Page 21 of Pack Kasen, Part 1 (Caught #1)

20

KAT

“ D addy!”

I bang on the door.

Muffled voices are far away.

“… thousand?”

“Daddy!” I yell louder. Maybe he can’t hear me.

Silence.

A man says a bad word.

“… real werewolf.”

That word again.

I roll it around my tongue. Werewolf. Don’t know what it means, but maybe it’s another bad word.

“Dad!” I yell. “Daddy. I ? —”

“ Shut up !”

I recoil from the violence in his voice.

My eyes are big as I scramble away from the door, sprint so fast down the stairs that I fall down the last few of them, grazing my knees. I don’t even feel the pain. I get to my feet and snatch up a filthy blanket as I run to huddle in the corner.

My eyes well with tears.

What did I do wrong?

I wish I could undo it. I wish and I wish, but if I don’t know what I did, how can I fix it?

Mommy said wishes come true if you wish and wish for it. Hers did.

Why don’t mine?

Footsteps move toward me.

I squeeze my arms around my knees, hoping it’s not the same men as before. The ones with hungry stares who pinched my arm and poked my belly. They peeled my lips away from my teeth as they stared, then sighed as if disappointed.

I hold my breath when I hear that sound from before. The one I only heard before from cowboy TV shows.

I’m breathing fast, so scared, and I don’t know why.

The door swings open and a wolf howls.

It howls and howls.

I wrench myself upright, breathing hard, confused when my arm won’t move and there’s an unfamiliar man with gray hair in black sweatpants standing at a window, looking out.

I take in my new surroundings.

Nothing in this room is familiar. Not the man, the large wooden table, or the two empty beds with pale green sheets identical to the one I’m lying in. Nothing.

But the broken chain tying me to the metal frame of my bed is familiar.

That jackass Wolf King wrapped it around my throat and used it to drag me around his home on a mission to show me civilization, whatever that was supposed to mean.

As always, my dreams leave me confused, afraid, and lost, the way they always do. The man at the window turns to face me as I struggle to reorient myself in the here and now, hoping the remnants of that hated dream will fade fast so I don’t have to be that afraid again.

“You were whimpering,” the man says with an unreadable look on his face.

“Where am I?” I wince as the jagged pain in my throat makes each word hurt. I massage it with my left arm, the one not currently attached to the bedframe.

“Your throat is still healing, so it’ll be a little while before it stops hurting. I’m Gregor, the pack healer.”

“How long until it heals?” I ask, my voice raspy and hoarse.

He scratches his short, salt-and-pepper beard. “Not as fast as you would without that chain, but there isn’t anything I can do about that.”

I look at the chain and I remember how it felt before.

Something in the metal makes it impossible to be a wolf.

I jump at another wolf howl coming from nowhere near far enough away.

The man—Gregor—sighs as he glances outside the window. “Aren is clearly in a bad mood today.” Pulling his hands from his pockets, he wanders over to the room’s corner, picking up an empty glass from an exposed wood shelf and filling it with water from a jug.

“And is that a usual occurrence?”

“He’s quick to anger, but it’s not usual for him to stay angry for long.” He walks over to me and offers me the glass. “Here. Should help your throat.”

I hesitate.

The contents of the glass look like water, but I feel vulnerable and scared.

It’s just the dream. It will loosen its hold on you soon.

I take the glass and lean against the headboard before I lift it to my lips.

It’s like someone added shards of glass and razor blades to it. Each swallow makes me wince, but the water at least is cold, and the coolness helps my burning throat.

“Do you remember what happened?” he asks me.

I do.

I knew I should’ve expected trouble from the woman who made it clear I was in the way and she wanted to get rid of me. My mistake was not keeping my eyes firmly on her like I should have.

Before I can answer, a knock sounds on the door, and a woman with short red hair sticks her head in. “Gregor. Do you have a minute?”

Her eyes bounce from me to Gregor.

“Is it bleeding again?” he asks.

