by Stormy Glenn
At some point, my ability to communicate with the other members of the geek squad faded. I was pretty sure it was a combination of the drugs they were giving me and the shocks to my system. Or both. I just knew I couldn't call for help even if I was free.
My heart thundered in my chest, and I whimpered in fear when the door opened and the dark-haired guard walked in. I knew I didn't have the strength to get away. I could barely whimper. I was close to giving in to Atkins' demands. I didn't think I could take any more torture.
Surprisingly, there wasn't a mark on me.
I was shocked as shit when the guard unclasped the collar from around my neck then pulled the metal cage off my cock. I was so far gone, I couldn't even feign an interest in someone playing with my dick.
The guy wrapped a blanket around me then lifted me up in his arms. "It's time to get you out of here."
I whimpered, just knowing I was going to be given over to whoever had purchased me. I didn't want to spend the rest of my life as some pervert's slave. I'd fight it, which meant I'd be punished or killed.
I wasn't sure that was such a bad thing at this point.
"I know you're hurting, but don't make any noise."
What?
"If they hear us and catch us, we're both going to pay for it with our lives."
My eyes flickered to the dark-haired guard.
"I know you don't trust me, but just this once, I need you to." His face was so solemn, but he was right. I didn't trust him. I didn't know if this was another one of Atkins; tricks. "Atkins called the buyer this morning and he's on his way to get you. If we're lucky, I'm going to get you out of here before he arrives."
"Wh—" I swallowed hard, trying to bring some moisture to my parched throat. "Why do you care?" I rasped out.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
Probably not.
The guy opened the door and peeked out before carrying me out of the room. "You have to be really quiet."
Like I could be loud right now.
Hey look, I had enough energy to roll my eyes.
Yay me!
Chapter Eight
Things were kind of a blur after that. I'm pretty sure I faded in and out of consciousness because I remember looking up at a white ceiling, and then the next thing I knew, all I could see was the night sky and a sliver of the moon.
At one point, the night sky disappeared, and I saw the felt-like fabric of a car ceiling above me. There was a soft hum and the slightly jerky movements of a car driving down the road. I knew I was being taken somewhere. I just had no clue as to where.
I must have moved or made a sound because the guy who'd carried me out of hell glanced back at me from the front of the car. "Just hang on a little longer. We're almost there."
Almost where?
I almost didn't want to know. I had no idea what this guy's agenda was. He worked for Atkins. That right there made me not trust him. He had kidnapped me. That made me hate him. He had stood by and watched as I was tortured. That made me want to kill him.
I don't know how much time passed before we stopped. The guard climbed out of the car and quietly closed the door. His footsteps faded as he walked away. I struggled to sit up, determined to use this opportunity to get away or get help. I was good either way.
I just got my hand on the door handle when the back door opened and the guy climbed back into the car.
I wanted to cry.
The car moved again, but only briefly. This time, when the man climbed out of the car, he opened the back door and pulled me out.
"Why are you doing this?" My voice was raspy and barely more than a murmur. "Please, just let me go."
Yep, I had officially reached begging stage.
The man pressed his lips together instead of answering me.
Afraid of what was coming, I closed my eyes. I didn't want to watch as I was carried off to be tortured somewhere else or as I was delivered to whoever had bought me.
I just wanted to go home.
"Please, let me go home."
The man laid me down on a large bed then walked away. I followed him with my eyes until he disappeared out the door. He didn't close it, so I knew he'd be back. I used that time to look around as much as I could considering I could barely move my head.
I was in a motel room.
A cheap, bad seventies movie, hotel room. It wasn't even retro. It looked as if someone had eaten a bag of brown-toned Skittles and puked all over the place. Everything was faded and brown or tan or cream. It was just gross.
My eyes snapped to the doorway when the man walked back in. He set the brown grocery bag in his arms down on the small table by the window then reached inside and pulled out a bottle of water. He unscrewed the cap then brought the bottle over to me.
He sat down on the side of the bed then looped an around me and lifted me up far enough to drink the water. I wavered whether to drink it for about two seconds. My throat was as dry as the Sahara. I didn't care if it was drugged.
I drank until I couldn't drink anymore then pushed it away. "Thank you."
The man sighed as he screwed the cap back on then set the bottle on the nightstand. "I know you're not going to believe me, but I'm sorry this happened to you."
He was right. I didn't believe him.
"This Atkins guy, he's bad news."
I almost worked up the energy to snort.
"This motel room is paid for until tomorrow. That should give your friends time to come get you. I registered under an alias so no one should find you here if you don't tell them. Just be sure to be gone by tomorrow at noon or the motel manager might come asking questions." The man pointed to the bag he'd brought in. "There's some food and water in there along with your clothes."
I frowned, feeling more confused than I ever had been. "Why are you helping me?"
"After you call your friends to come get you, tell Danny to follow the money," he said instead of answering my question. "Atkins' entire world revolves around his money. If you can find a way to take that away from him, you can take him down."
What?
"You want us to take your boss down?"
"Oh yeah." The man chuckled, but it wasn't a happy sound. "Atkins destroyed my entire life. I'm going to see him destroyed if it's the last thing I do."
