The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group (15 page)

‘It’s in there,’ said the detective constable, gesturing at the larger, browner office block. Then he fixed his little dark eyes on my face. ‘And the thing is, Toby, we’re gunna have to cuff ya. Before you get outta the car.’

‘
What?
’

‘Sorry, mate. It’s just that we’re not on police property.’ Seeing me blanch, he adopted a wheedling tone. ‘I mean, having this yard free is great, because the lac parking is rubbish. There’s never enough room. But it means we gotta go down the side there, into a public lane, and that means handcuffs. Isn’t that right, Link?’

His partner gave a grunt.

‘There’s a fire door round the corner – we won’t be using the front steps,’ Detective Constable Santos continued. ‘No one’ll see you, I promise.’

‘In that case, why do I have to put on handcuffs?’ It seemed like a reasonable enough question to me. The detective constable, however, didn’t think so.

‘Regulations,’ he said flatly.

‘But—’

‘Sooner we get ’em on, sooner we’ll get ’em off.’ He heaved himself out of the car and yanked open my door. ‘Just turn around and put your hands behind you. Thumbs together.’

‘Listen—’

‘Don’t piss me about, Toby, I’ve been up since five.’ He sounded crabby rather than threatening, but I did what I was told. I couldn’t help it. Resistance would have required a certain amount of willpower – and all my energy was being channelled towards not bursting into tears.

That’s why I tried to concentrate on something other than the cold touch of metal around my wrists. That’s why I found myself staring between the front seats, directly at the dashboard. It looked like a perfectly normal dashboard.

And I suddenly thought,
Shouldn’t there be some kind of police radio?

‘Okay,’ said the detective constable, as his cuffs went
click-click
. Then he grabbed one of my arms. ‘Where is it?’ he inquired. But he wasn’t talking to me. His partner swivelled around, reaching up over the headrest to hand him something.

It was a loaded syringe.

Even now, I don’t like to think about what happened next. A moment like that is your very worst nightmare; nothing seems quite so bad to me anymore, because I lived through that moment. It’s hard to describe the panic. My heart leaped into my throat. My hair stood on end. For half a second, I forgot how to breathe.

Then I threw myself towards the other door, kicking and yelling.

‘
Shuddup!
’ At last the older guy spoke. ‘
Don’t move!
’ He pointed a gun at me, shoving it between the two front seats.

Do you know what it’s like to stare down the barrel of a gun? This particular gun wasn’t very big, but it was scary as hell. It looked like a Nazi’s gun, all sleek and black and businesslike. An automatic. My brain registered that it wasn’t a revolver – don’t ask me why. I couldn’t have cared less what kind of gun it was.

‘Ow!’ A jab in my arm made me jerk like a hooked fish. Distracted by the gun, I’d forgotten about Detective Constable Santos.

‘There,’ he said. ‘All finished.’

‘
What are you doing?
’ As I kicked him in the ribs, he held on grimly. Then I felt the gun barrel against my scalp.

‘Don’t move,’ warned the other one. ‘If you move, you’ll get hurt.’ He had a flat, gravelly voice with an American accent.

‘You’re not police!’ I shrieked. ‘What do you want? Lemme go!’

‘Shh.’

‘
Lemme go!
’

The younger one threw himself on top of me like a wrestler, knocking the air out of my lungs. He planted an elbow in the small of my back. Then he wriggled around, before somehow slamming the door shut behind him.

‘For Chrissake, Gary . . .’ said the other one.

‘I’m doing my best, okay?’

‘Someone’s gonna hear.’

‘He’s a bloody
werewolf
, Lincoln! It’s not that easy!’

A werewolf?

I stopped struggling. I couldn’t believe it. ‘Who
are
you?’ I wheezed, gasping under Gary’s weight. ‘How did you know about me?’

‘Jesus, can’t you shuddim up?’ the American growled. ‘You’re supposed to be the goddamn muscle in this operation.’

‘Just drive, then! If you’re so worried!’

The American snorted. ‘Sure, I guess that’s one way to screw the whole deal,’ he said, with lumbering sarcasm. ‘Hit the lunchtime traffic before he’s gone under. Why not just wind down the windows while we’re at it?’

‘Did Reuben send you?’ I clutched at this possibility the way a drowning man might clutch at a lifebelt. If Reuben was involved, then it all made sense. It wasn’t so frightening. It was something I could talk my way out of . . . ‘Tell him there’s no need to do this!’ I squawked. ‘You don’t
need
to worry about me! I believed him, I swear! I was gunna take precautions!’

