Like Cats and... Wolves? The Werepigeon Apocalypse [FREE and COMPLETED]

Chapter 4

Despite all the pain and cold (for some reason, the kidnappers took Nick’s jacket and even his shoes away, and the thin socks did little to nothing to protect his feet from the cold rising up from the tiled floor), Nick managed to fall into a restless sleep. It felt like only a few minutes later when Adira poked his mind, waking him up. “There’s someone here,” she whispered.

Nick jerked awake, looking around the room in fear. The wolf was right, there was a woman standing near the door, leaning against the wall, watching him curiously. She was young, not much older than Nick, her long dark hair gathered into a messy bun on the top of her head, a couple of wavy tresses framing her face. There didn’t seem to be any contempt in her expression, she looked almost hesitant, especially after their eyes met. Nick sat up straight and hugged his knees, waiting for her to say or do something.

“Hmm,” she mused, “alright.” The keyring jingled quietly when she fished it out of the pocket of her tight jeans and played with it until she found the right one and unlocked the cage. “Don’t get too excited,” she told him, probably noticing a hint of hope in his face, “I’m not here to set you free.” No, of course not, why should anything in Nick’s life be easy? “You are Grams’ prisoner, she is the one to decide your fate. And, well, I think you’ve noticed that she doesn’t exactly love wolves. Most folks around here don’t.”

Nick didn’t ask her whether she was one of them or why did she come to his cage. Given how aggressively this Grams reacted to his attempts to justify himself, he figured it would be safer to just keep his mouth shut. The woman entered the cage and stopped just a few feet away from him, pouting. She reached into her pocket again and Nick flinched when he saw the wolfsbane syringe in her hand.

Once she made sure he saw it, she put it on the ground next to him. “I will only use this if you try to do something stupid,” she said, looking straight into his brown eyes. Hers were an interesting blend of light green and caramel brown. “You will not try to do something stupid, are you?” Nick shook his head vigorously and she grinned. “Good dog.”

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Nick did notice the bottle of soda peeking out of the pocket on her jacket but didn’t even dare to hope it was for him. The woman pulled it out and offered it to him. “You should drink, you were out for quite a while.”

If they wanted to poison him, they wouldn’t have to trick him like that, Nick kept telling himself as he hesitantly reached for the bottle and unscrewed the cap, wincing in pain as the movement tore open the burnt skin on his wrist. His visitor patiently waited until he took a few careful sips. Despite feeling parched, Nick knew that if he chugged on it, he would most likely end up throwing it all up. And he doubted the woman would rush to bring him another one. “T-thank you.” He had to clear his throat to get the words through.

The woman sighed and sat down cross-legged right next to Nick. She was so close he could touch her if he just moved his hand. Which would most likely earn him a dose of wolfsbane so he chose to hold on to the bottle instead, clutching it as if his life depended on it. And maybe it did. “Grams is normally not like this.” Her tone was almost apologetic. “There’s just… a lot on her plate right now. And if you really are just a random passerby…” She scoffed. “Well, then you have chosen the worst possible time and the worst possible place.”

“I don’t suppose you are going to tell me what’s going on here?” She seemed approachable, so Nick decided to try and get some information from her. If he was supposed to die, he’d at least like to know why.

She gave him a lopsided smile. “You wouldn’t believe me. Alright,” she shifted her position to kneel on his side, making sure that the wolfsbane was safely within her reach, “enough chit-chat. Give me your hand.” Nick must have looked pretty frightened because she rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry, I don’t bite. Much,” she chuckled and extended her hand towards him.

Hesitantly, Nick placed his hand into hers, surprised by how pleasant it felt to touch her skin, almost as if there were tiny sparkles of electricity running between them. But he was probably just hallucinating from being drugged and dehydrated. Her eyes widened a bit too upon their touch but she quickly shook it off. “Don’t. Move.” She waited until he nodded before reaching for the keys and unlocking the shackle on his wrist. The metal took burnt pieces of his skin with it and Nick had to bite his lip not to scream out in pain.

The wound looked beyond ugly, the skin and the tissue underneath it cracked and charred. “Don’t worry,” Adira said in a comforting tone, “I’ll heal that soon. Unless she slaps the silver back on it.”

It didn’t seem like the woman was planning on doing that, at least not right away. She pulled out a small tube of a sweet-smelling salve and carefully spread it over the wound. Nick was surprised by how gentle she was, a stark contrast to the old lady and her goons.

