Page 30 of Medusa

A sharp prick in the side of his neck, and his legs felt like jelly.

“I’ve got ya bud,” snarled a voice in his ear, and then blackness closed in and Jaden knew no more.

* * *

Jaden woke up with a start,gasping for air and dripping wet. He tried to wipe his face and found his arms tied behind his back to a metal folding chair.

Cruel chuckles filled the air.

“Nice to see ourguestis awake,” snarled one man.

Deciding it would be useless to pretend to still be unconscious, Jaden blinked his eyes furiously to remove the last of the water droplets. His mouth felt like cotton and his head was spinning slightly from whatever drug they’d pumped into him.

There were three men in the room with him. He ignored them for a moment, looking around at his accommodations. The walls were cement, no windows. There were exposed pipes on the ceiling, and a single fluorescent light in the center, hanging precariously from wires. One wall had a crack halfway up the foundation; both it and the floor were slightly discolored from water seeping through it.

Definitely a basement then.

He wrinkled his nose in disgust as the stench of rot and the ozone tang of metal and cement hit him.

The largest man in the room gripped Jaden’s chin, turning him back to facing the front. “I asked you a question!” he snapped.

“Did you? I must still be a bit loopy from the drug,” Jaden replied, shrugging his shoulders.

The man growled at him, his bushy black eyebrows snapping down over his beady eyes. Jaden saw the intent to punch him broadcast in the way the man’s shoulders shifted and tensed under his shirt. He tried to shift into his dragon form, to bust out of the room, to thicken his skin, anything.

Nothing happened.

Well, other than the fist connecting with his face.

Then his body hitting the floor as the chair tipped over.

The two other men sniggered as the first one walked around the chair to Jaden’s head and crouched down, his polished shoes filling Jaden’s vision. “Did that clear your head at all?” the man snarled.

Huh.

Whatever they gave me must be preventing my transformation.

What could do that?

Jaden ignored the man even though it would piss him off.

The shoes moved away and the man told his lackeys to pick Jaden up off the floor. One lackey was tall and wiry, the other short and developing a paunch. Once Jaden’s chair was up on all four legs again, the first guy dragged a chair over and sat in it.

“I feel like we got off on the wrong foot,” the man said. “My name’s Typhon.”

Jaden glared and spat out some blood on the floor far enough away he wouldn’t be likely to fall into it. “Lovely to meet you,” he sneered sarcastically. “Like what you’ve done with the place. Certainly makes it feel homey.”

The tall man snickered quietly and Jaden heartened. Maybe he’d have an ally of some sort.

Typhon turned halfway around and the tall man stopped.

Or maybe not.

Jaden rolled his eyes.

Lackeys was the right word for them.

“Do they follow you everywhere?” he asked, wanting to see if their loyalty was as unwavering as their leader seemed to think it was.

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