But Gary didn’t seem interested. He was still talking to his partner. ‘I thought you said this wouldn’t take long?’ he complained.

‘It won’t,’ Lincoln retorted.

‘Are you listening? Are you Reuben’s friends?’ By now I was almost hysterical. I kept thinking,
Reuben wants to lock me up! He’s scared I’ll kill someone!
‘I won’t tell the police, I promise! He convinced me last night! I was gunna ask him what to do!’

Suddenly Gary pushed my head down, so that my face was half-buried in the grey upholstery.

‘You wanna know what to do?’ he spat. ‘You should shut your mouth, that’s what! Or I’ll shut it for ya!’

‘Nnn-mmmm-nnn . . .’ When I tried to speak, the words were muffled by layers of foam and viscose. Even
I
couldn’t understand what I was saying.

I couldn’t breathe, either.

‘Don’t smother him,’ the American said sharply.

‘Do you want him quiet, or not?’

‘I want him quiet. I don’t want him dead.’

You can imagine how relieved I was to hear
that
. And I was even more relieved when Gary shifted his grip, allowing me to raise my head and gulp down some air.

But the extra oxygen didn’t seem to help a lot. I still felt dizzy and nauseous.

‘This isn’t fair,’ I mumbled.

‘Shuddup! Jeez!’ Gary slapped me on the ear. ‘Are you deaf? Don’t you understand English?
Shut your mouth!
’

I shut my eyes instead. I had to. They wouldn’t stay open. ‘It’s not for weeks, yet,’ I whimpered. ‘Tell Reuben I was gunna call . . .’

‘Who’s Reuben?’ said Gary.

‘Don’t ask me,’ the American replied. ‘Ask him
.
’

‘Who’s Reuben?’ Gary repeated, giving me a shake. Despite the chill that ran down my spine, I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t do anything. I was so sleepy . . .

‘Wait a minute.’ The last thing I heard was Lincoln’s measured rumble. ‘I know that name. There was a Reuben for sale here not long ago. Mr Darwell flew in to do the deal – nearly got himself arrested.’ After a brief pause, the American added, ‘Looks like we mighta scored us another prospect. Two for the price of one! I like that.’

I didn’t. But before I could say so – before I could even think it all through – darkness descended.

I passed out with a question half-formed on my tongue.

I
felt so
bad when I woke up. My head was aching. My bladder was bursting. My stomach was heaving. And when I tried to open my eyes, the eyelids seemed to be stuck together. I had to peel
them apart.

‘Aaugh . . .’ I groaned, wondering how I was going to move. If I didn’t move, I would almost certainly wet myself. But if I tried to get up, something awful was bound to happen. My brain would explode, or I’d regurgitate my own guts.

What on earth was wrong with me?

For a while I didn’t even have the strength to think about it. I just lay very still, wincing at every throb of pain. At last, however, sheer discomfort drove me to act. I
had
to piss. Nothing else mattered quite as much – not even the fact that I was all on my own, in a completely strange place.

When I climbed to my feet, I thought I was going to pass out. I had to prop myself against a wall, clutching my head and swallowing my nausea. The wall was made of concrete, rough and grey and cold. The floor was made of concrete too. I had to shade my eyes from the glare of an overhead light as I squinted around, searching for a bathroom door – or at the very least, an empty bucket.

I certainly didn’t expect to see a stainless-steel toilet sharing the room with me. In such a vast, empty space it looked a bit odd, not to mention grimly practical. Even as I staggered towards it, I wondered if I was in gaol. Because you don’t normally see beds and toilets sitting next to each other unless you’re in a prison cell or a furniture warehouse. And I was pretty damn sure this wasn’t a furniture warehouse.

Using the toilet helped me a bit. Once I’d taken a piss, the relief was so enormous that I was able to raise my head and study my surroundings. But what I saw made me feel sick all over again. I was in a windowless, circular dungeon. Apart from the toilet, this dungeon contained only a heater suspended high above me, a manacle chained to the floor, and a metal-frame bed with a mattress on it. One exit was blocked by a door made of painted steel, like a prison door. There was also a very tall barred gate, beyond which lay a long, dark, winding passage.

I could tell that this was a subterranean passage – and not just because its walls were as rough and dusty as the walls of a mine shaft. The whole place smelled of damp soil. Somehow I could feel the earth’s weight bearing down on my head. And I also remembered what Reuben had said to me at Nurragingy:
When I was your age, I was locked in an underground tank.

