Burns Like Fire (Dangerous Creatures #1) (11 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Cindy had just barely managed to pick herself up from the floor in Jack's room after she finished crying. She was almost embarrassed by it. It had been years since she'd cried like that, not counting when she'd thought Jack was dead. Those tears had gone on for weeks.

Jamie had always said she was an emotional person. Cindy denied it, but this was proof, at least to herself, about how true that statement was.

After searching the room, looking for spare keys to her shackles, and finding only Jack's old art books, which made her cry all over again, she gave up. Cindy found a clean plaid shirt and a pair of shorts, both of which smelled like Jack's Old Spice body wash. She got into the bed, pulled the covers over her head, and hugged one of his pillows to her body.

Somehow, despite her misery, she eventually dozed off.

She woke up what felt only like minutes later to someone shaking her shoulders.

Cindy jumped a bit as she came out of her twilight state, but when she realized it was Jack and not a collector, she relaxed.

She was too miserable to be angry with him, but he looked frantic.

"Cindy! Wake up already!" he snapped. Jack was putting a lot of force into how he shook her awake, and just like that, Cindy was completely up and aware. It was morning, and she'd slept for several hours at least.

"Are the collectors here?" she asked, terrified of what the answer would be, and if Jack would actually hand her over.

"No, a case worker. She's not here yet but she's gonna be. You need to get up now. You can't be in my room."

So he was just worried about his career as a hunter? Ouch.

Regardless, Cindy did as she was told, and she did it quickly. Jack didn't say anything about her wearing his clothes as she got back into her dress, but that could've been because of the hurry they were in. There was no time for her stockings, and she had no idea where her shoes were.

There wasn't even any time to splash some cold water on her face or make an attempt to clean her teeth before Jack was yanking her out of the bedroom and down the hall. He was clearly serious when he said that someone was coming. Whoever this case worker was, she was probably only minutes away, and Cindy found herself back in the basement before she knew it. That was when she started to struggle.

"Don't put me in the box!"

"I won't. I promise," Jack said as he brought her to the bolts and chains on the wall and attached her shackles to them. He brushed several stray locks of red hair behind her ear, and then touched her cheek before pulling away. "I'll be back soon."

Cindy opened her mouth to say something, though she wasn't sure what she would even say. Jack was gone anyway, having locked her up and rushing back upstairs to get ready for whoever was coming to the house. She was all alone.

For the second time since Cindy had been in Jack's home, she found herself chained up and needing to use the bathroom.

She realized that she probably wouldn't have to wait long when the doorbell rang two minutes later.

Cindy had never heard of case workers in the hunting business before, but probably because she'd always been taught to only fear the hunters, the collectors and the labs, nothing else.

Maybe the case workers were part of the life that only hunters and collectors had to deal with. Maybe whoever was coming was just here to check up on Jack and make sure that his permits and licenses weren't expired.

Cindy told herself that over and over as she listened to Jack's footsteps above her, moving to answer the door, and then stepping aside as another person entered. More than one, actually. Cindy wasn't very good at counting people based on their footsteps, but there had to be at least three extra people up there.

Jack's voice was muffled as he spoke to his case worker, but Cindy could still make out the tone he used.

He wasn't happy.

Cindy had a hard time catching her breath all of a sudden. Something was wrong. Something was definitely wrong, and she started pulling against the chains that held her to the wall even before she heard the footsteps walking toward the basement door.

The damned things were as strong as ever, and the bolts wouldn't be moved from their place. The door opened at the top of the stairs, but she still couldn’t make out what Jack was saying.

"I was told I had three days with her. You can't just show up here with a piece of paper and think you can take her."

"I listened to the recording of your call, Mr. Marilla. You were eager to be rid of her then so what does it matter if we came earlier than you expected?"

"It matters because she's a pyro, and you are a pair of pencil pushers with only one collector behind you. I thought there was going to be a team coming here."

Cindy's heart rate spiked when she heard them on the other side of the door. She
was
being taken today. The collectors had come and there was one on the other side of that door who was going to take her away.

She groaned and pulled at her chains some more. She tried to summon the fire inside of her but she could barely feel anything at all. There was only the tiniest spark instead of the wild inferno she once had trouble controlling. She couldn't escape these chains with only a spark. She couldn't defend herself or even have a fighting chance.

She was going to be taken away from Jack. Again.

The door opened while she was still furiously yanking on her chains. The shackles bit into her skin, and the frustration was enough to bring a few angry tears to her eyes.

"Why isn't she in the box?" asked the woman who was probably Jack's case worker. Cindy didn't give the bitch the time of day. She didn't want to even look at her.

"It was scaring her," Jack said, and Cindy jumped a little when she realized Jack was standing above her, then he knelt down and took hold of her forearms, stopping her from pulling on the chains and tearing her skin. "Cindy, stop, you're hurting yourself."

"Don't do this, Jack, it wasn't me. I swear to God it wasn't me."

Now she was full on crying. Probably ugly crying, too. That was just great.

"You're both on a first name basis? Not something I would have expected, considering what you accuse her of," the bitch case worker said.

That seemed to stun him. "You know about that? I didn't write it in her file."

"We're not idiots, of course we know you hunted her for the fire incident. Our records show she was living in the same area as you at the time."

"Jack," Cindy said, unable to stop her sniffling. She couldn't catch her breath and her chest was starting to physically hurt from the pain and pressure of not being able to take a proper breath.