The woman nods.

Gregor gives me a long look, then walks over to the woman, pausing at the door to twist and face me. “Rest. And if I were you, I would not attempt to escape. Enforcers are watching the bunkhouse. You wouldn’t make it far. I won’t be long.”

He walks out.

I listen to the sound of his footsteps. When I can no longer hear them, I shuffle to the side of the bed and turn my attention to the chain tying me to it.

I don’t know if I’m that weak or the silver chain is that strong, but no amount of struggling with it breaks it.

The door suddenly swings open, scaring the shit out of me.

I come face to face with the same little boy from the house who looks as guilty as I feel. He’s wearing gray sweatpants and a black T-shirt with a yellow truck on the front, and holding a large floppy lion in happy shades of yellow and red.

“Oh. I didn’t know anyone was here.”

“Uh, yeah. Well, there is.”

I don’t know how to talk to kids. Given this is the first time I’m talking to one, that must be why. Did they send a child in to keep watch over me?

I glare at the door. So much for the Wolf King’s talk of being civilized if he would send a kid in to someone they view as so dangerous they need to be locked up.

He walks over to the wall, letting the door swing shut as he sits down near the window on the other side of my bed, and starts playing with the lion. “I’m not s'posed to be here.”

I give up on my escape plans for now, at least until I can convince this kid to leave. My throat is still sore, and I’d rather not talk until it doesn’t hurt so much, but an opportunity just opened up to me. Here is a little boy in a room where he shouldn’t be and who seems friendly. Is it wrong to get information out of a friendly kid? Probably.

“Then why are you?”

He grins at me. “Cause it’s the best hiding place.”

“You were playing hide and seek at the house?”

He nods.

I watch him play for a second. “What’s your name?”

“Leo. I’m seven years old.”

“I’m Kat. Uh, I’m twenty-two.” As he continues playing with his friendly looking lion, my eyes drift to it. “What’s your lion’s name?”

“Rupert.”

I bite the inside of my cheek to hide my smile. “ Rupert? ”

Rupert the Lion. Right.

He looks at me, big blue eyes confused. “Yeah, why?”

I shake my head. “Nothing. Aren’t you going to get into trouble for being in here?”

“Only if you tell my mommy.”

“What makes you think I won’t?”

“You didn’t tell her in the big house and I won hide and seek.”

“But this isn’t the big house, and I’m sure your mom won’t be happy to find you in here with me.”

“She said you were dangerfus.”

I smile. “Dangerous,” I correct him, as I ask myself why I’m not busy escaping. But I’m learning that talking to kids, or at least this one, is kind of fun.

He glares at me. “That’s what I said.”

“And your dad? Does he have a problem with you being here?”

He shrugs. “He left.”

“Where’d he go?”

The door swings open without warning and we both jump.

Gregor fills the doorway.

He doesn’t say a word. He just looks at Leo and points to the hallway.

Leo gets up with a resigned sigh. “I guess I’m in trouble, huh?”

“Yes, you are,” Gregor says.

“It was Rupert’s fault. He thought hiding in here was a good idea.” His innocent expression might have convinced me if I didn’t know he was full of it.

Amusement fills Gregor’s eyes as he ruffles Leo’s hair. “I don’t think your mom is going to buy that this time.”

Leo pads out, dragging his lion along. That thing must be filthy if he’s always in the habit of doing that.

Just outside the doorway, he twists to face me. “Bye, Kat.”

I lift my hand in a wave, enjoying our brief conversation more than I thought I would. “Bye, Leo. Hope Rupert doesn’t get into too much trouble.”

“It won’t be Rupert who gets in trouble,” he mutters, then brightens as he looks at me. “But you could?—”

Gregor nudges him the rest of the way out when he lingers in the doorway. “Nope. No one is taking the fall for you. Your mom is near the creek. Go .”

Gregor steps inside and closes the door, giving me a thoughtful look.