The more I thought about it, the more certain I became. The room in which I stood was round, and made entirely of concrete. It had no windows. A power cable had been taped across the ceiling in a slapdash kind of way, suggesting that no one had wired the place up when it was first built. As for the door, it was well and truly locked. There wasn’t even a handle to turn. And after stumbling over to the gate, I discovered that
it
wouldn’t budge either. No matter how hard I shook it.

I was locked in an underground tank. Just like Reuben.

If I hadn’t been so unwell, I probably would have had a nervous breakdown at that point. But the thing about pain is: it’s very hard to ignore. Other worries tend to fade into the background when you’ve got a headache as toxic as mine was. I knew that something very, very bad had happened. I knew that I could probably expect a lot worse. Yet none of this seemed to matter much, compared to the sudden flare of pain that I experienced every time I turned my head or bent over.

I was also distracted by a raging thirst, which was so intense that I caught myself wondering if I could drink out of the toilet. Let me tell you, it’s pretty alarming when you find yourself thinking something like
that
; I immediately made a huge effort to snap out of my daze, looking around for an alternative water source.

Then I spotted a plastic water bottle beside the bed. It was like a sign from God. I pounced on the bottle and drained it, without even stopping to make sure that I was squirting water into my mouth instead of urine or methylated spirits. Luckily, that bottle
was
full of water. And after drinking my fill, I felt less seedy. My sore throat went away. My stomach settled a bit. I was able to focus my attention on the fact that I’d been knocked out. With a drug. By two guys who hadn’t been policemen after all.

So who were they really?

As my dull gaze drifted towards the underground passage, a bell tolled somewhere
in the dim recesses of my brain. I remembered the name ‘Darwell’. Reuben had mentioned someone called Darwell, as had the two fake policemen. Did this mean that they were all part of the same plot?

I struggled to concentrate on my last, dim recollection of the kidnappers. They’d been asking me who Reuben was. They’d referred to a ‘Mr Darwell’.
There was a Reuben for sale here not long ago
, the American had said.
Mr Darwell flew in to do the deal
. But how did Mr Darwell fit into Reuben Schneider’s story? No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t dredge up the exact details. There had been some kind of illegal racket. Reuben had been forced to fight other werewolves – or so he claimed. And he had spoken of Mr Darwell in this context, along with someone else . . .

Suddenly I recalled another name: ‘McKinnon’. Reuben’s story was that the McKinnons had locked him up for five years. Had the McKinnons locked
me
up as well? Had I been kidnapped by the McKinnons?

It was all too confusing. I couldn’t think straight. And besides, I had a more urgent job to do. Before anything else, I had to get out.

I felt in my pocket, but my phone was gone – along with my keys, my watch and my wallet.
Bastards
, I thought, through a sickening spasm of pain.
Bloody stinking bastards.
My shoes were also missing; I couldn’t see them anywhere. I was still wearing my socks, though, and the rest of my wardrobe as well. No one had tried to strip me of all my layers.

I was just making sure that my T-shirts were all present and accounted for when I had a flash of inspiration. And if you’re wondering why I was dressed in more than one T-shirt . . . well, the truth is, I get embarrassed. I’ve told you that I’m skinny and that I wear baggy clothes. What I haven’t told you is that my arms are as puny as pipe-cleaners and that my chest is all narrow and knobbly. My hips stick out like a skeleton’s pelvis. My knees bulge like two beads on strings. I look as if I’ve been stretched on a rack, and I’m not happy about it.

That’s why I bulk up with extra T-shirts. That’s why I wear trackpants under my jeans, even in summer. It might get hot, but at least I don’t have people asking me how much I eat. Because I eat plenty, in case you’re interested. There’s nothing wrong with
my
appetite.

Mum says that I haven’t grown into my height yet. She says I’ll fill out when I get older. And while I certainly hope that’s true, I suppose it’s just as well that I was so underweight when the two fake policemen kidnapped me. If I hadn’t been swaddled in layers of fabric, they might have realised how thin I was. They might have worked out that I was spindly enough to squeeze through the bars of their cage.

They might have chained me to the floor instead of leaving me on the bed, unfettered.

Even from a distance, I could tell that I had a good chance of escaping. Though the bars were thick, they were also widely spaced; I figured that if I could just push my head between them, the rest would be a cinch. My only concern was what this might do to my ears. I was very concerned about my ears. They stick out a bit, and I didn’t want them torn or crushed. My headache was bad enough without the added burden of mangled ear cartilage.

I wasn’t worried about hidden cameras. To be honest, the thought of electronic surveillance never crossed my mind. It should have, of course. Checking for cameras should have been my first priority. But I wasn’t reasoning too well just then. In fact I didn’t even stop to consider what might happen once I was out of my cell. Right at that moment, I couldn’t see past step number one.

