Page 49 of Captured
Chapter Twenty-Four
Juliet
Henrick forces me to walk in front of him at a hurried pace, a pace that’s too fast for me. I fall a few times and my ankle hurts from twisting it on some overgrown root, but I don’t dare complain. Or slow down.
I’m on my own now with him and I am under no illusion as to whom has the upper hand. Henrick does and it’s as simple as that.
Time has lost meaning, as does pain. I concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. If I fall down now, I won’t get up and Henrick will just get rid of me. I don’t know how long it’s been since that slaughter on the shore, all I know is that darkness is falling as we begin the ascension of some steep slope. The rocks are slippery under my boots, but I keep going until we finally get to a small outcrop, its surface wide and open just before a cave opening. This is what he must have been aiming for, some shelter for the night. Someplace he could defend should Rakir choose to come after him, despite his threat to kill me.
Henrick pays me no attention. He scans the landscape below, his gaze focused, his eyes gleaming. I brace my hands on my knees, my breath burning, my head swimming in a thick ooze of pain, my legs aching.
Then my breath catches as I look upon long, deep gashes in the packed dirt. I swallow through my clenched throat, ignoring the agony as I push back to my feet.
Those are paw prints. The paw print of something big, something with claws.
“The apex.” I breathe-whisper.
I turn around to gaze into the deep, dark mouth of the cave, my skin prickling with goosebumps that have nothing to do with the lowering temperatures.
Henrick thinks Rakir and the Drakians are his worst enemy and he’s not wrong there. Only I know there are others who stalk these grounds, creatures of thirst and hunger. The face of the apex predator comes back to my mind, its long, sharp fangs and the intelligent look in its eyes.
Henrick turns back from the wide landscape and grabs my arm unceremoniously. He begins dragging me back toward the cave, obviously intent on hiding there for the night. Cold air seeps out of its mouth like a breath from Death.
“No!” I shout, digging my heels in the ground. My voice is hoarse and crackly from dehydration, but it rises nonetheless. “I’m not going in there.”
“Shut up, you Drakian whore.” Henrick jerks me around, reducing my protestation to a whimper.
“You don’t want to go in there.” I protest anyway, my voice barely audible. “You have no idea of the dangers of this planet.”
Henrick chuckles, dragging me like a ragdoll for the last few feet to the cave’s opening, then shoves me to the ground. After all that time being forced to run and dragged around, I’m spent and I fall, hard. Pain shoots through my knees and palms as I break my fall all wrong.
“You think me a fool, like your Drakian boyfriend?” Henrick snarls at me, his eyes shining with fanatical hatred. “I don’t know what you did for that Drakian to like you so much that he let me leave with the List, but I can assure you, he’s going to find nothing but your rotting corpse if you don’t keep quiet.”
“You don’t understand.”
I plead, still on my hands and knees on the floor, but I can see Henrick isn’t even listening to me. His face is closed off and his eyes scan the wilderness, spreading as far as the eye can see on all sides. He’s looking for signs that we’ve been followed, focused on his training that has never failed him before - but even all this training can’t help him in front of the apex predator on this strange planet.
My eyes wander to the ground, where more claw marks dig deep in the dirt, the rock. They live here, own this cave as their own. I can almost smell their presence in the dusty air.
“We have to leave this place. It’s not safe.”
“Shut up! This mess is all your fault.” Henrick shouts, coming over to me with an aggressive stance. He leans over me, his hands flexing open and shut. I know he’s only looking for an excuse to hit me. “You shouldn’t even be alive! You should have called for reinforcement and died like a good soldier!”
I can hear his words, but their meaning is lost on me. Darkness comes faster on this uncharted planet than on Earth and already, the night animals stir, far below in the forest. I can see their reflective eyes on us, the furtive movement of living things in the greenery.
For now, there’s no sign of what I fear most, but I know the apex predator can’t be far. I can feel its eyes on us, sense it assessing our strength. We’re no match for it, not Henrick and certainly not me.
“Rakir will come for me.” I wish I felt as confidant as I sound. “He’ll kill you.”
“Oh, you think your boyfriend will come rescue you, hmm?” Henrick kneels in front of me, then grabs a fistful of my hair and pulls my head close. I cry out in pain and disgust as his fetid breath fans my face. “What’s so special about you?”
Henrick’s eyes move on my face and I see his expression change. His eyes become heavy lidded as a sick kind of lust spans across his features.
“I think I’d like to find out for myself.” He pulls me closer and I fight back, but he’s too strong and the pain is too great. His breath fans my lips and I almost gag in revulsion. “We’ll see how much the Drakian likes his toy after I’ve played with it. My guess is he doesn’t like broken things.”
A broken thing. A discarded, useless toy. That’s what Henrick thinks he can reduce me to. As I hold his gaze, a cold rage boils under the surface inside my skull.
To hell with this. And to hell with him.
