Page 6 of Bad Blood

I’d been licking up the smallest bits of water that slid down from a crack in the ceiling since my muzzle was short enough for me to reach with my tongue, but it wasn’t anywhere near sufficient, and a painful dryness had cracked my lips and made it feel like tiny pieces of glass were stuck inside my throat.

The smell in here was becoming unbearable, but there was no escaping it. Feces and urine and a rotting body that would’ve been cleared out by now, had Hunter and Hayes been here.

And then there was Five, snarling in his cage and beginning to rot from the inside.

“Where are they?” Two whispered. “They’ve never left us alone this long. What if they died? And we’re just stuck in here? I’m so fucking thirsty.”

I was thirsty, too. Thirsty and hungry with no way to change that.

My vision had become a little fuzzy and my thoughts were moving slower. Sometimes I’d wake up and not realize I wasn’t dreaming anymore.

I could be dreaming right now. I wasn’t sure.

Was this what dying was?

A sizable part of me wanted to give in to this feeling, to let it envelop me in its hazy oblivion and take me away.

Maybe then I’d know something good. Maybe I’d wake up in a better place. A different world.

Would Seven be there?

But I didn’t deserve to be free, did I? There was a reason I’d been kept in a cage for years. There was a reason I was the only hound here wearing a muzzle.

And still, I couldn’t help dreaming of being out there. My dreams were a patchwork of stories and conversations I’d heard over the years; things I’d never seen or done before. Things I didn’t understand butwantedto.

I wanted to know what the rest of the world looked like. I wanted to know if there really was a great body of water that was as endless as it was deep. I wanted to see it for myself.

“Three,” Two hissed.

A chain rattled to my right.

“Three. Stop ignoring me, I know you can hear me.” Metal on metal rang out sharply between us. He’d thrown his chain at the bars that divided our cells.

“Mm.” My throat was so dry that forming words felt like they might tear into me.

“Why were you?—”

I startled when the heavy metal door at the end of the corridor banged open and Hunter strode in, immediately turning to the first cell on his left. There was a few days’ growth of hair on his face, and…

Blood.

He was covered in blood.

“Everybody stand up!” Metal clinked as he unlocked the cage.

Hayes came through the door a moment later, dragging a long set of chains behind him. He, too, was covered in blood.

“Stand up!” Hunter shouted.

My heart raced.

They were back. They hadn’t abandoned us, they were here, and now would they finally feed us?

I shuffled closer to the bars at the front of my cell, trying to peer down the long corridor.

Was Hunter unlocking Four’s cell? Why? What were those chains for?

I gripped the bars and stood on shaky legs.