Kitty in the Underworld (Kitty Norville 12)

The longer he waited in silence, the more I wanted to scream. I wanted my captors to do something, anything. Well, not anything. But I couldn’t fight darkness and a barred door. Continually throwing myself against the barriers was only going to make me bruised and exhausted.

I wanted to pace, just to be doing something. But I didn’t want him to know I was pacing, that the anxiety was getting to me; I didn’t want to give away anything.

Then he walked away. Just like that, without a word, without a sign.

This was some kind of test, wasn’t it?

A moment later, the drumming stopped. The silence throbbed in my ears, a memory of noise that would take hours to fade. I sank to the floor, lay down, pressed a flushed cheek to the cool stone. Only felt a faint and distant itching from the pervasive trace of silver. Pressed my arm over my head to try to still the throbbing.

So, I’d been kidnapped. Apparently for the express purpose of driving me crazy. Really, that didn’t bother me so much.

But what happened if my captors really did manage to drive me crazy—that worried me.

* * *

ANYTIME THEY approached, their footsteps began to sound like thunder. I had nothing else to listen for, so when I heard them, they broke through my muddled awareness, sending shocks along my nerves. My now-constant headache throbbed with every hint of noise. I jerked into a crouch and watched the door, glaring at it as if I could challenge it.

The woman, the were-lion who’d brought the water, returned, her steps soft and hesitating. She stopped outside the door and I clamped my mouth shut, to keep from shouting. I wanted to wait to see what she would do. As ridiculous as it seemed, given our respective situations, I didn’t want to scare her off by being belligerent. More belligerent. The bolt or latch or whatever it was on the panel clicked. The seam split open.

I bolted. Dived forward, hands out toward the gap made by the open panel, reached through and made a grab. What did I have to lose?

My hand closed on a wrist. I held tight, squeezing. The limb was solid, not particularly dainty. The muscles and tendons flexing under my touch were strong. Bracing against the doorway, I pulled, trying to drag that arm in with me.

She grunted but didn’t scream, and yanked away from my grasp; I held on. A tug-of-war ensued. Both of us braced against the door and pulled against the other.

I shouted through the door. “Please, just talk to me! What do you people want? Why are you doing this?”

My nails dug into her skin in an effort to hold on. She scrabbled, kicking against the door and the stone; her voice wheezed with her panting breath as she struggled. She was gaining on me. My reach through the door was past my elbow. My fingers cramped. The sweat breaking out on her skin made her slippery.

“Just say something, please,” I begged, my voice squeaking into a higher pitch, tightened by desperation. I just wanted one word.

She won the tug-of-war, her sweat-dampened skin sliding out of my grasp. I shouted a growl, a jagged noise containing all my frustration over the last however many hours. Or days. I kept my hand through the slot in the door, waving, grappling, my fingers hooked like claws. I must have looked like a wild animal.

I expected her to run in a panic, but I heard no footsteps. Her breath came in pants. She was still here, out of reach, watching me. I took a deeper breath and settled, stilling my voice, my body. But I kept my arm outstretched, reaching toward the outside with some kind of hope.

We might have stayed like that for long minutes. I didn’t dare pull my arm back in, no matter that she could have stabbed

it or cut it off or anything while I held it out to her. This was the farthest I’d gotten in trying to get out of this hole they’d trapped me in. As soon as I pulled my arm back, she’d close the panel over the opening, and I’d be stuck again. I just wanted to hear a word, a single word, a shout or a curse, anything. I didn’t want to be the inhuman thing in a cage, not even worth a shred of sunlight. If she would just talk to me …

Something touched my fingers. I lay as close to the floor as I could, pressing up to the opening trying to see out of it and into the darkness. I couldn’t see her, only her arm, edging into my vision as she nudged an object into my hand. Instinctively, I clutched at it. Plastic crinkled. A cellophane wrapper. At least it wasn’t a grenade. I’d kind of wondered. I took a deep breath, trying to smell it—food, it smelled like food. All this struggle over feeding time. Could this get any more ridiculous?

She ducked away, out of my line of sight, and waited. The impasse was well and truly complete—I didn’t want to pull my hand in, because she would close the panel. But I wanted to see what she’d given me. She clearly wasn’t going to say anything. Since she didn’t so much as swear at me when I was clawing at her arm, she wasn’t going to speak now. Even with the panel open, I couldn’t escape. She could walk away, and I’d still be here, sprawled out on the floor, choking on dusty air, sweaty, chilled, exhausted.

I didn’t want to give up. Pulling my hand inside felt like giving up. So did continuing to lie here, exposed and helpless.

“Why won’t you people just talk to me?” I didn’t like the way my voice came out rough, like a growl.

Nothing. Something—fear, power, purpose, whatever—was driving her patience. Me, I wanted to pace, faster and faster, until I could wear a hole in the stone and maybe escape that way. Wasn’t going to happen, but that didn’t stop the restless burning in my muscles. If I couldn’t pace, I wanted to punch something. If I couldn’t punch something, I wanted to scream. I wanted to do them all at once. Any of that would show them I was weak, so I didn’t. Instead, I gave up. Just this battle.

I pulled my hand back inside.

The plastic-wrapped object she’d given me was a sandwich. The prewrapped deli kind from the supermarket. It even had a label that I couldn’t quite make out in the dark. Shit, these people probably shopped at Safeway. Pulling back the packaging, I got a better smell of it—turkey and swiss on whole wheat. All that for a cheap fucking deli sandwich.

A thump and a click, and my “visitor” closed and latched the panel back in place. I was shut in, again. As bids for freedom went, this one had been awfully lame.

I rubbed a hand over my face as tears fell. Just a few, burning on my cheeks. My next breath shuddered. Then I was calm again. I held it together, somehow.

Bringing my hand to my face, I smelled her feline scent. Sensing deeper than that, I tried to find the person underneath. Female, with the ripe undertone of someone living in close quarters for a long time. She wasn’t filthy, but she was probably longing for a shower. Sweat, mustiness. A jumbled scent of others, male and female. The wolf I’d smelled before, the chill of the vampire I thought I’d sensed. Whoever they were, they’d been together long enough for their scents to blend, as if they’d become a pack. An eclectic pack, but still.