“We call it the kennel,” one of the soldiers says.
“Looks good,” the cameraman says as he stares down at the phone. Then they lock the door and leave me alone.
“Let me out of here!” I whimper.
The soldiers ignore my plea, then turn and walk away.
“Lyric?” a voice crackles from the next cage.
I turn to my left and find a rag doll of a girl with dark rings around her eyes. Her skin is ashen and her lips chapped. Her fingers poke through the fence, eager for human contact.
“Do I know you?” I ask.
I kneel down so our faces are close, then nearly fall back when I recognize her.
“Bex!” I cry, “Where are they keeping you?”
She shrugs. “It’s a maze, and I can’t keep track of it. I’m in a cell by myself.”
“Me too.”
“This is the first time I’ve seen you here. We get an hour a day in the cages. I think it’s so they can clean our rooms,” Bex says. “Lyric, we all thought you were dead.”
“We?”
Bex gestures to the other cages. I peer into one and realize I’m looking at another familiar face. I don’t know his name, but I know he is married to a Sirena. I used to see him on the boardwalk when I was a kid. He liked flying kites. Yeah, I know him! In the next cage is another familiar face—Rochelle Lir! I call out to her, but she doesn’t respond. I ask her if she’s seen Terrance or Samuel, but she’s sleeping, I hope.
“Have you seen my mom and dad?”
“I’ve seen the Big Guy,” Bex whispers, as if talking saps her strength.
“He’s here?” I stand and study the cages for as far as I can see. I don’t see him, but they go on forever.
“Dad!”
A few people stir, but no one responds.
“Leonard Walker?” I shout.
There’s a long pause.
“Lyric?” the voice comes from the other side of the room and echoes off the ceiling. “Is that you, Lyric?”
“Dad?”
“Thank you, God!” he cheers.
“Mom?”
“They don’t keep the Alphas in here, honey,” he explains. “Are you okay?”
The man in the cage across from me hisses. “Keep it down—they’ll come back.”
I ignore him. “I’m banged up but all right. How are you?”
“I’m fine,” he says. I know he’s lying. The last time I saw him, we were dragging ourselves out of a car crash. He was hurt so bad, he couldn’t even walk. I’m sure he’s got a couple of broken ribs but he doesn’t want me to worry. “Keep quiet. It’s not safe to draw their attention.”
“Dad, what are we going to do?”
His pause haunts me.
“Lyric, I love you.”
“I love you!”
The next few moments hover with anticipation. One of us should shout that we have a plan and that the other shouldn’t worry because we will all be safe and together soon. We should be sharing hope with one another right now, but all we have to offer is silence and uncertainty.
I sit back down next to Bex, pushing myself against the fencing so that I am as close to her as possible.
“Bex, I’m—”
“I’m sorry, Lyric,” she says, then breaks into a coughing fit. “I’m sorry for what I did.”
“Don’t be stupid,” I say. “I was being an ass.”
“I was so afraid of losing you, I held you back. If I had kept my mouth shut, maybe we—”
“We never had a chance, Bex. Doyle orchestrated everything. We were always going to end up here. Now we need to concentrate on getting out. Have you seen Arcade?”
She shakes her head.
“They keep saying I’m important. They want something from me,” I explain.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know, but if it gets us out of here, they can have it.”
“Don’t trust them,” she begs. “They’re all liars.”
I’m not always in a cage next to Bex. Sometimes I’m next to someone completely new, like Jacques, who hasn’t seen his son, Pierre, or his Sirena wife, Anna, in a year and a half. Sadie is a pale-skinned lady who was probably very pretty before they captured her. She tells me she’s thirty-two, but she looks closer to sixty. She hasn’t seen her husband, Mark, or her daughter, Breanne, in almost three years. Bruce is forty, and he and his wife, Raina, were friends with my mother. He hasn’t seen his wife or his three girls, Alexa, Dallas, and Priscilla, in a long while. He’s lost track of time since they locked him up. Robin was a schoolteacher who didn’t even know his wife, Beth, was an Alpha. He’s bitter about the deception and resentful that he doesn’t have a picture of his daughters, Tess, Emma, and Jane.
And then there are the ones teetering on the edge of mental illness, who can’t trust anyone or anything. They watch me, suspicious of my every move. They accuse me of being a spy.
“I don’t want to talk to you about what I’ve seen,” Kirsten whispers angrily. “You can’t fool me, Lyric. I know you tell them every word.”
“I’m not telling anyone anything. You have to trust me. We need to work together to get out of here,” I say. “You might know something that can help.”
Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)
Michael Buckley's books
- Undertow
- The Sisters Grimm (Book Eight: The Inside Story)
- The Problem Child (The Sisters Grimm, Book 3)
- The Fairy-Tale Detectives (The Sisters Grimm, Book 1)
- Sisters Grimm 05 Magic and Other Misdemeanors
- Once Upon a Crime (The Sisters Grimm, Book 4)
- The Unusual Suspects (The Sisters Grimm, Book 2)
- The Council of Mirrors