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Briar
The female guard pushed a long handled grabber between the cell bars. It had a blue speckled tin cup in its grasp.
“Take it,” the guard said. “Take it now.”
Briar was sitting on a cold stone floor, with her back against a cold stone wall. Her leather jacket insulated her, at least. She was probably more comfortable than the two women beside her, Topaz and Vixen.
She pushed up to her feet, brushed some dust off the seat of her jeans, and scuffed forward. Yes, she was weak. She was acting weaker.
The woman at the other end of the four-foot handle tensed. Her fear flavored the air. Briar wanted to drink it.
Don’t. Keep being docile. Model prisoners. It’s the only way they’ll slip up.
She looked back at the redhead on the floor, who'd spoken to her mentally.
Vixen stared back at her, her eyes wide and round and pleading. She was a shifter–fox, of course, hence the name. But she didn’t have the strength to do her signature trick, and scoot through the bars to find a way to get them the hell out of there. Their liquid diet was laced with something that kept them weak, and watered down to boot. Animal blood, not human. It barely qualified as sustenance.
Briar went to the bars, ignoring the mug. She clasped the bars and pressed her face close. “I’m dying, you know. You’re starving us to death.”
“The doctor says it’s enough.”
“Right after he graduated from vampire medical school?” Topaz snapped.
Too sarcastic and too loud, Vixen told her. We’re supposed to be wasting away of starvation, remember? Beaten. Cowed. Weak and compliant.
“I know they think it’s enough but…” Briar groaned and slid her hands down the bars. She let her head hang limp, but kept the grabber in sight. Its loaded end wobbled as the guard took a step closer.
Nice, Vixen thought at her. Just act weak, and we’ll bide our time and wait for an opportun–
Briar moved like a cobra striking, snatched the end of the grabber and pulled as hard as she could.
The guard didn’t let go of the pole fast enough. It jerked her forward. Vixen and Topaz lunged, each grabbing an arm and jerking her up against the bars, face first.
Briar dropped the pole and grabbed the guard’s head, one hand to the back, one over her mouth to keep her quiet and hold her still. The cup of blood had clattered to the floor, spilling its contents. A water-thin, red puddle spread rapidly. The guard’s eyes were wide and her terror was delicious.
“What are you waiting for?” Briar said. “You’ve each got a vein.”
Vixen and Topaz exchanged glances as the guard panicked and thrashed, emitting muffled pleas from behind Brair’s hand. Then they each pulled one of her forearms through the bars and bit in at the wrist.
“You’d better fucking save me some," Briar said, watching fat tears slide from the guard's eyes. "You should've have made better decisions, lady. You're working for the bad guys. You've had this coming for years and you know it."
Vixen stopped feeding, bent the woman's arm at the elbow, and put the bloody wrist within her reach. Briar bent her head and latched on. She drank until the guard went limp. Then she let her slump to the floor.
Vixen pulled the body around so she could remove tools from the belt. An oversized, antique looking key, along with a radio and a sidearm. A tranquilizer gun, not a real one. Loaded, but just with one round.
In seconds they were unlocking the cell and stepping out. They searched the body, found two more tranq darts and nothing else of use. They rolled her into the cell, threw the ridiculous tin-foil blankets over her, and closed the door behind them.
“We have to find Jack,” Topaz said. She pulled her long silky mink hair back, and tied it into a knot. As if that made her more ready for action in her peacock patterned J-Brand leggings, green leaf patterned tunic, and ridiculous sparkly sneakers.
Vixen was more practically garbed. Her leggings were denim, her top, a black, banded tank. She wore a brown fleece shawl that she wrapped around her while she slept, just like a fox wraps up in its tail.
They started along the dank space between rows of empty cells. But there wasn’t any hint of another living being anywhere near. Lots of crumbling concrete and cages with missing bars and broken doors. Some of the barred sections were lying on the floor, some missing altogether.
“He’s not here,” Briar whispered. “I don’t think anyone is. This isn’t even a real facility. It’s a ruin. What the hell?”
They reached the end of the row of cells. There was a door, but also two more rows of cells, on either side.
“Jack,” Topaz called. “Jack, are you here?”
“Will you be quiet? You want to bring the whole place down on our heads?” Vixen snapped.
“We’re not leaving without Jack!”
Topaz ran back down the second row of cells, still calling out to her slick con-artist boyfriend, but mentally. Then she searched the third row, while the other two stood contemplating what they assumed was the exit. Briar felt for anyone on the other side, but even though her strength was replenished from the fresh human blood, she wasn’t 100%. Her senses were dulled from the drug they’d been lacing their food with. She had no idea what was on the other side of the door. Either nothing at all, or certain death she was too doped to sense.
Topaz finally returned, and Briar didn’t need to ask what she’d found. The look on her face confirmed what they'd both already known. Jack wasn't there.
“It was the same for us,” Vixen told her, putting a hand on Topaz’s arm. “We were taken together, and I haven’t seen Seth since.”
“Same.” Briar said. She didn’t feel the need to elaborate. Immediately after being abducted, she had awakened in a cell alone. She'd been moved several times, and after the last move, woke in a cell with her two best friends. Her only friends, really.
