Strays

Chapter 35

Chapter Thirty-Five

My head was still pounding relentlessly a few hours later.

Gritting my teeth, I watched as Ricardo dusted off his hands and leapt from the wide, wooden platform standing in the centre of the studio. The dais had to be at least eight feet high but he hit the ground without so much as a stumble, spinning to face our handiwork with a bemused expression on his face.

"I think that should do it..." he muttered.

I managed a nod, though what I really wanted to do was bash his head against the stage he'd just jumped from. The only thing holding me back was the fact that it was my own damn fault I was in this condition. While the two of us had spent the past four hours construction an old-fashioned guillotine for one of the final scenes in the lycan film, I'd left Theo alone in one of the studios downstairs to clean. It was a hell of a lot safer than dangling him in front of Courtney like a juicy carrot – but the longer he remained out of sight, the closer I came to a full-blown migraine.

"You know," Ric mused, oblivious to the violent thoughts swirling about my head, "I never really understood why there was so much pomp and ceremony over an execution."

My gaze slid over his shoulder to the termagant teetering on ten-inch heels at the other end of the studio. Her screechy voice had no trouble carrying over the hum of construction work as she berated one of the extras, screaming something along the lines of, "Emote more!" followed by, "And try not to look like a log that fell of the back of a fucking lorry, you dense twat!"

"Tell me you'd be satisfied if someone offed her with one little bullet," I responded roughly, the words coming out more threatening than I'd intended. "No witnesses, no proof..."

Ric glanced at me warily. "Who knew I'd find myself relating to the guy who invented burning people at the stake?" he said with forced levity.

"LOG! LOG! ARE YOU A FUCKING LOG, CORNELIUS?"

The sound of her voice hitched the tension in my head up a few notches and I ground my teeth together to keep from doing something stupid, like trying out our newly built guillotine on her. I felt myself go rigid as the image flitted through my mind: the give of her legs as she collapsed onto her knees, the soft swish of the blade falling –

The scent of blood hit my nose. When I glanced down, I shouldn't have been surprised by the crescent shaped marks etched into my palms and the faint throb of pain under my skin as fresh blood oozed from the wounds I'd cut with my nails. Again.

Ric's nostrils flared as he caught the scent and his expression turned grim. "Break time for you, Jules."

It was a testament to how tense I was by Theo's absence that I didn't bother to correct him as I stalked for the exit. My heartbeat kicked into a faster beat as I hit the doorframe and I struggled to remain calm as I waited for a floor jumper in the atrium outside.

He's fine, he's fine... I raked a hand through my hair, smearing blood through the strands. Logically, I knew my brain was blowing everything out of proportion. That we'd been here for weeks without a single sign of trouble with the exception of Courtney, and she was too preoccupied in the studio to notice Theo's absence tonight. But with every pulse of pain in the back of my head, the shadow of old nightmares threatened to rear up: visions of him strewn around the Petrides library in pieces, his blood seeping into the carpet. His gold-flecked eyes vacant and unseeing.

My headache spiked and a growl rumbled through my chest before I could stop it. One of the extras hovering nearby threw me a startled look and I lunged for a nearby jumper before he could start asking questions.