I nodded. I supposed it made sense. Expending that much energy on shifting every muscle, bone and fiber in your body would put anyone in need of a little nap.
"Did he hurt you?"
My body tensed for the answer. There wasn't much I could do right now if he had. It would have been better to leave such things until after we'd escaped, but I had to know.
She shook her head. "No, he's mostly stayed away except when he brought you in."
My muscles relaxed as I counted one piece of good news in this. It occurred to me she might be lying, but if she was, it was something we would have to deal with once we were safe.
Caroline slid me a sidelong look through the bars of her cage. "Sorry about the shoulder and leg, by the way."
I nodded again. There really wasn't much to say to that. She'd almost killed me—but she hadn't. I don't think harming me had been her intent either. Unfortunately, apologies weren't a one-size-fit-all band aid. Even if I could accept it, I doubted Brax or the vampires would.
"I did try to turn you into the wolves," I said.
She laughed, the sound closer to the real thing. "Yeah, you did. Did you really think I killed those people?"
I grimaced. It was all I could manage hanging from the ceiling, my hands numb and my shoulders protesting their abuse. "They had very convincing evidence. Your scent. The demon taint on the bodies. Then there was the fact you almost killed me."
"Still."
"Yeah," I said in a soft voice. "Still."
We were silent for a long moment, giving me time to look around. I revised my earlier opinion of the space. This was definitely a shack or maybe a shed. Not that I knew the difference between the two. It had been stripped of anything that could be used as a weapon or tool to escape. Smart. Doubly smart when you considered the likelihood of either of us getting free of our bonds.
The shack smelled musty and damp, and the faint sound of furtive movements convinced me we had company of the rodent variety. A cat would take care of that. I craned my head back, looking up at the wooden beams above me, noticing the holes in the ceiling that let in the first rays of the morning sun.
Great. I was strung up in what looked like a serial killer’s hideout, and the sun was coming up. Just what I needed.
I twisted my hands, trying to pull them loose or at least ease the strain in my arms. No such luck. Worse, I was pretty sure the stinging in my wrists was from silver, making my predicament that much more painful.
"Can you break your cage?" I asked, trying to distract myself from the discomfort.
"I tried already," Caroline said from where she huddled in the corner of it, careful not to let any more of her skin than necessary brush against the wires. "This thing is silver; even attacking it in my werewolf form didn’t do anything."
I looked over at her, noticing the way she was crouched and the barely veiled pain in her eyes. "All of it?"
Caroline's grim look was all the answer I needed. If the bottom was silver as well, it meant her naked skin was lying unprotected against what was essentially poison to both of our kinds.
"Shit." I yanked hard on my arms, growling when my shoulders screamed in protest before giving up for the moment.
"Such a way with words," Caroline said in a dry voice. She made a soft sound of pain as she shifted, and a new patch of skin came into contact with the silver.
"We're going to get out of this," I said, trying to project conviction in my voice.
"Are you trying to convince me or yourself?" she asked.
"This isn't the first time I've been locked up awaiting death," I said.
"Oh? And how did you get out last time?"
I grimaced. "I didn't really. That came later."
She aimed a dour look my way. "Not helpful, Aileen."
I gave her a jaunty smile, or as jaunty as I could manage in these circumstances. I didn't want to be a downer, but our situation was not good. Even for me.
To my othersight, my chains as well as Caroline's cage had a slight aura to them—one that made me think it was more than silver keeping us here. Talk about overkill. Silver by itself would have been more than enough to keep both of us put. Some type of spell on top of that? Our odds just kept getting worse and worse.
Still, I couldn't let her give up hope. I’d been in bad situations before, and I knew that you had to stay in the right frame of mind. You never knew when the slimmest of chances to escape might come along. You had to be ready to take advantage, and that meant keeping your wits about you and staying determined.
"I thought the military trained you guys for situations like this," she said with a baleful look.
"They mostly teach how to evade capture, or techniques to hold up under interrogation. Either way, I never went to the SERE course so I'm fresh out of ideas." SERE stood for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape. It was the course the military sent its badasses to and involved a no-holds-barred training regimen designed to prepare soldiers for the possibility of capture. The program was pretty brutal from what I'd heard, so I'd never volunteered to attend. There were just some things in life I never wanted to survive. That was one of them. "Somehow, I don't think name, rank and social security number is going to help us right now."
That got me a sound of grim amusement from Caroline. It felt like a win, even as worry grew inside at her state. She was pale and sweat gleamed on her forehead as the ball she'd huddled into tightened.
"Do you know why they're doing this?" I asked.
She opened her eyes and looked at me. "No, but I know they've been planning this for a long time. They're the descendants you asked me to track down."
"I figured that part out," I said. "I mean, they should be on our side. Not working to kill us."
She shrugged. "You know as much as I do."
There was a creak as the door in front of me opened and the dim rays of the morning sun filtered through. I blinked against the bright light, feeling that familiar lassitude invade my limbs. Thanks to the blood bath Liam had forced on me, I wasn't in any danger of falling asleep. Yet.
A familiar face peered in disgust at me from the door. Lisa looked pissed to see me awake and hanging from the ceiling. "You've got to be fucking kidding me," she spat.
She stalked into the shack, her gaze going from me to Caroline. A growl came from Caroline's cage and my friend was suddenly crouched, her body poised to spring at Lisa.
"Shut it, kujo," Lisa snarled.
"My, my, I had no idea you were so involved in this," I said, turning her attention to me. That was a lie. An inkling had begun forming when I’d seen her photo on Theo's wall. There were also the bodies in the alley. Theo was human. There was no way he could have done that to Catherine and the other. That left Lisa. I suppose it was possible there was another werewolf involved in this, but I doubted it. Often the simplest explanation fit.
Her glare turned my way, and she paced closer to me. "You have no idea what you're talking about."
"What is Brax going to do when he realizes your role in all this?" I asked.