"You need to calm down, okay? Cindy, look at me," Jack said, and he squeezed her forearms a bit, staring at her hard like he could get her to just magically get control of raging emotions that were running amok and making her body shake.

"We have a sedative for that," the bitch case worker said, and Cindy finally looked up at the three other people who were in this basement with her.

The second case worker, a man wearing grey pants and a white button down with a pocket protector for his many pens and a clipboard in hand, was studiously taking notes, and then there was the collector.

He was the size of a small giant, if that made any sense. He could be a basketball player. The guy was at least six foot five, and he wore the standard white uniform and helmet with the tinted visor that all collectors were expected to put on before they went out and took the paranormals away.

All three of them wore gold badges. Though hunters and collectors were from different factions of the same organization, the symbols were the same. A hawk in flight. The only difference was that, on the collector, the hawk had small prey in its talons.

The blue-eyed collector had a cold stare as he looked down at Cindy through the clear visor, cold enough to make her shiver. He had his nightstick at his hip, and Cindy could see the folded shield on his other side. All that aside, she was most concerned with the syringe gun that was in his hand.

Her panic overflowed in the form of helpless shouting. "Jack! Jack, don't do this! Jack!"

"Step out of the way, Mr. Marilla. We can take it from here," said the collector.

Jack held out his hand, stopping the man from coming forward. "Okay, hold on one second, this isn't right. You don't need to give her that."

"She's in a panic. Her powers will be at their most dangerous until her heart rate goes down."

"I told you she's wearing spelled cuffs. Will you stop!" Jack snapped, jumping to his feet and pushing against the collector's chest with enough force that the man stumbled back. He stayed on his feet though, and there was real anger in his eyes as he and Jack stared each other down.

Bitch case worker was immediately on her phone, her fingers flying.

"Okay, what are you doing?" Jack snapped.

"Letting the others know that there's a conflict of interests here," she said.

"What others?"

She looked away from the screen of her phone and up at Jack. "It would've been easier if you would just let us do our job, but there are other collectors right behind us. They were running late."

"Late?" Jack asked, though it was hardly a question, and he was sneering at the woman now as well.

"You said it yourself that there's usually more than one collector. Now, we three here decided to come and get this over with because it was on our way, and we got here first. If you're going to create a problem then our backup will need to know about it, you'll be put into a pair of bracelets, stripped of your license, and fined for interfering with our mission. That doesn't include any potential prison time for endangering the lives of a collector and two agents of your government. I'm leaving it up to you whether or not I let the others know you’re causing these problems. I haven't sent the message yet."

"You really are a bitch."

Bitch case worker glared down at her, and Cindy realized she'd spoken out loud, which was fine with her because she didn't give a damn about the feelings of a woman who wanted to strap her down to a table and dissect her brain.

"What're you going to do with her when you take her?" Jack asked.

Cindy's heart flipped, and she had a hard time catching her breath. This was going to happen. It was going to happen and she was going to be taken away from Jack. He didn't believe her and he didn't want her. She could already see herself on a table, being dissected by people who wanted to figure out how her powers worked, and determine whether a profit could be made of them.

"Screw you Jack!" she snapped, her anger consuming her self-control, and all of it was directed at him. She yelled louder to mask the slicing pain in her heart. It would've hurt less if the man had stabbed her through the ribs with a thin blade. "I didn't do it! You bastard! I didn't do it!"

"Does it matter what happens?"

"Yes it does fucking matters. What if she's telling the truth and didn't kill my family? There could be other paranormals out there who are guilty and going unpunished because you're too busy punishing her."

Cindy tried to make sense of what she was hearing. Was this the sign she'd wanted? Was Jack starting to believe her? If it was, then he wasn't invoking a whole lot of confidence. It mostly sounded like he just didn't want to take the risk that she was innocent, but was still leaning towards handing her over.

Bitch case worker sighed, lifted her glasses off her nose and put them on top of her head, and crossed her arms. "She's in our custody now. All I can say is that she will be receiving the same treatment as other fugitives. Will you step out of the way now? Or am I going to have to click send? You wouldn't be the first hunter to turn into a sympathizer, so I understand if you're having trouble with this. Don't make things anymore difficult than they need to be."

Jack's lips thinned, and his eyes narrowed at the woman in front of him. Cindy had never seen that look on his face before.

Jack must've come to a decision because he then reached into his pocket, and then he tossed something in Cindy's direction.

She didn't know what it was but it was instinct to reach out and catch the tiny thing. When she opened her palm, the key to her cuffs was in her hand.

The second she realized what she was holding onto, the collector noticed as well, and he surged forward just as Jack did, holding the man back.

"Get out of here!" Jack yelled, but Cindy knew he was yelling at her. Her hands were shaking, and she almost missed the tiny keyhole, but she got it into each cuff, and the metal shackles popped right off of her wrists.

She ran for the door.

Bitch case worker pushed her male colleague into Cindy's way, and the poor guy's wide eyes behind those thick black rimmed glasses almost made him look like a small animal about to be run over.

"What are you doing, Steve? Grab her!" Bitch case worker screamed.

"I..."

Cindy didn't have time to feel sorry for him. She pushed him out of the way, and she put a little fire behind her shove.

Steve screamed and jumped back as the flames jumped out of Cindy's hands and licked at his clothes and body. As she ran past him, she could make out the way he jumped around and slapped at himself, trying to put out the small fire before it burned his skin.