First I stripped down to my underpants. Then I pushed every other piece of clothing through the gate into the tunnel. At least I was thinking clearly enough to realise that I would need to put them back on again.

Then I forced myself through the bars, nearly ripping my head off in the process. It was an agonising experience, like being stuck in a vice. For one really bad moment, I thought I was going to be trapped there. My skull seemed to be wedged into the narrow space as tightly as a nut in a nutcracker.

But I managed to pull free at last, leaving some blood and hair behind me. As expected, my ears had taken the worst beating; they felt bruised and flattened. My headache hadn’t improved, either. Every time I bent down to pick up a T-shirt or a sock, the pain was so bad that I had to close my eyes. Getting dressed was awful. Just keeping my
balance
was a strain.

In the end, though, I found myself fully clothed, upright and more or less in one piece. The tunnel stretched out before me, disappearing into blackness. A disturbing smell wafted out of the shadows; I couldn’t identify its source, or why it seemed so alarming, but it raised the hairs on the back of my neck. All the same, I had to move forward. What else could I do? Turning back was out of the question.

So I advanced reluctantly, pressing against the wall as my vision adjusted to the fading light. Wires running along the roof of the tunnel were attached to a fuse box near the gate, but I wasn’t tempted to throw any switches. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. Wearing socks, I was able to tread almost noiselessly over the rocky, uneven surface of the floor. Though I was pouring sweat – though my legs were shaking and my head was throbbing – I was able to ignore these symptoms, because fear does such a great job of concentrating your mind. I didn’t even hiss when I stubbed my toe. My only concern was getting out unnoticed. I was living from heartbeat to heartbeat.

Then I hit a fork in the tunnel. Another tunnel joined mine, after running on an almost parallel course. I was faced with an unwelcome choice: should I keep going in the same direction or not? I didn’t like the idea of doubling back down the parallel tunnel. On the other hand, there seemed to be very little light up ahead at the end of my tunnel – and I noticed that the converging tunnel led back towards a faint, golden glow.

After a moment’s thought, I opted for the darkness. At least in the darkness I couldn’t be seen. And I was much more afraid of being spotted by a fake policeman than I was of falling down a crevasse.

This has to lead somewhere
, I decided, before continuing on my way.

Luckily, the tunnel didn’t wind around too many corners. It did swerve a bit, but not enough to block out every trace of light from the cell behind me. So I didn’t break my nose on the first obstacle that I encountered; I was able to see just well enough to pull up short before I ran straight into a metal hatch, which was bolted shut from the inside. For a few seconds I groped around, fingering the bolt and the hinges and the wire that ran from the latch through a hole in the ceiling. Then, very slowly and carefully, I drew the bolt, lifted the latch, and pushed the hatch open.

Needless to say, I didn’t want to announce my arrival. Instead of giving the hatch a huge, careless shove, I nudged it open just a crack, wincing at the squeak it made. Though I couldn’t hear any voices, I
could
smell fresh air. My heart leaped as I realised that I was peering through the hatchway at a large space drenched in moonlight.

I was out. I’d escaped from the underground tank.

You can imagine how relieved I was – at least for a moment. The night air immediately whisked away that rank, raw odour that had frightened me so much. A peppery bushland scent seemed to flood through my veins like a reviving drug. My headache vanished. My mood lifted. I pushed open the hatch a little further, admiring the emptiness of the roofless space beyond it. There was no one around! I had stumbled upon a large, rectangular pit under a starry sky. The pit was fully tiled and very deep.
It’s an old pool,
I thought, noting a drainage outlet in the floor. High above, the pool’s rim was edged with razor wire. I couldn’t see any steps.

And at that very instant, my hopes began to fade.

How could I possibly scale those sheer, slippery walls without the aid of some steps? No ladders or ropes were lying around at the bottom of the pool. Its pale tiles reflected so much moonlight that I could see at a glance every piece of rubbish that had collected near the drain: a stick, a beer can, a crumpled plastic wrapper. The shadows weren’t dense enough to conceal anything as big as another hatch. There were no iron rungs hammered into the tiles.

Gazing up at the pool’s edge, I felt like a spider in a bath. Unless someone reached down to help me – unless a friendly face appeared overhead – I would
never
get out.

That’s why I went back inside. You might think I was brave, but I wasn’t. I didn’t have a choice; I had to find a ladder or another exit. And I had to do it quickly, before my kidnappers realised what was going on. I had to escape while the coast was clear.