Page 43 of Etched in Stone
But where was Ray?
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FR E L INR AY
“Go, go, go!” Ray heard the men shout. He was groggy, but in stone sleep, he could still manage to listen in on snatches of the conversation. He got the gist that Pablo was not coming with them.
“He thinks he’s so slick.”
“Careful. You know how he bugs everything.”
“You saw it, he was getting put in handcuffs.”
“He’ll be out in less than an hour. I’m sure he’ll meet us at the rendezvous point.”
He muddled out the fact that there was one male and one female voice.
Whatever Pablo had shot him full of was potent stuff, forcing him into an immediate stone sleep.
They’d been lucky enough to drag him the few steps out to the van before he’d fully turned.
Otherwise, he would have been nearly immoveable without assistance from a trolley.
The driver and her passenger went silent but Ray drifted into consciousness long enough to know they were leaving the city, and heading into a more sparsely populated area.
Jesse. She was unprotected, and Luis was nowhere to be seen. Ray hadn’t wanted to tell Jesse that he was probably already dead. Pablo would have no problem taking his cell phone off his body and leaving it in a dumpster somewhere.
He hoped she had the sense to go see Giles. He was the last hope of getting her safely away from the Syndicate and hopefully getting her and the sigil to the Northwest Territory. He should have mated with her. He should have followed his instincts and filled her with the fluid that had been aching in his glands for weeks now.
It was too late for that now. The last time he had been taken by the Rose Syndicate, it had taken six months for him to escape, and by that time Jessenia had been dead.
No, it wouldn’t take him that long, no matter what deal he had to strike with those bastards. He’d be out and away and then he and Jesse could leave this world behind.
They slowed and the van drove down a ramp and underground. There was a jerk, and he felt an elevator in motion. Great. He was in a secret underground base miles from nowhere. Things were getting better and better.
He felt himself being lifted, fought against the stone sleep but was unsuccessful. He was a prisoner in his own body. The sheer effort alone drifted him back out of consciousness.
When he awoke, whatever Pablo had fired into him had left his system. He was in a cell, and Rose had definitely gone a lot more high tech than his last imprisonment. Last time, he'd been tethered with solid iron chains. This time, there was a large clear pane and a room of about a six feet cube.
Cameras watched him from every angle.
Pablo stood waiting, looking at his watch.
“You see, we have it down to a science, this new formula. Although we had to estimate your weight compared to our other subjects,” hesaid calmly. His normal jacket was missing. Instead, he wore only a light yellow vest with a purple shirt and a pink tie.
“Where's Jesse?”
“Where's our little device? You know the one you stole for us?”
“I didn't steal it. He gave it to me. Ask him yourself.”
“That doesn't answer my question.”
“Only if you answer my question. Why do you choose to dress as if Easter threw up all over you?
You know, it's just not pretty. I mean maybe if your face wasn't so ugly and you didn't look like an egg.”
Pablo squinted at him. Ray wanted to get him angry, to not think and open the door. That's where he was probably going to find a flaw in this system, by exploiting human weaknesses and other ego maniacal tendencies.
