3.1 | Animal Instinct ✓

08 | beast

0 8

b e a s t

THE ROOM WAS dark.

Slowly, I pushed myself up and crossed the room. A faint light streamed through from outside and I pressed my ear against the door.

Nothing.

I reached for the doorknob. To my surprise, the door opened easily. My heart raced and my senses were on full alert. There was no way it could be that easy.

No guards outside my door and no one down the hallway. But I knew that it was all just a façade, the real danger lay ahead and the easy access out of my room was just tempting me to walk right into its trap.

Sudden footsteps made me look up. Diego's eyes narrowed when he saw me. "Let's go."

"Where're we going?"

He ignored me and spun on his heels. I knew better than to escape from him. After having been caught–twice–by him, I'd be stupid not to have learnt my lesson. So I followed him down narrow hallways, until we stopped in front of a large door.

Diego twisted the knob and looked in. "She's here," he said to someone inside.

There was a muffled reply, and Diego shoved me into the room, before slamming the door shut. I froze. At the end of a long table sat a familiar man—the one whom I'd seen at the Hearing. He was in the middle of a meal, but set his fork and knife down when he saw me.

"Quinn Reilly," the way he said my name was positively chilling and I fought to stay calm. Because something about him, everything about him, really, sent my heart racing with panic and desperation. "It's good to have you back here with us."

I steeled myself and met his gaze. "What do you want?"

His lips twisted in a smile. Carefully, he sliced a piece of meat before bringing it to his lips. He chewed in a deliberately slow manner that I was certain was meant to instil fear in me.

I swallowed and tried to put on the most nonchalant expression I could possibly muster. "Should I come back when you're done eating?"

"You're frightened," he pointed out, with a chuckle. "But you have no reason to fear me. I don't make it a point to chew on Jedidiah's playthings."

I stared at him. "You're keeping me here as bait."

"You're rather astute for a human. And yes, you're bait. Were it not for your affinity to Jedidiah, I would've had my guards snap your neck before you can even blink. But, as it stands, he'll come for you, no matter what or how long it takes."

My heart clenched at the thought of Jed, but I took a deep breath. "Who are you?"

"He didn't tell you about me?" He shook his head and laughed, a kind of eerily haunting sound that made me wish desperately to unhear it. "That's a shame. My name is Mattheus. But I'm a terrible host and getting rather ahead of myself here. Are you hungry?"

I kept silent.

He simply shrugged. "I'm sure the guards will help you if you need some food later. Just stay within the vicinity and we'll get along fine. I'd hate to send my pack out to track you down in the middle of the night. Werewolves can get rather vicious when they're not properly reined in, you know," he added, with a hint of a threat behind his words. He picked up his fork again and dismissed me. "Diego will see you out."

The door opened and Diego dragged me out. The moment we were outside the room, I wrenched away from him. "Get away from me!"

He dropped my arm with a bored expression. "With pleasure," he sneered and strode off without so much as a backward glance.

That left me alone. I glanced around, noting the long hallways and nondescript doors along every corner. There was no easy way to get out of here. But I had free rein around this place, hadn't I? And I was going to try to find a way out, even if it took me longer than was necessary. And even if I couldn't, there was no harm memorising this place so I could get out easily when help came.

Ignoring the guards around, I methodically made my way through the building, taking note of paintings and specific pieces of furniture along the way to familiarise myself with my surroundings. Opening doors to see if they were exits and closing them when they weren't. It was like finding a way out of the labyrinth. You had to start somewhere. If you made a wrong turn, you backtracked. If you chose the correct path, you just kept going.

Eventually, I managed to locate one exit that seemed easier than the others. It was along the side of the building and, while guarded, led out to the road. That was my best bet. For the hundredth or so time that day, I couldn't help wishing that I'd set things right with Jed.

And when I was with him, I was safe.

Approaching another door, I opened it. Peered in, only to see that there was an empty bed inside. I shut it and continued, opening three other doors and finding nothing useful until I came to the final one down the quiet hallway. This one was different, and I immediately began to feel anxious when I saw the sign plastered across the door, which ran "NO ENTRY" in dark red font.

My first instinct was to leave the door alone. But my second thought was the suspicion that it could lead somewhere. Slowly, I turned the knob and stepped in. A winding path led into the dark. I began to pull the door shut again, just as a sudden noise startled me.

It was – it sounded like a cry.

Curiosity getting the better of me, I quickly stepped inside, letting the door fall shut behind me before I lost my nerve and backed out again. There was an odd smell around the place, I couldn't quite lay a finger on it, but everything about this place was so deathly quiet and gloomy that it made me nervous.

But the same cry sounded out from below and this time it was unmistakable: definitely a woman. Maybe – Lorraine?

Anxiety flooded through me as I headed down the stairs. Soon, I reached a huge room. In the middle of it was a bed. A lamp hanging from the low ceiling bathed the room in an otherworldly glow. It was pleasant at first, until the stench of the room hit me, so strong that I almost gagged.

Because the place reeked of blood.

I scanned the place and, as my eyes adjusted to the faint lighting, I realised exactly what kind of nightmare lay within.

It was the body hanging limply in the corner that caught my eye first, one hand dragged up like it was controlled by an invisible puppeteer, hooked by a handcuff to a railing while the head was hanging forward, at such a disjointed angle that I knew without a doubt that the woman was dead. It was the body sprawled diagonally across hers, and this woman had startlingly red hair that lay bedraggled across her stripped frame, eyes vacant, staring, and lacerations every which way across her pale skin. It was another, and another, and another, all stripped naked amidst the chains and whips and bondage equipment – and she too was dead, so was she, and was that a girl barely twelve, and another woman my age lying in a pool of her own blood, dead, dead, all dead.

There were monsters from fairytales that your parents told you about, and then there were the imagined monsters you had nightmares about. But these were the monsters that haunted our world.

This time, I really retched. But my stomach was empty and I heaved until I was a shaking mess. Through a fog of tears, I pulled myself together and pressed my hand to my lips to keep from sobbing aloud. I was about to leave when a feminine cry stopped me.

"H-hello?" I stammered. A scuffling sound came from the back of the room. Bracing myself, I picked my way across the room. "Anyone?"

Then I saw it – a chain draped across a stand that linked to handcuffs wrapped around frail wrists. The woman beneath it was muzzled and legs bound, so thin and starved that I knew she was on the brink of death.

I froze.

"Bianca?"