an asshole. I had to work very hard to
make myself keep thinking that. It was all too easy to blame Eddie
for not warning us.

They had
cleared up after our little fight. The vampyre who’d been smashed
against the clear wall had been taken away somewhere while I was
helping Eddie. The blood was being cleaned off the wall, but I
couldn’t see much, it wasn’t a good angle for me. I saw the vampyre
I’d thrown into the wall up and about. It hurt my pride a little to
see that he had recovered so quickly.

I couldn’t see
the wall but I doubted they would have repaired that yet. It would
take a while; they would probably have to rebuild the whole thing.
I wondered if they would make it stronger this time around. I
thought not after seeing the differences between the vampyre who’d
hit the normal wall and the one who’d hit the clear wall. It did
however give me an idea.

I moved away
from the clear wall, there was nothing useful for me there. I
dragged myself, still seated, to one of the other walls. It joined
my cell to the next one. I wondered if they had reinforced these
walls as much as the one to the main room. If I was very lucky they
would have overlooked it. I wasn’t expecting it to fall apart under
my fingers but at least it shouldn’t smash me to pieces to break
it.

I tapped the
wall, gently at first and then harder. It felt like a normal wall.
I didn’t have any illusions that it was really that weak but it at
least wasn’t similar to the clear wall. I tapped up and down the
wall as far as I could reach without standing up. I wasn’t going to
risk my knee again. It was actually starting to feel better but I
was all too aware how easily that could change.

There was a
different quality to the wall every so often. I figured that they
had struts in the wall to reinforce it and looking at the building
it was probably steel. If the rooms had always been here then they
would be reinforced with steel to protect the products inside. I
assumed that it was possible to rent each secure room individually
for storage. A lot of the warehouses had gone that way when they
shut down trade. There had been some interesting things stored in
some of the warehouses.

I went all the
way around the cell like that. The back wall seemed very solid;
there was probably more sheet reinforcing behind it. If it was an
outer wall there would be even more. I wondered if Talon had put in
the reinforcements or if they had actually already been there. If
it had been dealers who’d made them, or pimps or traffickers. Well,
there was easy access to the back alleys.

It didn’t
really make a difference if Talon had put in the changes himself,
except that some of the criminal underworld tended put in some
really nasty surprises. I’d heard of traffickers electrifying walls
and hiding explosives so that if you tried to break out you got
blown up. I was starting to hope that it had been exaggerations on
the media’s part. I had to stop coming up with ever more terrifying
scenarios.

Just as I got
all the way around the normal walls I heard Eddie stir. He was
going to have one hell of a headache when he woke up properly. At
that point I just wanted to make sure that there was no permanent
damage. I had to drag myself back over to him, still sat down. I
wasn’t going to put weight on my knee until I absolutely had to.
Even crawling hurt.

“Eddie, can
you hear me?” I bent down next to his face so that he couldn’t miss
me. I was lucky that he didn’t sit up suddenly or he wouldn’t have
been the only one with a headache. He moaned and opened his eyes a
fraction but nothing else. “Eddie, wake up. Are you alright?” I
tapped his cheek. “Eddie.”

“What?” he
groaned. “What happened?”

“Talon hit you
so hard you passed out. You stopped breathing and I had to do CPR,”
I told him. I was hoping his knock on the head hadn’t made him
forget where we were and everything else that had happened. I
didn’t think I had it in me to explain it all. I felt like I’d led
him here to this; I felt very responsible for him all of a
sudden.

“How did Talon
hit me hard enough to knock me out?” he asked. He started to sit up
but he couldn’t seem to manage on his own. I went to help him. He
thanked me with a glance and started to rub his head where it had
hit the floor.

“I don’t know
Eddie. There is something very wrong here.” I let him hold himself
up and I sat back.

“You can say
that again. Changing kids. Even I didn’t think he was that
crazy.”

“How crazy did
you think he actually was?” I asked. I’d got the impression that
Talon was nasty from what Eddie said. I’d not considered that he
might be insane. It would change the rules.

