Head Hunter (City Shifters the Pack #3) - Layla Nash Page 0,81
with blood.
Silas howled next to him, and Dodge ran faster despite the constant throb of pain in his chest and legs. He hunted.
Chapter 34
Percy
I kept passing out. Geordie complained about it more than once, since it apparently took them a while – and a lot of cold water – to wake me back up.
Everything hurt. Breathing hurt. Blinking hurt. Just existing hurt, until I almost wished they would just get it over with and kill me, chop me up, and feed me to the tiger. Any hope of being rescued and surviving the night faded as my blood dripped away and stained the floor red and black. There were no more tears. No clear thoughts or plans for escape. Nothing but emptiness as I waited for it to end.
The black-eyed man took his job seriously. He stopped asking questions after a while and just made me talk. I told them everything. Probably more than they wanted to know. I blabbed every secret I knew, every awful thing I’d done, every word of every conversation I could remember and some I just plain made up.
None of it helped.
When I couldn’t even hold my head up and dipped in and out of consciousness, Geordie cut the plastic ties that kept me in the chair. I slumped but for a moment, hope blazed up that I could run or somehow escape. I even tried to stand as Geordie made a face and retrieved gloves after my blood coated his hands. I fell forward onto the floor, trying to crawl away.
They laughed.
Geordie crouched next to me as I kept trying to make it to the door. In my mind, getting through that door solved all of my problems. It meant life and freedom and survival. I pictured Dodge waiting for me in the hall, ready to take me home to his room in Deirdre’s house. Even when things were the worst and I took refuge in the darkness of unconsciousness, I thought I heard Dodge. Thought I saw him. I tried to remember everything about him. He was brave. I could try to be brave. I just had to face the closest alligator to the boat first.
Geordie scraped the hair out of my face as I lost what remained of my strength and collapsed on the floor. He leaned closer to murmur, “I’m going to enjoy this. We haven’t fed that fucking tiger in days, since the last time you interrupted our work. He’s so hungry, the moment he catches a whiff of all this blood, he’ll do the rest of the job for us.”
I shook my head and whimpered as they picked me up and dragged me out of the kitchen and across to the tiger enclosure. I imagined I could hear Dodge’s voice in my ear, telling me to be strong and keep fighting. That he was coming for me, would rescue me. That we would be together forever and everything would be wonderful.
It felt crueler than most of the things the black-eyed man did to me with his hammer and scalpels and cigarette lighters.
“Such a tragic accident this will be,” Geordie said, almost chortling with glee. “Stupid girl wants to pet the tiger and goes into the enclosure. Hungry tiger does what hungry tigers do. Someone will find what’s left of you tomorrow morning. Problem solved.”
“I hate you,” I whispered. I thought of Deirdre and the pack, of all the shifters who seemed to want to protect me, and managed to wheeze a laugh. “You’re so fucked and you don’t even know it. You can kill me but you’re already a dead man.”
His eyes narrowed as they opened the steel gated door to the main enclosure. The tiger paced inside the smaller shelter where they usually kept him at night, chuffing as he scented the air. Geordie and the other man hauled me into the enclosure and all the way to the other side, dropping me near a large rock that the tiger liked to sprawl on in the sun. “What are you talking about?”
“You’ll find out. They won’t even knock on your door.” The faintest hint of curiosity in his eyes meant I’d gotten his attention. Maybe it would buy me some time. Someone had to be looking for me. They had to be. They probably wouldn’t get there in time to save my life, but at least Geordie and his friend would die slowly in the jaws of a wolf or a lion or maybe they’d be crushed by