She did, looking around the room and showing me the massive washing machines along one wall of the concrete lined room. The other side held the dryers. The back wall was covered in tables where there were stack after stack of clothes.
Shelves lined the middle of the room, and not one single person was there.
Where was everyone?
“Where is everyone?” Brooklyn echoed my thoughts.
I don’t know, I said, whisper soft.
She tested the bonds around her wrists, finding out quickly that they were tied too tightly to get any wiggle room at all from them.
That pipe above your head has a bolt in it, rub the cord along the edge of the bolt, I ordered.
She did as she was told, and I watched her struggle, hoping that the anti-venom had time to work before she started to get her heart rate up again.
She bit her lip in concentration and stared at the bolt, working for well past ten minutes before she saw the first fray in the cord.
“Got it,” she said, renewing her effort when she saw the progress she was making.
With another four minutes of vigorous rubbing, the entire thing popped loose from her hands, and she was able to stand.
“Okay, now what?” she asked.
“Hide,” I urged.
She dove out of the laundry basket and ran across the room, climbing into a huge machine, closing the door softly behind her.
The man that entered was the same man I saw leaving with Brooklyn earlier, and it was then I realized how he’d gotten her out without me seeing.
He’d dropped her down the laundry shoot.
We were lucky she wasn’t dead.
Brooklyn’s heart pounded, and I jolted out of my in between state, startled to see Keifer directly in front of me, looking me straight into the eyes.
“Fuck,” I said, jumping up.
“Where are you going?” he asked, following me back inside the building.
“Laundry room in the basement,” I rushed.
Keifer didn’t follow me.
Not that it surprised me.
He would watch my back, but only from afar.
Right now, the heir that Blythe was carrying was more important than Brooklyn, me and the whole world combined.
If it came down to a choice between Blythe and Brooklyn, it’d be a terrible, no good choice.
I would literally have to force myself to think with my brain and not with my heart.
But my heart would win.
Every single time.
Because Brooklyn was my mate and would always come first…even if it meant the end of the world.
I rounded the last corner of the maze of hallways that winded their way down to the basement, and I stopped at the door and listened.
When I heard nothing, I pushed open the door and was immediately assaulted by a goddamned wolf.
All I saw was a dark silhouette coming at me with white, gleaming teeth.
“Fuck!” I cursed, putting my arm up when it lunged for me.
The wolf’s teeth dug into my forearm viciously, tearing and breaking the skin with a vengeance.
Brooklyn cried out, obviously feeling my pain, and I focused, even through the haze of pain.
The dog was protecting whomever was in here, the man that’d taken Brooklyn.
The dog…wolf…whatever the fuck he was, was enraged…and animals didn’t just get enraged like this one.
They had to be provoked, and me coming through the door wouldn’t elicit that kind of response from this animal.
No, he had to be controlled.
My mind automatically went into survival mode, throwing out wards and visions all at the same time.
My vision went into the hypersensitive ultra-red mode that would help me see in the dark as the wolf dropped off my mangled arm with slow, precise movements.
And I saw the man crouched down next to a laundry hamper almost too easily.
I could also see the form of Brooklyn hiding in the furthest washer with the door closed.
Her head was covered by her hands, and her breathing was erratic.
I morphed the illusion to a form of mental torture, giving him the illusion that he was tied down, even though he wasn’t.
He dropped to the floor, as did the wolf, and laid there like babies placed in their cribs.
I walked over to a roll of twine that was on a table in the middle of the room and walked to the assailant.
Once I reached him, I reared my steel toe covered foot back, and kicked him straight in the temple.
He passed out cold.
My stomach roiled from the jostling the movement had caused my arm.
I was afraid to look at it.
Nonetheless, I tied him up anyway, ignoring the pain, not taking any chances at all with Brooklyn’s life.
Once I was done with him, I walked to the wolf.
Taking a chance, because I didn’t like hurting innocent animals, I let the illusion fall to pieces, ready to throw it back at him if he moved at me wrongly.
He didn’t.
He stayed down, whimpering and looking up at me.
I reached over towards the wall, feeling for a light switch.