Page 91 of Envious Of Fire
Kyle watches him float away around the corner. When he glances back at the cage, the young man is clinging to the bars, eyes shut, teeth clenched. “Fuck me,” the pet curses under his breath, hits his head against the cage, then keeps hissing the words again and again through his teeth.
“Is he more your type?”
It’s Drake, yet again sneaking up behind Kyle undetected, folding his arms on Kyle’s shoulders and leaning against him, smiling with dimples.
Kyle shrugs him off. “You can keep painting yourself as an innocent bystander to all this, with your so-called humane ways of survival. But while this guy still lives in a damned cage, there is nothing humane about this place. You’re complicit in this.”
“I only ask because my brother mentioned you’re a football player.” Drake nods at the guy. “Is he one, too? Is there some kinda jock-code-bro-code thing going on? Jocks before cocks? Players before vamp … ayers?Hmm, that last one didn’t work…”
Kyle leaves Drake’s side and strolls right up to the cage. He didn’t count on the young man stirring, gasping in fear, and at once moving away, back slamming against the other side. To be fair, there’s little space to move inside it anyway.
Kyle takes the hint, takes a step back, lifts his hands. “Hey, I’m not here to hurt you.”
“F-Fuck you,” the guy spits back.
“Promise. I’m really not. Ran into you by total accident out there in the desert. I didn’t realize you’d be dragged back here. I’m not one of these guys.”
“Yeah, you are.”
“Do I look like them?” Kyle gestures at himself, at his own hair, then opens his mouth and pokes at his teeth. “See? No fangs or weird hair. Hell, man,you’reeven taller than me.”
“So?He’sone of them and he looks like us, too.”
Kyle glances over his back, seeing Drake. He sighs, rolls his eyes, faces the guy. “Okay, some of us aren’t really transformed fully yet. And I never will be. I don’t drink blood.” He realizes that’s a lie. “I don’t drinknonconsensualblood.” That doesn’t sound much better. “What I mean is, I’ve spent decades drinkingnoneof it, and my boyfriend is turned on by dating someone likeme, so … he kinda … uh … Y’know what? This is an overshare. I realize that. My point is, no one deserves to live in a cage.”
“Hey, hero boy,” comes Drake, slinking up to Kyle’s side, then leaning against the cage, “this is cute and everything, but I hope you realize every vampire in this cave can hear every word of your conversation. Salazo’s probably on his way over to end you.”
“He can try,” snaps Kyle, baring his teeth.
Ten long seconds pass. No one comes.
Drake frowns. “Perhaps I’m mistaken and he’s … occupied.”
“Then now’s our chance.” Kyle circles the cage in pursuit of its door—ignoring the young man who keeps backing away from him, as if caught in a terrifying game of tag. “How does it open?”
“It doesn’t.”
Kyle shoots Drake a look. “Then how does the pet get in and out?”
“I have a name,” barks the cage’s inhabitant.
Drake shrugs, walks up to the cage, takes hold of its bars, says to the pet, “Duck,” then lifts it straight up into the air, the young man barely ducking in time to avoid being smacked over the back of his head by the cage. Drake sets down the cage next to him, then sweetly adds, “It’s lighter than it looks.”
The young man gasps. “I … I couldn’t budge the thing!” he protests. “It’s gotta weigh a ton!”
“It’s just thathumanandvampiremuscles work differently,” explains Drake, then says nothing further than that, turning back to Kyle. “What now, hot stuff? We march out of here with him? Freedom and happy endings for all? You’re in charge now.”
Kyle glances around, suddenly unsure, feeling like they’re surrounded. Though Drake’s words seem sarcastic, his tone is sincere, which only works to confuse Kyle worse on whether he is here to help, or just to taunt how very improbable the notion isto “march out of here”, as he so helpfully said.
Drake pats Kyle on the back. “Let’s make this easy.” Then he saunters to one of the bins while Kyle and the young bodybuilder watch. After sifting through the items of several bins, humming to himself, he finally finds what he’s looking for with a happy cheer. “Here we go!” He returns with a length of chain attached to a thick spiked collar, which he starts to click playfully in his hands.
The young man backs away. “What the fuck is that?”
Drake stops. “A collar and leash, obviously.”
“I’m not wearing that!”
Kyle sighs, not in the mood for this. “Seriously? What’re you playing around for, Drake?”
