The Hunted (66 page)

Perhaps I had been wrong about this being a cell. Maybe it was intended as a fallout shelter at some stage. Why else would there be tins of ten year old food collected in such vast quantities?

I closed the cardboard boxes and walked over to the door and peered out through the tiny window. All I could see in the dim light was a short, rusted steel passage that sloped off to the left. Directly in front of my door there was a simple globe left hanging over a metal hook in the wall. It was the only source of light for both the passage and my cell, and its lack of illumination and warmth left the whole place feeling exactly how I felt, cold and alone.

I heard a door open from somewhere nearby and more light spilled into the cell and across the passage walls. There was the sound of footsteps pounding against something hard.

Timber, maybe?

I could see shadows dancing along the passage wall in front of me and shortly after the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the squelching dirt.

Crap, someone’s coming.

I ran back over to the cot and lay back down carefully, so that the springs didn’t groan too much in protest. I figured the best way of getting some information was to play dead. Vânâtors weren’t exactly known for their intellect. But then again, what did it say about me if I allowed myself to be captured?

I closed my eyes again, pretending that I was still passed out, and focused on using my other senses instead. If I was going to try and escape, I had to get a better idea of the layout of the area. Beyond the reaches of this room was a mystery, and if I did try to make a run for it, how far would I get with a vânâtor still on my tail?

A lock turned in the cell door. It groaned noisily as someone opened it and stepped inside. I dared not open my eyes to see who, playing dead. I could hear two, possibly three, sets of footsteps entering the cell. It was hard to tell with all the mud lying around the place.

One of them stepped over, poked gently at my legs to see if I was awake. I kept up the pretence and didn’t move, waiting to see what they would do next.

‘She’s still out,’ I heard a man say.

‘You sure?’

Someone poked me again, harder this time. ‘Yeah, she’s out cold. I threw her pretty hard up against that tree. If she was a normal human she’d be dead right now.’

‘You don’t think she’s human?’

‘No. She killed Patrick and you’ve seen what she did to John.’

‘Why didn’t John mention her to us?’

There was no answer.

‘So what are we going to do with her?’ the first man said.

‘We stick to the plan.’

‘She wasn’t part of the original plan.’

‘Well she is now, and John wants to have her, so we have no choice but to follow orders. He’s our alpha.’

Okay, so the head dog had a name—John. How generic.

‘But—’

‘Adam! We have to follow orders. We’re still too young to make our own decisions yet.’

‘Okay’, the one called Adam answered, a little reluctantly.

‘Did you leave a trail that they could follow?’

‘I’m not entirely sure what Patrick did before I found her. I’m assuming he followed the plan.’

What plan?

‘Come on,’ the second voice said after a few moments. ‘There’s nothing more we can do right now. John should be back soon, and it’s almost dawn. Let’s go and get some sleep. We’ll come back and question her at dusk—she’ll be well and truly awake by then if she heals like you keep saying she does.’

‘Oh she heals alright, and she’s strong too.’

‘Whatever. Let’s go.’

They promptly left the cell after that, locking the metal door behind them again, the clinking of keys and the turning of metal pieces within the lock audible.

I opened my eyes and bounded up off the cot when I heard the last of their retreating footsteps. The cell had grown darker at their departure, as the light that had streamed down from the room beyond was now extinguished. Once again, all that remained was a single solitary bulb to light the entire metal dungeon.

I walked back over to the cell door and tried pulling at the handle, seeing if with all my strength I might be able to budge it. The handle creaked in protest, but even with my generous strength I wasn’t able to move it. I needed those keys.

I tried threading my arm through the little window to see if I could reach the latch from the outside, but it was no use, it was too small. There was no way out of this cell unless someone decided to let me out or I simply got lucky. One thing was certain—I wasn’t entertaining company for at least another twelve hours.

If what those two vânâtors were saying was correct, then I had been knocked out since about nine o’clock last night. If dawn was approaching, I’d already been missing for half a day. Susan and George would well and truly have come home by now and discovered what had happened. Hopefully they found Lucas unharmed and had already started looking for me.

I wonder if they told William I was missing?

‘Hello?’ I heard a frail voice call out to me from somewhere in the tunnel.

I pressed my face against the little window and tried to peer out into the passage. ‘Hello? Who’s there?’ I whispered. I could hear the start of uncontrollable sobbing echoing down the passage. Obviously this little fallout shelter was a bit bigger than I first thought.

