Page 85 of Scent to the Feral Cowboys

Crystal stood framed in the doorway at the top of the back stairs, her eyes wide and slow tears falling down her cheeks. I hadn’t taken her down with me. I felt good about that at least.

“Sure, I will.” I smiled sadly up at her. “I’m lucky after all.”

“Our very own Lucky Star,” she responded, voice cracking.

“I’ll call you,” I offered her a promise I didn’t know if I could keep.

For a moment, she looked like she might argue. Then her shoulders slumped slightly, defeat and concern warring in her expression.

"You better," she said finally, backing toward the door. Her eyes never left the men, memorizing their features. "I'll be waiting to hear from you."

As she disappeared back into the corridor, I felt a strange mixture of relief and abandonment. The last friendly face I might see for a long time was gone. I was truly alone now, with only my captors for company.

“Get in, Ms. Shaw,” the Beta with boxer ears commanded, gesturing impatiently for me to enter through the rear door he’d opened.

The SUV might as well be a funeral hearse, the dark innards of the vehicle Reaper coded. I hesitated for just a moment, aware that each step took me further from the fresh life I'd fought to gain, and towards something unknown. Lingering sun warmed my face. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to leave this alley.Getting in the vehicle felt tantamount to resigning my freedom for good.

"Ms. Shaw, please don’t make this hard on yourself." The man the other Betas had called Mister Grouse was sitting in the front passenger seat. His voice was harried, irritated. “You truly cannot imagine the trouble we’ve gone to lately to facilitate smooth product transitions.”

There was that damn word again.

Product.

I already hated it as much as lucky.

I shouldered my bag, swallowing the bitter response that rose in my throat.

“I’m ready.” The words tasted like ash, but I forced them out anyway. Maybe if I appeared cooperative now, I might find an opportunity for resistance later. I ducked into the SUV, sliding across cool leather. The interior smelled of artificial pine and something antiseptic, as if the car was regularly cleaned of all human traces. One bulky Beta slid in beside me, and another took the driver’s seat next to Mister Grouse.

No one spoke as the engine purred to life. No one needed to. The contract I'd signed had already said everything that mattered.

We pulled out of the lot and into Seattle traffic, joining the flow of afternoon commuters heading home to families, dinner plans, favorite shows. All the mundane freedoms I'd taken for granted. The city scrolled past the window like scenes from a life I was already forgetting. Pike Place Market, where I bought flowers on paydays to brighten my apartment. The corner coffee shop near work where the barista knew my order by heart now. That one Italian restaurant with the very best Cacio e Pepe. Would I ever eat that again?

I closed my eyes against the sights. I didn’t want to see anything else I was losing.

The silence in the vehicle was choking, and anxiety flowed through every part of me. I could feel my pulse in my fingertips, in my temples, in the hollow of my throat. My breathing started coming quicker with each passing block. I had to consciously force myself to slow down before I had a full-blown panic attack. When I parted my lashes, Central District had faded away. In its place was downtown. We were closing in on a modern spire of glass and steel. I had to lean against the window and look up to see the top of the high rise. Eros.

The car slowed, turning into an underground parking garage. A security gate lifted automatically as we approached. Once parked, the Beta sitting beside me began sliding across the seat in my direction, forcing me to open my door and get out. I clutched my bag to my chest like a shield and looked up at the concrete ceiling of the garage. Somewhere above, beyond layers of building, the sky continued to exist. People walked freely. Life went on.

I was herded towards an elevator above which hung a sign marked "Intake Processing." It made my skin crawl. Clinical. Dehumanizing. Like I was a package being delivered rather than a person being taken against my will.

One of the Betas pushed the up arrow.

We didn’t have to wait.

The elevator was already at this level.

As if the very building knew the exact time of my arrival, and it was ready to swallow me whole.

We got in.

And we went up.

Further.

Higher.

Until I wondered if we’d explode out of the building’s top.