Page 95 of Caged Kitten

Rafe

I awoke to a blitzkrieg.

My eyes snapped open at the distant explosion, the walls of my cell shuddering. Dust sprinkled down on Tully and me, the lone lightbulb overhead swinging back and forth. Another boom, followed by the wail of a siren, and as I blinked the fog of my afternoon nap away, I legitimately thought I was in London and the Germans were bombing the absolute shit out of us—again. Back in my flat, unable to enlist—medically disqualified after a checkup by a human physician I had vampirically encouraged to scribble whatever I told him on my chart. The war. The war to end all wars—

Only Tully wasn’t there during the war.

Another crack-boom, more violent than any of our recent thunderstorms, followed by another misting of chalky dust from the walls and ceiling. Then just the siren—and men shouting. Groaning, I sat up, forcing Tully to sink his claws into my chest so he didn’t tumble off. We had retired to my cell hours ago if the heat on the window said anything, the sun at a different spot in the sky now, and the silly familiar continued to purr away, steadfast, stubborn enough to think he could regrow my fangs. Unfortunately, their loss was one he couldn’t fix, magic or not, but I found comfort in his company, in the constant vibration of his deep, soothing purrs.

Just me and Deimos in Cellblock C today, the bastard off from library duty and the rest of our crews gone.

And now—

Wood splintered outside my cell, then another boom sent chunks crashing across the block. Metal warped with a pitchy groan, and Williams gave a lone shout before being silenced by gunfire. Two shots—bang, bang—and then nothing but his moans. Tully whipped around, doubled in size and completely rigid. Both of us tracked the warlock guard’s wand as it bounced across the floor outside my doorway, away from him, like someone had kicked it.

What… the hell?

Tully clung to me as I tried to stand, growling low, his tail swishing, and I finally had to just peel him off in order to get upright. The familiar toppled to the ground with a yowl, then darted for a nearby shadow. Brushing the dust from my face, my hair, my arms, I staggered for the opening at the end of my cell, still blinking the sleep away, all the while wondering if this was a nightmare.

Until I saw them.

My people.

Elijah, Katja, Fintan—and a guard hostage. The main door to Cellblock C had been blown apart, most likely by the wand in the trembling warlock’s hand, and just as Katja opened her mouth to greet me, lips stretched in a nervous smile, Deimos blitzed out of his cell and across the block. The demon moved like a great black shadow, faster than I’d ever given him credit for, sprinting by Elijah and straight out the door. Smart. With none of his cronies here and bedlam unfurling outside, we could have finally just killed him.

No great loss there.

But what—

Was that a gun?

I blinked down at the pistol in Katja’s left hand. No one else had a gun. Fintan had the thin blade that most guards carried on their belts a breath away from slitting his hostage’s throat, and then Elijah had… himself, nothing but a metal shield at his side.

So. Katja had shot Williams. Bang, bang. One in the leg, the other in the shoulder—if the blood pooling around the fallen, moaning, sniveling guard suggested anything. My mouth watered, but I forced myself to ignore the buffet—for now.

“What the hell are you doing?” was the best I could manage under the circumstances. Elijah, Fintan, and I had discussed whisking Katja away from Xargi, but we hadn’t gone beyond a general agreement that it was absolutely critical to get her as far from Guthrie as possible before he went full psycho and killed her.

“Escape attempt,” Fintan told me, his eyes brighter than usual, his tone suggesting he rather enjoyed the unfolding carnage. Typical fae. Must have been Unseelie as I’d always suspected. “Get with the program, Rafe.”

“What?” I stabbed both hands through my hair, frustration on the rise. “Now?”

Looming over the group, Elijah just shook his head when our eyes met, his expression twisting into something that said he understood my feelings—and to just go with it. Let it happen. Right. Sure. Totally logical and not going to fail at all.

Another explosion rocked the prison, and I braced on the doorway while Katja did the same on Elijah’s arm, more dust shuddering from the ceiling and coating the block’s common area in white—like falling ash. Like the blitz. I pinched the bridge of my nose, pushing a lifetime of memories aside, my gums still sore from the extraction. The holes had healed over, but they would never be filled.

“We aren’t leaving without you,” Katja said when the structure around us stopped shivering through the aftershocks. She studied me with wide, imploring eyes, begging for forgiveness. I’d seen that look many times in my long life, and I’d never been more inclined to accept an unspoken apology before. Only now wasn’t the time or place for this—not when the prison was probably literally on fire.

Seconds later, Tully shot out of my cell and went straight for his witch, those squeaky kittenish chirps making her whole face light up. While thrilled that we were all back on speaking terms, this wasn’t exactly the scenario I had in mind for a reunion. Watching her scoop up Tully and hug him tight, I wanted to do the same, to drag them both into my arms and whisper that I would never let her go.

That I didn’t blame her for what Guthrie had done to me.

That I would also forever possess the memory, hazy as it was, of one of my fangs plopped into a vial of acid—just so the researchers could see if it would fizzle away.

It hadn’t.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t strong enough to say any of that. So soon after the extraction, I still battled many unwelcome feelings, struggling to come to terms with the loss. Rather traumatic for a vampire to lose his fangs; we could be a stoic bunch, steeped in tradition and ancient rites, but we had all once been human—and that never quite disappeared, even for the vamps who had gone full bloodlust. Feeling was a sickness we carried from man to creature, vampirism and emotion two diseases for which there was no cure.

So. Basically I was still traumatized and needed a minute to process.

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