A simple bandage appeared in her hand, the same one you can buy in any drugstore across the state. “I really hope this works,” she mumbled, more to herself than for Nick's ears, as she started to wrap the sterile fabric around his wrist. He winced when she reached the open wound but didn’t protest, starting to understand what she was trying to do. He also hoped it would work. Once she was done, she secured the end of the bandage with a piece of tape and reached for the chain again, warily examining his expression to see whether he would try to fight her.

Knowing it would be a stupid act that wouldn’t help him in any way, Nick stayed still, nodding at her while holding his breath in an anticipation of pain. The lock clicked, securing the shackle around his wrist again. There was no pain this time. Yes, Nick felt the silver holding him down and weakening him. But at least it wasn’t burning its way through his skin and muscles anymore. He exhaled slowly, closing his eyes in relief. “Thank you.”

“You owe me, wolf,” she smirked. “Now, the other hand.” After quickly repeating the process on Nick’s other wrist, the woman leaned closer, letting out an angry, animalistic hiss upon inspecting the chain wrapped around his neck. “Bastet! f**k those idiots,” she mumbled. “This is going to hurt.”

“I figured,” Nick sighed. But it was not going to get better on its own, the longer he had that thing on, the deeper the wounds would be.

Even after the padlock was gone, the chain still stayed on his neck, held in place by layers of charred skin around and over it. The woman gulped, pulling on one end slightly, pausing after noticing him wince in pain. “Which way do you prefer to remove band-aids? Fast or slow?”

Nick preferred not having any band-aids at all. Especially not ones made out of silver and etched deep into his flesh. “Just pull it off.”

“As you wish. On three?” Of course she pulled when she reached two, Nick expected it. It really made no difference, though. This time he wasn’t able to hold back a tortured shriek, feeling as if she was ripping his head clean off. “Hang in there. Now the other half.” Nick tried to protest when she leaned over his body and grabbed the other end of the chain, tearing it off in one strong move. He screamed again, his vision suddenly whirling and going dark for a few moments.

When he opened his eyes again, there was a belly button right in front of them. He blinked in confusion but the pain from his neck quickly brought him back to his senses. His visitor was only in her bra now, using her tank top to stop the blood pouring from his neck. “Welcome back,” she snickered, helping him back up into a seated position. “You owe me a T-shirt. I seriously doubt this will ever come off.”

“Cold water and dry soap,” he mumbled, closing his eyes and resting his head against the concrete wall behind him.

The woman chuckled. “Yea, honey, I’m not sure any amount of dry soap can fix this.” She raised the T-shirt up for him to see and Nick had to agree, it was completely drenched in his blood. Which was probably a reason he felt so dizzy all of a sudden.

“I could try to shift,” Adira pointed out weakly.

Oh yes, that was a marvelous idea. “Sure. How long would it take, with all the silver still around us? A minute, two, five? How long do you think she would need to grab that syringe and plunge it into my shoulder? A second, two, five?”

“I was just listing our options,” she huffed and retreated back into a corner of his mind.

“I know, I’m sorry.” The whole world seemed to be against him now, he didn’t need to fight with his wolf as well. “It’s just right now our best option is this woman and we can’t afford to piss her off.” Adira mumbled in consent and Nick turned his attention back to the visitor. From this close, her eyes were even more captivating, golden brown around the iris, slowly melting into an interesting shade of light green.

She must have noticed him staring at her because she frowned and wiggled uncomfortably. “What?”

“Thank you,” Nick quickly answered, not wanting her to think he was checking her out or something. Because he definitely wasn’t. Not her firm, lean body, not her perfect breasts covered only by a thin lace fabric of her red bra. Her eyes, yes. He might have been looking into her eyes. Definitely not at her round butt stuffed in the tight jeans. “Why are you helping me?”

She let out a sad sigh and stood up, walking over to the tap sticking out of the wall. “I’m not helping you.” She started the water and put the silver chain into the stream, trying to scrub pieces of Nick’s skin off of it. “Damn, this is worse than cleaning the grilling grid after a barbecue.” Noticing the bleeding had stopped already, Nick pulled her T-shirt away from his neck and kept looking at her, hoping she would give him a better answer. Because from his point of view, she surely was helping him. He did his best trying to ignore her remark although it almost made him retch.

“I’m not trying to help you. I’m just…” The chain was clean again, at least for the most part and the woman turned back at Nick. “We’re at war. I’m trying to make sure that we don’t stoop to the other side’s level.”

Great. Out of all places he could have ended up in, he randomly chose one where a mysterious conflict raged on. “With who?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she repeated and bent down to inspect his neck. “You heal fast.”

Nick couldn’t see what his skin looked like, no doubt it was still ugly, but Adira managed to stop the bleeding and started healing the deepest parts. “My wolf does that,” he said, immediately regretting his words because the woman froze at the mention of his wolf, her eyes quickly finding the wolfsbane syringe on the floor. “Don’t worry,” Nick tried to calm her down before she reached for it, trembling in fear again, “I’m not stupid.”

