Soul Bound

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-one

Another hard, cold floor. This time it's stone. The fluorescent lights above illuminate the room with an unnatural and sickening yellow light. There's a door across from me made from some kind of metal. It looks brand new. And capable of keeping almost anything out. Or in.

The dosage of drugs must've not been as high this time. I can smell everything: the people—werewolves—nearby, the stale air that suggests we're underground, the fresh meat being cut up somewhere in the area. But my mind is in a fog, the medley of scents just making it worse. Wolf is in the same boat, trying to make sense of all the blurred memories, sorting through them to figure out what happened just before we blacked out.

My wrists are sore from yet more restraints. But I won't be biting these ones off. Large metal cuffs weigh heavy on my arms, made even heavier by the metal chains threaded through them and attached to the wall. A set up similar to the one in the basement at the Bank. Even more familiar are the scratch marks in the stone walls. This isn't the first time someone's been chained up in here.

Someone has dressed me in a man's tshirt and jeans. How decent of them. I test the chains. I can move about four feet from the wall, the jangle of metal adding to my headache.

There's got to be some way out of these.

Turning to face the wall, I plant my feet firmly and pull as hard as I can. The holders in the wall don't budge. The metal is shiny and free from scratches. Unlike the cuffs, they're brand new. There is a set of holes in the wall where the old holders used to be attached, and it looks like the screws that anchored them were ripped right out of the stone.

Someone opens the door and I spin around, read to bite or kick or do whatever I need to do to defend myself. But River is stood on the other side, beaten and bloody. A man holds tight to the back of his neck, nails biting into his skin. My anger surges and I don't even try to stop the growl that Wolf pushes through my mouth.

It's the Asian man. With River. He pushes him into the room and I rush to catch him, but the chains stop me short and he lands hard on his side against the floor.

"River!" I yell, pulling so hard on the cuffs that they cut bloody lines into my wrists.

He looks up, face swollen and bruised, and smiles at me, like everything's okay.

Liar.

I look at the other binder, still standing in the doorway, smirking at us. "Who are you? Why are you helping them?"

"Chiang Lee. Pleasure." He bows. "And because they're going to win," he says plainly.

"But you're a binder!" I don't understand. "You're on our side of this!"

"Not everyone on your side is in your corner," he says again, in the same bored way, "especially if it's the side that's losing."

I snap. "You traitor. You goddamn traitor! How could you do this!? How could you stand by and watch as your kind are tortured?"

"It's really not that difficult. Our kind are cowards. Scared little deer who will always run when the tiger comes, not realizing they could kill the tiger if only they were brave enough to fight together. Let the vampires and werewolves kill off the weak, then kill each other. The strong will rise." He tips his head up, looking down at us over his nose, "I will not associate with cowards." Chiang slips the doors closed, locking the series of bolts from the other side.

We're locked in.

I want to go after him. Want to catch him and wring his scrawny neck for betraying us, but River wheezes next to me. "River. River, what did they do to you?" I ask, slumping to the ground. Blood drips from my wrists onto the stone.