‘Are you okay? Who are you?’ I asked again, trying not to be too loud.

‘My name’s Elizabeth,’ she said, still sobbing.

Elizabeth?

I pressed my face back against the small opening again. ‘Elizabeth Stuart?’

‘Yes,’ she sobbed. ‘How do you know my name?’

‘I saw a poster recently, saying you’d gone missing.’

Her crying came down from the far end of the passage again and filled my ears with dread. I wasn’t too good with people crying. I never really knew what to say. She started sobbing again, followed by a small moan of pain or discomfort.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked again, shaking my head, knowing it was a stupid question. Of course she wasn’t okay. She was stuck down here with me in a muddy cage with no chance of escape.

‘I don’t think so,’ she said, more quietly this time.

‘What’s wrong? Have they hurt you?’

She sobbed loudly at the question, as if
I
was threatening her now, huge racking sobs that seemed to bellow down the passage and echo off the walls.

‘Shhh, Elizabeth,’ I said, trying to comfort her, ‘you have to keep your voice down or they will come back.’ It probably wasn’t true given that it was now daylight outside, but I was willing to say anything to get her to stop.

‘It doesn’t matter if they do come back now, it’s too late anyway,’ she said, her voice barely above a whisper. ‘They’ve already got what they wanted from me. It can’t get any worse if they do it again.’

I swallowed hard, knowing exactly what she was referring to. I felt sick to my stomach just thinking about it. ‘How long ago did they come for you?’ I asked quietly.

There was a short pause. ‘I don’t really know. I can’t see daylight so I don’t know how long I’ve been here.’

‘Was it before or after they brought me in here?’

‘A few hours before.’

I swallowed and closed my eyes, not wanting to know the answer. ‘How fast is your stomach growing?’

She sobbed again. ‘Who are you? How did you even know what they did to me? Why am I even here?’

I rested my forehead against the cool metal of the door, trying to block out her sobs. There was absolutely nothing I could do to help her now—it was too late. Even if The Protectors and William got here soon, there would be no way to reverse what been done to her. ‘I’m so sorry that this has happened to you, Elizabeth, but I don’t think that an explanation is going to make you feel any better.’

‘What is your name?’

‘Elena.’

‘Elena, am I going to die?’

I wanted to lean out the window and tell her that, yes, everything was going to be okay, but I knew better than to give her false hope. She deserved to be told the truth. ‘Yes, Elizabeth, I think that you might,’ I said, taking no pleasure in my honesty.

The passage was silent around me again. There was no sounds from the direction of her cell, just the sudden realisation that any hope that she had had just been squashed by what I had said.

I’m so very sorry …

I closed my eyes, unable to bear the thought of it. I had seen and done more things than a sixteen year old girl of my age should ever have to, but listening to that girl’s pain as she suffered through the next twenty four hours of an accelerated pregnancy was going to be an absolute nightmare, for both of us. Where was the justice in this world when people my age were killing creatures with their bare hands and innocent women were raped by hideous beasts?

I slumped against the door and slid all the way down to the floor until I was on the ground, with my back against the cool metal.

I started to think through everything that the Vânâtors had talked about, trying to distract myself. For all I knew, there was no way out. William had been hunting this particular alpha and his old pack throughout England for the past few years. If it took him that long to locate the den there, then how long would it take him to sniff out the new den here? The Protectors weren’t going to be any good, at least not until they located the alpha. The only chance I had of survival was escape, or retaliation.

I pulled myself up from the floor by the door and dropped down onto the cot noisily, spreading my arms over my head and stretching my legs out in front of me. Crazy as it might sound, I chose to sleep through the rest of the day. It was the best way of blocking out Elizabeth’s moaning as best I could, and I’d be no use if I couldn’t recuperate my strength for the evening. The Vânâtors were going to come for me after sunset, and I needed to get physically and mentally prepared.

Sleep was my only option.

CHAPTER NINETEEN:

INTERROGATION

I
bolted upwards in fright, clutching a hand to my chest as Elizabeth’s tormented and rather loud scream woke me from my slumber. I sucked down a huge gulp of air to try and calm my racing heart, rolling awkwardly off the side of the cot and scrambling over to the window in the door. ‘Elizabeth, are you okay?’ I asked groggily.

‘No!’ she screamed, before she started panting. ‘I think it just broke one of my ribs.’

‘Try and stay calm, okay? Just take shallow breaths.’