The door was metal. Old. Solid. Might’ve been painted green once. She put a hand on the vertical handle. There was no latch. When she pulled, it opened with a loud groan. Rust powder snowed from its hinges, raining down on her leather jacket. Beams of moonlight made it shine like reddish pixie dust.
Moonlight?
And noise, so much noise. Frogs. Crickets. Something splashed, and she smelled swamp.
She lifted her head. An endless set of crumbling concrete stairs led upward, and the moon hung above them, shining down milky white hope. There was no one around, which was a shame. She still felt about 50% of her normal self. That one guard wasn’t enough to replenish her, nor any of them. Although Topaz had certainly imbibed more than she or Vixen had. They all needed more. They needed to gorge themselves at three DPI employees’ throats, one apiece, and then sleep the day through someplace safe. And maybe then they’d be back to normal.
Briar moved up the stairs as quietly as she could, thirty of them, her senses open wide. When she stepped out of the stairwell and onto the ground at last, a heavy breeze moved hot, wet air across her skin.
The other two emerged behind her, then moved to either side and stood flanking her, bathed in moonlight. Charlie’s Angels,’ nightmare version.
“Where the hell are we?” Topaz asked, the chirps and buzzes and whirrs a cacophony all around them.
Vixen sniffed the swampy air. “I don’t sense anyone, human or vampire. Just a lot of wildlife. Bugs, birds. Reptiles."
There were trees with bases so wide it seemed they wore hoop skirts, tapering tall and thin. Spanish moss draped from their limbs like Stevie Nicks’ wardrobe. Swaths of mist rose from the moist earth and swamp water in which the trees stood.
“Those are bald cypress,” Topaz said. “Some call them the sentinels of the bayou.”
Briar and Vixen sent her identical looks of surprise.
“Just because I’m shallow, doesn’t mean I’m stupid,” she said, and she looked down at her ridiculous sneakers. Transparent soles, and the entire upper covered in what she assumed were crystals. Swarovski or something.
“Yeah, no. Try diamonds,” Topaz said. “Four grand. Valentine’s gift from Jack. I am not trudging through the swamp in these.”
“I don’t know if we have a choice,” Briar said. “Maybe pry the biggest rocks off with your perfect teeth, stick 'em in a pocket."
“Shh!” Vixen pointed at a log that was propelling itself unnaturally through the water in the distance. “Gator,” she whispered.
“Holy freaking... Okay. So we’re not going that way.” Briar turned to take a slow look around, but the area behind them didn’t look much different from the area ahead. It was a patchwork, dry ground, shallow waters, swampy muck. The structure in which they’d been imprisoned was completely underground. There wasn't a path or a road or any sign of civilization anywhere.
“How did they get us here? Air drop?” Topaz asked.
“I’m more interested in why,” Briar muttered.
Vixen walked around, watching the ground for whatever else might be lurking besides gators. She wore brown ankle boots, fake suede. Briar’s own boots were leather, the real deal, black, with laces. Practical.
Vixen circled their buried prison, examining the ground, sniffing, and finally stopping at about nine o’clock. “Human scent from this way. And look, the weeds are all bent and broken.”
“Great. So we just walk out the way that unfortunate-yet-tasty guard walked in,” Topaz said. She started that way, then she stopped, and turned, looking deeper into the swamp. “But what if Jack’s somewhere in there?”
Her heart emitted a spasm of pain the others felt. Vixen put a hand on her shoulder, and they both looked at Briar, their eyes asking wordlessly what they ought to do.
She didn’t know why they did that, treated her like the leader. She supposed it was because Reaper was the accepted alpha of their little Scooby pack. She wondered if he was in the depths of the bayou somewhere, too, and Seth with him.
She hadn’t seen Reaper in three months, and she missed him like she’d miss a limb. They’d been taken together. They’d awakened apart. She’d been moved a dozen times since then.
“I think we need to figure out why they brought us here,” Briar said softly. “This isn’t a DPI facility. There’s no security, and only one guard. This is not their M.O.”
“You’re right,” Vixen whispered. “This is something different.”
Topaz’s eyes went round as she turned in a slow circle, rubbing her arms as if against goosebumps. “That makes it even creepier. What kind of sick game are they playing with us, now?”
“I don’t know. But I think we need to find out. And I think when we do, we’ll be a lot closer to locating our men.” Briar took a deep breath as they both watched her, waiting for her to make a decision.
She was uncomfortable being a leader. She was also uncomfortable standing around talking instead of acting. “I can’t see the trail, Vixen,” she said. “Do you think you can follow it out of here?”
“I can smell our way out of here,” she said with confidence. “Humans reek. Come on. This way.”
Decision made, Briar thought. She followed Vixen along the invisible trail, glancing back over her shoulder at Topaz. “It’s dry so far. Your shoes will be fine.”
“I wasn’t thinking about my shoes, I was thinking about Jack,” she snapped, but she came along.
Briar looked ahead again. Vixen had picked up the pace, moving fast on the pads of her feet, almost tiptoe but not quite. But she was going too quickly. “Vix, slow down a little. You don’t know what you might–“
There was loud crack, a blinding flash, and Vixen flew backwards, airborne, as if she’d been hit with a wrecking ball. She sailed over Briar’s head, toppled Topaz on the way down, and landed on her back on the ground.
She didn’t move again after that.
Part 3 coming in March!
