Page 16 of Wolf Forgotten

Because that female was my mate.

Chapter Eight

Ivy

“Let's get her to the basement,” a soft female voice said as my mind came back to me. I couldn’t see or feel anything.

Oh, God. I really am dead. I was pretty sure the morgue was kept in hospital basements. Was this what happened when you died? You maintained some level of understanding as the last bit of light was sucked out of you? That was what it felt like.

I had to be dead. I was paralyzed and couldn’t even move my pinky. If I wasn’t dead, then I wasn’t sure I wanted to live. The car had been going so fast. Could anyone survive a crash like that?

Pain ripped through me as if all my bones were breaking and my skin was being ripped to shreds. My mind went blank.

* * *

My entire bodyached as I regained consciousness. It felt like I had been stuck in a clothes dryer with jagged rocks. My skin was hot and burned like there were a million tiny cuts everywhere.

Naked. I was naked.

I rubbed at my eyes as I uncurled myself, a whimper escaping. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, my pulse skyrocketed. I was in a cell on a concrete floor with a thin silver blanket covering me.

I scooted toward the door, a heaviness weighing my arms and legs down. My breaths came faster as I yanked on the chains cuffed to my wrists and ankles. Acid burned my stomach as I considered what it all meant.

Kidnapped. I never thought it would happen to me as an adult, but who would? I would become another missing person no one knew what happened to. I didn't pray, but maybe I should start.

My eyes swimming with unshed tears, I crawled to the far side of the cage where I could barely reach through the bars. There was a pile of clothes, a sandwich wrapped in plastic, and a bottle of water. I ignored the sandwich, too afraid to eat something my kidnappers left me.

They wanted to keep me fed. What were their plans and did it include cannibalism?

As I grabbed the clothes, a key fell onto the floor, the clinking sound ringing in my ears. I stood on wobbly legs and tried to unlock the door, but the key wouldn’t turn. A strangled cry escaped, despite my best effort to stay quiet. I was an idiot for thinking they would leave me a key to the door.

I started to panic, tears streaming down my face and blurring my vision. My breaths were shallow and short. I was going to be locked there forever. Did the guys in the truck take me or was it Cole?

I took the key from the lock and turned my attention to the chains on my arms and legs. I slid the key into the first shackle and it easily turned, the metal cuff falling to the floor with a clang.

The skin under the cuffs was red and raw, like I had been pulling on them for an extended amount of time. I quickly removed all the chains and slipped on the clothes that had been left for me.

The sweatpants and t-shirt were over-sized, but I wasn’t complaining. I pulled on the gray pants and rolled the waist so they would stay up. The shirt fell to my mid-thigh but was soft and smelled like fabric softener.

Being clothed and unchained gave me new clarity and a tiny boost in confidence. I wasn’t going to survive this if I gave up so easily and wallowed on the floor. I had a lot of life to live, Granted it would now be horribly twisted by the emotional scars this was going to cause.

I grasped one of the chains and yanked at it. It was bolted to the cement floor with two bolts. I checked each chain and sighed in defeat. The chains weren’t going anywhere.

After closing the cuff on one of the chains, I grasped it about a foot down. If I swung it hard enough and hit the right spot, maybe it would knock someone out. I really had no clue, but it was the best weapon I had.

Exhausted from everything, I sat back down on the hard ground. I looked around the basement, getting a lay of the land.

It was a large room that had three other cages like the one I was in. There was a door that was open on the far side that led into a dark room with security monitors.

My stomach rumbled, and I eyed the sandwich taunting me in its plastic wrap. Who knew how long I'd been locked there or how long the sandwich had been sitting there?

I grabbed it anyway and unwrapped it. When I breathed in, I was taken aback by how potent the individual smells were. Sourdough bread with roast beef and mayo. I was practically drooling as I took a bite.

What if they poisoned it?

I shook my head at the strange inner voice that sent a warning to me and took another bite. It tasted perfectly fine. If someone were going to poison me, they wouldn't waste perfectly delicious roast beef to do so.

I frowned at the sandwich as I swallowed another bite. They might have put sleeping medication in it, though. The thought made me swallow hard, and I threw the rest of the sandwich toward the stairs. That was sure to put a damper on their day if they stepped on it. I chuckled at the thought.

---