Golden Binds

“Yes, but I don’t want to roast our enemies alive.”

“No, just strip them naked, and lock them up in a bathroom-less room.”

“First of all, she wasn’t naked. And it has a bathroom now, thanks to you. I just figured she’d be more inclined to talk if she thought she had to use a bucket. Women are fussy about these sorts of things.”

Garret and Joseph gave him incredulous looks.

“What do you know about women?” Garret asked.

“Obviously nothing,” Joe added dryly. “If he thinks that is her biggest objection about this whole thing.”

Sawyer sighed impatiently. “Look, the point is, I don’t think she’s a reporter. It doesn’t explain how she managed to break in.”

“Blind luck?” Garret suggested.

“If she was a reporter then surely she’d have done some research about us. She’d at least know our names, right?”

“She’s a good liar.” He sat. They were starting to make sense.

Sawyer snorted. “No, she’s not. And besides all of that, what reporter is this dedicated to her story? She would have cracked after half an hour in that cell.”

“I’m starting to have real regrets about agreeing to any of this,” Joseph said. “We should have just sent her home.”

“Are you kidding? Without knowing who she is or how she got past all those traps I set?” Sawyer’s face grew red. He was going to explode.

“Calm down.” Joseph held his hands out at his sides, his voice calm. The older his brothers grew, the more volatile their inner beasts became. For Sawyer that meant he grew more paranoid and short-tempered. For Joseph, he became more serious and controlling. Garret didn’t know what he would do, but for the moment his beast was keeping quiet. Well, expect for now. He could feel him inside him—angry and restless.

Was that why he felt so on edge?

“If we’d let her go, she could have led anyone back here,” Sawyer pointed out. “And what if they found out our secret?”

“Which is why I let you lock her up. But what do we do if she never tells us who she is? Are we going to keep her here forever?”

“The idea has merit,” Garret said thoughtfully.

“What?” Joe turned to him. “We can’t keep her prisoner indefinitely.”

“So how do we stop her from going to the authorities?” Garret countered.

Joe looked stumped at that one. “They’ll think she’s a crackpot. Everyone thinks we’re old or dead.”

“Even if they do think she’s nuts won’t they feel obliged to visit?” And Sawyer didn’t cope well with visitors.

“I don’t want any cops here,” Sawyer growled.

Yeah, no shit.

“I’ve been working on a serum to erase short-term memory. I could—”

“No,” Joe and Garret said together.

“You didn’t let me finish,” Sawyer complained.

“Last time you worked on a serum, you turned a rat into a green, foaming beast,” Joe reminded him.

Sawyer scratched his head. “Something went wrong with the formula. Or maybe it wasn’t meant for rats. I needed something bigger.”

“You cannot experiment on humans,” Joseph said firmly.