They swung open the cage door, cattle prods at full power, humming with electricity. The man lazily lifted his hands in surrender. "Now, now." He said softly. His voice was like velvet. "No need. I'll do as you please." The man in the cage said, his...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The woods were silent but for the crunch of her boots in the snow and the pounding of her accelerated heartbeat. A chill crept up her spine, stemming from the cold blade of the kitchen knife tucked carefully into her waistband. She itched to take it up in her hands as she followed the convoluted, winding path.
After an hour trodding through the frozen land, she finally came upon the clearing with the cellar peeking out of the frozen ground. The snow was coming down lightly, spurred on into little funnels by the wind. It was not enough to keep her hidden, so she stayed put under the heavy laden branches of an ancient fir tree, watching the man stationed at the cellar doors.
He was caked in snow and ice from head to toe, and had his arms locked tightly around himself. Theo kept him in her sight as she slowly circled the clearing, seeking the man's blind spot.
When she was certain his back was to her, she darted across the open expanse of the field and threw herself down into the snow drift piled high against the cellar. She had little more than a few feet of snow separating her from the man on guard. If he turned and walked a mere few steps, she would be found.
Thankfully, he didn't, so she remained huddled in the snow. The smell of burning silver wafted up from cracks in the cellar doors, making the presence in her twist and growl while it burned the inside of her nose.
For a moment, she felt pity for the lycan trapped below, eternally burning. But then she recalled his dripping maw and the eagerness with which he had bitten her leg, which sufficiently drove away any empathy she could have for the beast.
The sound of booted feet crunching on snow broke her train of thought. The cellar doors swung open, and the man guarding them went down the steps at a ponderously slow pace. When she peeked over the mound of snow she hid behind, she saw the shimmer of a mirage at the edge of the doors, but no man.
He knocked on the metal door at the base of the stairs, making her perk up. Three knocks, then a solitary fourth, and two more an instant later. She hurried to commit the pattern to memory as the sound of the door swinging open made its way to her ears.
"What do you want?" Came a voice with the light midwestern accent of the Rockies.
The man who knocked shifted on his feet before responding. "I've got to take a piss. I figured you should know I wouldn't be guarding the door for a few minutes." The man sounded distinctly young to her- hardly a man at all.
"I don't need to know when you've got to take a bloody piss Timothy. Just fuck off and go," the man said, and she could hear the exasperation in his voice. Theo gathered that this probably hadn't been the first time something like this had occurred between the two.
"Yes sir," Timothy said as the door swung shut on him with a bang. The boy hesitated a moment at the foot of the stairs before coming up them, his booted feet making the boards creak. She didn't dare to look up until he had tramped off across the clearing. When he stopped and began fidgeting with his belt, trying to get it undone with his heavy, snow encrusted mittens on, she knew it was time.