She hesitated, biting on her lip, but nodded. “You don’t seem stupid. I should have probably warned you, I’m not some naive damsel. I’m much faster and stronger than I look.”

“Not faster or stronger than me,” Adira grumbled but Nick ignored her. “I would snap her in half with a single bite.”

“Seriously? She’s the only person in this shithole who is treating us nicely and you fantasize about killing her?! What’s wrong with you?”

A loud growl echoed through Nick’s mind. “I’m not saying I want to kill her, only that I could. She smells amazing, I actually like her, but…” Nick felt her nervosity as she paced from one corner of his mind to another and back, but there were other emotions he didn’t expect. Fear? Shame?

“Yes, I’m scared too!” she barked angrily. “I can’t be in chains, I can’t, I just… I don’t know if it’s some memory from wherever I was before I came to you or it’s just a part of me, but I can’t handle being chained and locked up and kept in a cage and…” A tidal wave of her panic ran through Nick’s mind, nearly drowning him. When it subsided, Adira was curled up in a corner again, sniffling quietly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that. Are you going to let her put the chain back on your neck?” She did her best to keep her feelings in check but the pure horror radiating from her still made him shudder.

“Yes.” The wolf whimpered and Nick reached out to comfort her. “I’m sorry but we don’t really have a choice right now. We could try and fight, yes, but we would lose. And we would destroy our best chance of getting out of here. We just need to play along for now. You think you can do that?”

She nodded. “Of course. I’m sorry, I don’t normally get so… panicky.” Now she just felt ashamed.

“Don’t worry, that happens to me all the time.” Nick waved his hand (in his head, not his real one, not wanting to scare the woman even further), trying to make Adira feel better.

It seemed to be working. “No kidding,” she smirked, “I saw your high school memories. You freeze up in panic a lot.” Chuckling, she sent him an image of a younger Nick gaping at one of the popular girls for a full minute. She came to ask him some questions about the science class they had together and he was so dumbstruck that all the words seemed to have evaporated from his brain. He knew all the answers but simply couldn’t get them past his tongue. The girl was quite patient, waiting for a whole minute for him to say something, anything really, but eventually she called him a weirdo and left, never coming near him again.

“HEY! Stay out of my memories!” Stupid body sharing.

The conversation with Adira didn’t take more than a few seconds of real time but the woman noticed something was off and was now watching him from a safe distance with the wolfsbane in her hand. “So?” Her eyes narrowed and, for the first time, there was a trace of threat in her voice. “What plan did you and your wolf agree on?”

“I told you I’m not stupid.” Nick had to placate her somehow before she decided that it would be safer to poison him than to deal with him like this. “I’m really grateful for your help. Could you please wrap something around my neck as well before putting the chain back?” There, he made it clear that he would let her do it. Nick wondered whether their leader, Grams, even knew the woman was here and whether she wasn’t going to get into trouble for helping him.

“I was planning on it.” She moved back to him slowly, constantly watching his hands and face, clearly not comfortable with being so close to his mouth. Some werewolves could shift in a matter of seconds (not that Nick was one of them at that point) and she must have known that. Still, she stayed and wrapped a bandage around his neck just like around his wrists before putting the silver chain over it and securing it with a padlock again.

Nick let out a strained groan and closed his eyes when he felt the silver weighing down on him again. The chain didn’t even need to be attached to anything and it still held him down more efficiently than a hundred pounds of steel hanging around his neck would. Adira whimpered as well, retreating further into a corner, Nick could barely even feel her anymore.

“How much does your wolf hate me now?” While he was dealing with the effects of the silver, his visitor picked up everything she brought along and moved out of the cage, locking it behind her, zipping up her jacket to cover her naked stomach

Nick shrugged. “Actually, she said you smell amazing.” That was the safest part of what Adira said about her.

The woman stared at him for a moment before bursting into cheerful laughter. “Well, alright, thank you wolf.” She carefully lowered her head to sniff her armpit, scrunching her nose. “I beg to differ, but thanks anyway. Wait,” almost out of the door, she paused and looked back at Nick, “your wolf is a female?”

Shit. Nick felt the blood draining from his face. His original thought was right, he really should have kept his mouth shut. “Yes,” he murmured, waiting for the disgust and contempt to inevitably show in her expression.

It never did. “Cool.” She just chuckled again and left the room, not caring about the gender of his wolf at all. How did a stranger so readily accept it and Nick’s own family didn’t? It was infuriating.