Trust Your Instincts

-47- Those Three Words

 Mark's heart had never beat so fast in his life. If someone had told him that he'd be breaking and entering into a house to save his werewolf boyfriend from where he was tied up in the basement, well... nobody would be gullible enough to believe that.

 Yet there he was, crouching by the doorway in the living room, just far enough into the room so that if and when Laurel's dad came out of the basement for a break, he wouldn't be able to see Mark. He'd be more easily recognisable now that Mark had taken off the ski mask which, upon reflection, may have been slightly childish and unbearably itchy, so he had to make sure he was out of view.

 He sat in the darkened room, lit by nothing at all as it was vacated for the time being. He could hear Laurel's high pitched squeaky giggle resonating from upstairs, not accompanied by Isaac's normal cheerful chatter or hearty laugh. He felt a stab of pity in his heart at the thought of his friend studying with someone who he despises so much, but the sound of bone crunching and  the high pitched yelp that exited Jack's mouth moments after which had arisen from the basement forced Mark to put into perspective who was really suffering in this house, and it sure as hell wasn't Isaac.

 The cries of pain echoing from the slightly ajar door of the basement broke Mark's heart. He could tell that Jack was doing everything in his power to stifle them, to give that wretched man as little satisfaction as possible, but Mark could almost sense just how much pain he was in, and it took almost all of his willpower not to burst through the basement door and put a knife in the back of Mr Castillo's neck. He knew he couldn't do that. He'd never be able to overpower that man himself, and so he sat in the corner, his hands pressed to his ears, failing to block out the blood curdling shrieks coming from downstairs.

 He must've endured almost an hour of listening to Jack being tortured, noting that his screams of pain had become quieter as his energy was drained from him. In the end, all that escaped the crack in the door was the whimpering and laborious breathing of Jack and the near triumphant drawl of the man who Laurel called dad.

 "I'm going to go and get another cup of coffee." The man said confidently, his voice slightly muffled by the door being so nearly closed. "And when I come back, you'll be ready to tell me everything, right?" Mark could hardly make out the last word of that sentence, as he must've leaned in so close to Jack that he almost whispered it.

 It was time now. If Mark was gonna break Jack out then now was the perfect opportunity. He brought out his phone and texted Isaac, just the words 'booper dooper'. He'd know what that meant. Besides, if they didn't use codewords and Laurel saw the text then it'd all go to shit.

 He heard the creaking of the wooden floorboards that led to the door of the basement, and shrunk further into the shadows of the living room, ensuring that the man wouldn't see him when he walked out into the hall.

 The door opened. and Mark heard heavy footsteps heading towards the kitchen, causing him to sigh in relief. The man had, once again, forgotten to close the door, or perhaps it hadn't crossed his mind that Jack was a fucking werewolf and would be able to rip his throat out using just his claws whenever he wanted to. His idiocy didn't concern Mark. Now that the man was in the kitchen, the coast was clear and he'd finally be able to see Jack, to hold him.

 Nevertheless, he hesitated. He was scared, almost terrified of seeing what the man had done to Jack whose breathing was still heavy, amplified to Mark by the now widely open door. How much had this man broken Jack?

 He was snapped out of his daze when he heard footsteps coming down the stairs, looking up slightly to see the familiar grey sweater that Isaac always wore. The boy got to the bottom of the stairs, and walked past the basement door to the kitchen, winking in Mark's direction as he did so, and doing his best to pay no attention to the ominously dark room that Jack's breathing was emanating from.