The man stood and started for the door.
"Wait!" I reached out a hand. "Who are you?"
The man paused in the doorway and glanced back at me. "Tell Danny I never disabled those cameras in his house. It was my former partner, Detective Curtis. He's on Atkins' payroll, so watch out for him."
And then he was gone, shutting the door behind him.
I scrambled for the phone on the nightstand. It took me more than a few minutes to actually roll over and reach for it. I definitely wasn't at full strength, but I wasn't about to shift until I knew this wasn't a trick. I wouldn't put it past Atkins to try something like this to find out where Danny was.
When I could finally grab the phone, I dialed Hank. There was no way in hell I was calling Danny's house.
Possible trap, remember?
"Hello?"
"Hank?" Oh my god, I was never so glad to hear someone's voice before. Tears sprang to my eyes and slid down my cheeks, which kind of surprised me. I didn't think I had any left. "Can you come get me?"
"Jesus! Kaito, where in the hell are you?"
Crap!
"Give me a minute." I set the phone down on the nightstand then pulled out the drawer. Just as I suspected, there was a phonebook and a pad of paper inside. I grabbed the pad of paper then picked up the phone. "Apple Tree Motel on Fifth Street."
"We're on our way. Just hang tight."
"Make sure Danny is safe, Hank. This is all about him."
"He's safe, Kaito. I promise."
"Is everyone else safe?"
"We're all good, Kaito. You're the only one missing."
"Even Santos?"
"Even Santos."
I rubbed at my eyes,
wiping the tears away. "Okay, get here as soon as you can. I don't know if we were followed or not. And be careful. This could be a trap."
I still couldn't be positive it wasn't.
I kept the phone gripped tightly in my hand as I stretched out on the bed and laid my head on the pillow. At this point, I didn't care if I got bed bugs or something. What little energy I'd had was waning quickly.
"How long have I been gone, Hank?"
"You don't know?" Pure incredibility filled his voice.
I frowned. "Things are a little…fuzzy."
"Five days, Kaito. You've been missing five days."
Strangely enough, I hadn't been gone as long as I thought I had.
"It felt like a million years."
It had been a million years, and I felt every second of them.
"They gave me some sort of drug, Hank. He called it tetrodotoxin."
"Isn't that made from puffer fish?"
"Yeah." I shuddered in remembrance. "It keeps you from being able to move, but it doesn't stop you from feeling anything." I had felt it all. "He wants Danny bad."
"Does he know about the rest of you?" Hank asked.
"He knows we're friends." I wasn't going to say more over an open line or in case there were recording devices in the room. If there were cameras in here, they wouldn't see anything except an exhausted man calling his friends to come get him.
"Ian wants to know why you stopped talking to him."
I smiled, but it was filled with sadness. "I couldn't. The things they did…I think something is wrong. I don't feel…normal." Whatever normal was for a shifter.
"You can't feel your cat?"
How to answer that?
"It's there, but I feel like I'm sleeping or walking through fog."
Hank whispered something too low for me to hear, but then he spoke louder, "Kaito, I'm having Ian call Santos and ask him if he knows what we can do, okay?"
"Thank you." I wasn't sure the jungle shaman could do anything, but I'd take any help I could get.
"What did they do to you, Kaito?"
My hand clenched as memories slammed down on me, rendering me speechless for a couple of minutes. "I don't want to talk about it," I finally whispered.
I doubted I ever would.
"Okay, Kaito."
I knew I needed to tell him something. I just wasn't ready to share what I'd been through. I might never be ready to share. It was the most horrible experience I'd ever been through. I was actually surprised I was alive.
"Let's just say that they were determined to find out where Danny was, and they weren't real happy when I told them I didn't know."
"Danny is safe. I promise."
Something welled up in my throat, stealing my ability to say anything. I closed my eyes when they filled with tears. I just wanted to go home where life wasn't insane, people didn't shift into ocelots, and psychos weren't out to torture me.
"Kaito, are you there?"
I swallowed a couple of times then angrily wiped at my eyes. "Yeah, I'm here."
"We're pulling into the motel now. What room are you in?"
"I don't know." As soon as those words were out of my mouth, I choked back a sob, dropped the phone, and curled up into a ball. The sobs I'd been holding back broke free and shook my entire body.
When someone touched my shoulder, I screamed and started hitting out at them. I wasn't going to allow them to put those things on me and shock me again. I wasn't. I'd rather die.
"Sshhh," someone said as they pulled me close and wrapped me up in their arms. "It's okay, baby. No one is going to hurt you. You're safe now."
I stopped fighting and listened to the voice murmuring to me. "Jack?"
"I've got you, Kaito."
For just a moment, I sank into Jack's embrace, soaking up the strength of the arms wrapped around me. The ache of misery and fear I'd been living in since the moment I was taken faded away. I felt safe for the first time since I stepped out of Ian's house.
And then I remembered that Jack wasn't gay and only wanted to fuck me as long as no one knew about it, and my misery was back with a vengeance.
