Page 6 of Vicious Luna
Wolfsbane.
I’ve never been dosed with it before, but there’s no other explanation for my wolf’s sudden silence and my body’s inability to rapidly heal. With my inner wolf dormant, my shifter abilities are suppressed. I’m weaker, I’m not healing… I’m basically human, which puts me at a distinct disadvantage in this situation I’ve found myself in.
Glancing around the cell once more, it takes everything I have to stave off the panic attack I feel coming on in response to my surroundings. Confined spaces arenotmy jam. I’ve always had this irrational fear of being trapped, and now that I actually am…
Shit.
I squeeze my eyes shut, focusing on my breathing. I need to find a way out. If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that where there’s a will, there’s a way- and the only way to keep from panicking is to focus my mind on something else. Shoring up my resolve, I start to push myself up from the floor, every muscle screaming in protest and a groan slipping free in my struggle to get to my feet.
“Avery?” a deep voice calls out hesitantly.
“Tommy?!” I gasp, rushing to the bars at the front of my cell. I wrap my hands around the cold metal, trying to peer around them toward the sound of his voice. “What happened? Where are we?”
“I don’t know,” he replies defeatedly, his voice coming from my left. His hand comes into view through the bars of the neighboring cell, and I dart my own hand out as far as I can to reach for him, the tips of my fingers brushing against his.
Drawing a deep breath, I steady myself and snap into warrior mode. “It’s going to be okay,” I reassure him, even though it’s all false bravado. “We’re gonna get out of here. We just have to…”
My words are cut off when the harsh fluorescent lights overhead suddenly turn on, momentarily blinding me, followed by the sound of heavy boots thudding downstairs. I blink rapidly as my eyes struggle to adjust to the change of light, seeing four men dressed in black emerge from the stairwell and head straight for the cell beside mine.
“It’s a good day for revenge, isn’t it boys?” one of them announces gleefully as he brandishes a set of keys and starts to unlock the cell door.
“Who are you?” I demand, gripping the bars of my own cell tightly. “What do you want?”
None of them even spare me a glance, the door of the neighboring cell swinging open with a metallic groan and the four of them rushing inside. I hear the sounds of fists cracking against flesh, Tommy’s pained groans telling me exactly what they’re doing to him.
“Stop!” I scream, banging my palms against the thick steel bars until they’re rattling. “Leave him alone!”
My pleas fall on deaf ears. Tommy wails in pain as the men laugh and continue beating the crap out of him, and although I can’t see what’s happening, the sounds alone are enough to tip me over the edge and throw me into the full-fledged panic I was hoping to avoid.
“Stop it!” I cry out, gripping onto the bars and pressing my body tight against them, as if I can somehow slip through. “What the hell are you doing?!Stop!”
“Someone shut the bitch up,” a voice growls in annoyance, and a heartbeat later, one of the men dips back out of the cell next door, his knuckles coated in sticky red blood. He pulls a long black stick off his belt, and before I can even register what the hell it is, he touches the tip of it to the bars of my cell, electric current zapping through my body from every point of contact with the metal.
My breath whooshes from my lungs, muscles seizing as I collapse to the floor in a heap. An agonized whine leaves mythroat as I lie there twitching and convulsing, the current still echoing through me.
Another set of footsteps sounds from the stairs, followed by raised voices and the rattle of keys. My cell door swings open, boots clomping against the floor as someone approaches my trembling body.
He nudges the toe of his boot against my shoulder to roll me onto my back, then leans down over me, his soulless dark eyes locking on mine. Then he lifts my twitching arm and jabs a needle into my skin at the crook of my elbow.
A pained sound escapes my throat and his lips curl in a cruelly beautiful smile as he depresses the plunger, pain searing through my veins as the drug enters my bloodstream.
It hurts so much.
Then everything goes black.
5
For a supposedly superior species, werewolves sure go down easily when employing the right methods. Within seconds of pressing down the plunger of the syringe, the girl’s muscles stop twitching, her lashes fluttering a few times before her eyes fully close.
This drug works quick.
We call it liquid dark, or LD for short, and it’s a combination of a strong sedative with an extra hit of wolfsbane and colloidal silver to boot. A scientist within The Guild perfected the formula years ago, and it’s proven useful time and time again for snatch and grab jobs. Dave Miller- which I’m 99% sure is an alias- used to be employed by the federal government as a scientist, and you wouldn’t believe the shit he’s seen and the stories he has. According to him, werewolves are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what monsters the government is aware of and keeping its citizens in the dark about. We’re just lucky Dave found us so he could lend his skills to the cause.
In less than a minute, the drug fully takes effect, sending the female werewolf into a deep, dreamless sleep. I rise up from my crouch, standing over her at my full height and finallygetting a good look at the creature Bravo team brought in last night.
She’s…beautiful. Startlingly so. But if I’ve learned anything over the past decade, it’s that the most savage of beasts come in the prettiest packages. Her heart-shaped face looks almost angelic in her slumber, her features delicate and her thick dark lashes fanning out over her flushed cheeks. Her plump lips are a rosy shade of pink, parted gently with her shallow breathing, and her long blonde hair is pooled around her head like a halo.
Guess it’s not blue after all.Must’ve been a trick of the light in the video recording that Matty took.