“I’d always
got the feeling that there was something wrong with him but not
like this. This is just…” He seemed lost. I had to remember that
Talon was Eddie’s parent. He had spent a long time with Talon as
the only person he could talk to about being a shifter. There was a
reason we called the one who changes you your parent.

“He’s done
enough to earn himself a bad death at the Covenant. If we ever get
out of here long enough to tell them.” I looked back out into the
main room. It was like looking out into a different world. I
sighed. I’d never thought anyone would be stupid enough to earn
their death sentence from the Covenant. Then again I’d seen too
many of them carried out. They didn’t have the same human rights
laws as the rest of the country.

“Yeah, but he
doesn’t seem too worried about it. The Covenant didn’t seem too
worried about shifters going missing.” Eddie followed my gaze out
to the main room. “They can’t hear us can they?”

“I don’t think
so. We certainly can’t hear them. They don’t seem to be paying any
attention to us at all.” I just kept staring out the clear window.
In a way it was good that they weren’t paying us any mind. We could
do anything and they wouldn’t care, but it would drive a person
insane if they were in this long enough.

“Why did they
put us in together?” he asked. He stopped looking out to the main
room. There was nothing actually going on there.

“I think they
ran out of cells. They put Hercules in with someone else but I
couldn’t tell who it was. There are more people being held here
than we knew were missing.” I looked at Eddie. He looked as worried
as I felt. I was glad that at least he wasn’t involved. I’d gotten
quite attached to him. I didn’t want him to be the bad guy.

“You could
hear my conversation with him by reading my mind couldn’t you?”
Eddie was changing the subject and I was going to let him. I didn’t
want to think about Talon and what he’d done. It was too insane for
words.

“Yes.”

“Did you know
you could do that?”

“No.” I spoke
very carefully. I wasn’t sure I liked where this conversation was
going either but it was too late to change it back.

“You spoke to
me,” he said. There was an accusation in his voice that I didn’t
like. I hadn’t realised I could do it and the feeling wasn’t
entirely comfortable.

“I said I
didn’t know that I could do that.” I sounded sulky.

“Could you do
it again?” Eddie asked. He didn’t look accusatory any more, he
looked hopeful.

“I don’t
know...probably.” I looked at my lap. I didn’t really want to do it
again. I wanted to avoid doing anything with my telepathy. It was
dangerous. Then again, I was starting to think that it also might
just be our ticket out of here.

“Could you
contact the others? Find out if we can do anything? We can’t do
anything on our own and I don’t plan to put myself at Talon’s
mercy. Not if he’s finally lost it completely.”

“Eddie, it’s
dangerous...” I started and, yes, it was dangerous. It would be all
too easy to fall into someone else’s mind and I didn’t have Jalas
here to put me right again this time. Yet, what else could I do? It
was like my decision to run off and ‘rescue’ my friends. It was
dangerous and stupid and I had no other choice. I couldn’t have sat
at home and done nothing, just as I could not sit in my cell and
wait to be rescued.

I realised
that I still expected to be rescued. I still expected my
grandfather to come riding in and sweep me out from danger. As much
as I railed against him, whenever I was in a tough spot it was his
face I saw to help me. He had rescued me from my parents’ house as
it was burning around us. He had always rescued me, even when I
resented it. Now I was beyond his help. He was at the Covenant and
they wanted me dead. They weren’t going to send a rescue party.

I felt tears building in my eyes at the knowledge. Everyone
else had
known
;
everyone else had realised that we were essentially on a suicide
mission. I was the only one expecting to be rescued, the only one
still thinking like a child. I couldn’t afford that any more. I
would have to start saving myself because I had others to save. I
wasn’t the damsel in distress anymore; I was the prince on the
white steed. I had to be, nobody else could do it.

I nodded at
Eddie. He didn’t need any other answer. He could see the tears
swimming in my eyes. I could see the worry in his. His eyes were
amazing, all green and blue and brown at once. I stared into those
beautiful eyes and prepared myself. I had to steel myself against
someone else’s mind.