“Cute kid,” I say and get comfortable in bed since I missed my chance to escape.

If I wasn’t convinced Leo found his way in here himself, I’d have thought it was the Wolf King who sent him. I probably wouldn’t have hesitated to answer any question he asked me. But the Wolf King would never send a kid in here. Not after what Finan told me.

A feral killed his family. No way would he be sending a kid in here with me in case I turned into some slavering beast.

“Leo seems to enjoy giving his mother gray hairs.”

I nod. “And the reason he isn’t in the schoolroom?”

Gregor crosses his arms as he studies me. “His schooling is brief for now. An hour in the morning and another in the afternoon is about as long as he will sit still for.”

“Oh.” I’m tempted to ask about the other children in this pack, but figure he’s under strict orders not to tell me anything important. The Wolf King seems the type to growl an order like that.

“How’s your throat?”

“A little better.”

He nods. “And are you hungry?”

“No, thanks.”

“Thirsty?”

“A bit.”

“What were you dreaming of before?”

“My dad.”

My mouth snaps shut and I stare at him, shocked I told him something I have never told anyone before. My dreams—and my nightmares—have always been mine alone. No sharing with anyone. Ever .

He gives me another thoughtful look. “Curious.”

“What did you…” I let my voice trail off.

I shouldn’t be asking him what he did. I should be asking myself why I answered.

He wanders over to his desk. “I have shifters in here who get into fights and don’t want to get others into trouble. I’ve learned to hone my instincts in getting the truth out of people.” He refills my water glass and walks over to me. “A short series of easy questions followed by the real question I want answered seems to work wonders. Here.”

“Why are you talking to me?”

“Because that’s what people do. Talk to each other.”

His innocent expression doesn’t change, but he’s laughing at me. He has to be. “Even ferals?”

He cocks his head to the side as he scrutinizes me. “Do you consider yourself a feral?”

I take the water from him. “No.”

He opens his mouth.

I shake my head. “That trick won’t work twice on me, old man. I promise you that.”

His brief smile softens the hard angles of his face.

I glance at the window, in the direction where I heard a howl that I assumed was a dream, but I don’t think it was at all. I think it was the Wolf King howling. “What’s going on out there?”

Gregor’s amusement fades. “Aren is finding out what happened.”

“And once he’s found out?”

“That’s for him to decide.”

The door swings open before I can take advantage of having someone who actually answers my questions and treats me like I’m human.

The men who ambushed me on campus and brought me here fill the doorway. Their eyes flick from me to Gregor. “Aren says she needs to go back in the cage.”

Gregor frowns. “She doesn’t belong in the cage.”

Thanks, old man. At least someone in this place is capable of using their brain.

One of the guards shrugs. “Aren’s orders.”

One guard unhooks me from the bed, leaving the chain wrapped around my wrist, and keeping a firm grip on the end of the chain. Even if I knocked him back, there’s no way I’d get past the other guy who doesn’t so much as blink as he watches me.

I smile at Gregor as I get to my feet. “Thanks for the water.”

He nods.

“But not for the trick question,” I add.

The corners of his eyes crease when he smiles. “If you want to talk about it sometime, I’m here.”

“Talk about what?”

“The reason you were crying out,” he says. “It sounded as if you were in some distress.”

I don’t talk about the basement. Now that’s a Pandora’s box I’m not sure I want to open, even if I knew how to. Or have a reason to.

“That won’t happen,” I say as the guard pulls my arm, a sign to leave. I’m almost grateful for the interruption so I can break eye contact with a man who knows too much about me.

“Why not?” Gregor steps forward as if to stop my guards.

I aim a mirthless smile at him, but I don’t respond.

My dreams—or nightmares—have always been the same few seconds. I’m in a basement. Sometimes, I’m surrounded by a field of sunflowers. Very occasionally, there are stairs. That’s it. The few puzzles I have don’t add up to much of a picture, but that picture feels important, and I wish I knew why.