I pushed away from Jack then scooted back out of reach. I ignored the frown Jack gave me and turned my attention to the others in the room. "Thank you for coming so quickly."
"Thank you? Thank you?" Ian snapped. "We've been worried sick about you. Where in the hell have you been?"
I smiled as I held my hand out to Ian. The man had dark circles under his puffy eyes and his skin was paler than normal. He'd obviously been worrying himself sick. Neither Hank or Jack looked any better.
"I was in hell of Atkins' making," I replied, "and I pray you never have to go there. That man is truly insane."
Once Ian took his hand, I pulled him down beside me and hugged him tight.
Ian laid his head on my shoulder and sniffled. "I was so worried when you stopped communicating with me. I never realized how much I'd come to rely on being able to talk to you like that until it was gone."
"It'll come back." I hoped. "I just need some rest."
I prayed I was telling Ian the truth. I wasn't so sure. My cat had been quiet for so long, it was almost like it had been before I'd drank the jungle juice. I didn't know I'd come to miss having that furry little thing living inside of me until it was gone.
"The guy who brought me here, he told me to tell Danny to follow the money. He said Atkins' entire world is wrapped up in his money, and if we take that away, Atkins will lose his power."
"Who brought you here, Kaito?" Hank asked.
"He didn't give me his name, but he did say that Officer Curtis was his former partner and we should watch out for him because he's on Atkins' payroll." I frowned as I tried to remember what else he'd said. "He mentioned something about cameras and said he wasn't the one who disabled them. Do you know what that means?"
"Unfortunately, I do." Hank's jaw clenched. "When Danny was attacked, someone disabled some of the cameras he'd put up. We think they were trying to keep Danny from catching them on surveillance video when they went back to attack him, but they didn't know about all of his cameras. They only disabled the ones they could find."
"Oh, well, this guy said his partner disabled the cameras."
"Officer Brody was put on administrative leave pending an investigation. I wasn't privy to the results of the investigation, but they gave him a choice. Resign or get fired. He resigned."
"He did say Atkins had destroyed his life."
"I'll believe that when I have proof. Until then, we treat anyone not one of us as hostile."
Yeah, I was pretty much already doing that. My trust in people hadn't been that good before I'd been taken. It was at an all-time low right now. I pretty much assumed anyone not a member of the geek squad, or related in some manner to the geek squad, was working for Atkins.
It was a sad way to be, but I had good reason for my apprehension.
"Can we go?" I wanted out of that small motel room. It felt almost claustrophobic, especially with Jack just standing there glaring at me with his arms crossed and a sour expression on his face. If I didn't know better, I'd swear the man was really worried…or constipated. I was going with constipated because I was absolutely positive he wasn't worried about me.
You had to care to be worried.
I kept the blanket wrapped firmly around me as Ian helped me off the bed. I had to hold on to him when it became quickly apparent I was unsteady on my feet. It was slow going out to the car, but once I was seated inside and we were under way, leaving that awful retro wannabe motel behind, I felt so much better.
I could breathe.
"He's not going to stop until he has Danny or he's dead," I said absently. "I don't think he knows about the rest of us, but if he finds out, none of us will be safe."
After seeing firsthand what Atkins was capable of, I wasn't sure any of us were safe now. He'd had no guilty feelings whatsoever about kidnapping and torturing me. I shuddered to think of what he would do wi
th Danny.
I glanced at Ian, who sat next to me. Hank was driving and Jack was in the front passenger seat. "You're sure Danny is safe?"
Ian smiled at me as he patted my hand. "He is, Kaito. I promise."
As much as I trusted Ian—and I trusted him with my life—I didn't think I'd actually believe Danny was safe until I saw him with my own eyes.
I leaned my head back against the back of the seat and took a deep breath. When I glanced forward, I saw Jack watching me from the front seat. I stared at him for a moment before turning my head to look out the window.
I didn't see a damn thing.
I wanted it to be Jack sitting back here offering me comfort and a shoulder to cry on. I knew that would never happen. He'd made his position more than clear, and I'd done the same. Jack didn't want me for more than a fuck, and I had to learn to live with that.
I really needed to go home.
Chapter Nine
I almost cried when we pulled into the driveway of Ian and Hank's house. I never thought I'd be so glad to see the place. It was just a bunch of walls and a roof, but damn, it looked good. The one next door to it looked even better.
I knew I needed to give serious consideration to whether I was going to buy the place from Ian and Hank or not. Things had changed.
I had changed.
I was no longer the man I'd been five days ago. My ability to trust was almost nonexistent as was my ability to believe in the future. I didn't want to think about what tomorrow might bring. I needed to concentrate on today…tonight. I needed to not be terrified someone would come for me to torture me.
I doubted I'd sleep. Besides the fact that I couldn't close my eyes without reliving the things Atkins had put me through, my fear of it happening again kept me on the edge, hyper vigilant. That shoe I was waiting to drop was as big as a bus.
I was a little more steady on my feet, but Ian still kept an arm around me as we climbed out of the vehicle and walked up the steps to his front door. Before I stepped inside, I cast a quick look up and down the street.
