Page 31 of Chained
Chapter Eleven
Edge woke up before dawn in his human form and climbed stiffly out of the cage. Holt was gone, but Duke was sound asleep in his own cage, paws twitching in his sleep. Edge stared at him for a while, wondering if the collar felt as heavy around Duke’s neck as it felt around his own. Butch had died with his collar on, his form wavering agonizingly between human and canine as the life ebbed away. Edge didn’t know what the boss had done with the body.
Not wanting to wake Duke, Edge stepped outdoors into the last of the darkness and crept behind the bougainvillea to shift. When it was complete, he shook himself and trotted out to find Holt and take over patrolling the grounds.
Even now he heard Terry’s songs playing in his head. At least he’d have that gift to keep, along with the memory of Terry’s touch—and the fact that Terry hadn’t been repulsed by him or acted as if Edge were… lower. Terry had seen the potential for Edge to be his own person.
He ran slightly faster, head held high.
He was on his third circuit of the grounds, sniffing at the remnants of Terry’s scent from the day before, when Ms. Stroman planted herself in front of him. He stopped and gave her a wary look. She wasn’t exactly cruel to him, at least not the way the boss was, but she’d always made her disdain for him clear, and he believed that she had prompted some of the beatings the boss gave him.
“Your master wants you,” she said.
He didn’t like her smile at all, but he headed for the big house anyway.
Chapter Twelve
Usually when Terry was on assignment, he felt excited. Amped up. It was the only time he felt truly alive, aside from dancing. And he was never frightened, not even when he damned well should have been.
But this morning as his IROC-Z rolled down the street between the walls and privacy hedges, past the old cars that belonged to hard-working members of the staff, his heart beat like the drums in a Ramones tune and his palms sweated all over the steering wheel. He was terrified, but not for himself. If he was honest, he’d always assumed he’d bite the dust during one of his missions. Hell, he’d maybe even welcomed the idea. Better to go quickly while fighting the good fight—perhaps amid a pack of ravening chupacabras—than to fade away unnoticed and unmourned.
That attitude was fine for him; he’d made his own decisions and steered his own fate. Had plenty of opportunity for freedom. But what about Edge, who’d been faced with grim decisions at best? Edge deserved a chance in the world. Dammit, Edge deserved an autonomous life. He should get to drink too much and exhaust himself dancing in nightclubs. Decide who he wanted to have sex with, and when, and how. He should have the right to know joy.
Terry pulled up to the gate, scared to death for Edge’s sake. And that was not a good way to run an assignment. Townsend’s mystery pill felt heavy in Terry’s gut, although it didn’t seem to be affecting his mental state, which was as clear as it ever got. For all he knew, the stupid thing was poison. Or a goddamn miniaturized nuclear bomb.
The gate slid open before Terry had a chance to get out and announce himself. He wondered if Whitaker was watching on the security camera. Maybe weighing the quality of the soul he intended to take. Well, joke was on him. Terry’s soul was a shriveled thing, not worth much at all.
Ms. Stroman waited for him atop the stairs as she had the first time, a mastiff on either side. There was no sign of Edge, and Terry silently chided himself not to panic. Maybe Edge was off patrolling the estate or engaged in other duties.
“Welcome back, Mr. Brandt.” As he stepped up to her, he noticed for the first time that her eyes were odd. Not flatly reflective like those of Whitaker’s clients. In fact, almost the opposite: her eyes seemed to draw him in as if he might get lost in them. Not one mirror, but a whole maze of them. A carnival house of mirrors.
How had he not noticed this before? He barely suppressed a shudder.
Terry fell into step behind her, and the dogs flanked him. He wished he could ask them where Edge was—howEdge was—and beg them to round him up and escape with him right now. But he doubted they’d listen. They didn’t even look at him as they trotted along.
Although he’d been in Whitaker’s house just a day earlier, the interior looked different now. Still a series of rooms full of monochrome chairs and couches, but these weredifferentchairs and couches. He was sure of it. Even a man as wealthy as Whitaker couldn’t possibly have redecorated so extensively in twenty-four hours, so perhaps they were taking a new route through the house. If so, there seemed to be far too many rooms, even for such an expansive structure.
They finally passed through a set of double doors into a space Terryknewhe’d never seen before. It was a big room, although the exact size was hard to judge because walls turned at weird angles and the place was stuffed with furniture. Not bland stuff in grays and whites; these pieces included every color of the rainbow and then some. They spanned styles from ancient Egyptian through ultra-modern and were made of wood, leather, plastic, metal, fabric, stone, fur, glass, and bone. The walls, painted in wild hues, were hung with a museum’s worth of paintings. Taken together, it was as if every rich person in history was having an estate sale in this spot.
“What the hell?” Terry muttered. Ms. Stroman either ignored him or didn’t hear him, but she cast an evil look at one of the dogs, who had accidentally swiped a small blobby sculpture off a coffee table with his tail. Terry took care not to knock anything over as he wound his way through a maze of desks, armoires, shelves, divans, and ottomans.
Just before they reached a wall, an unobtrusive door opened and Whitaker stepped out, closing it behind him. Today he looked as if he might have just stepped off his yacht: boat shoes, pale blue chinos, layered polos, and a pink sweater knotted around his neck. He was smiling.
“I’m very happy to see you again, Terry.”
Terry nodded. “I really want what you’ve offered.”
“Good. Like I warned you, my price is steep. But you know the sayings. No free lunch. And you get what you pay for.”
“WhatamI paying?”
“Now, see? You gotta want this so bad that it doesn’t matter what you gotta give. That you’d flatten your mother with a semi if that’s what it takes.”
“My mother’s been dead for years.”
Whitaker laughed. “I guess I can’t ask for that, then. Tell me again. What family do you have?”
Surely Whitaker knew the answer already—Terry had given his biographical sketch during the party, keeping it fairly true except for the law-enforcement parts. Maybe Whitaker was testing to see if his story had changed, a tactic sometimes used by the Bureau during interrogations.
