fifty

I shiver. It’s just a convulsive shiver at first, but once it starts, it doesn’t stop, and it’s not just how close I came to falling down that endless hole. It’s as if the shot of fear disintegrates the walls I’m holding up, the walls that keep me calm when a madman has my sister—my sister—and…

Jude pulls me closer, and I fall against him as I shiver. He takes off his suit jacket and tucks it around my shoulders.

“I’m not really—” I begin.

“I know. Keep it anyway.”

He shines his cell phone light down the mine shaft, and the beam bounces off the walls. It’s a straight passage for at least twenty feet, before the tunnel veers left, in the direction of that hoarse rasping sound.

As he pulls the beam back, it trips over the floor. I notice debris ahead, and I’m processing that—wondering if it’s significant, when he says, “Huh? Is that…” I follow the light to a spot halfway between us and the debris. It glints off something metallic.

When Jude starts forward, I grab his arm. I’m waiting for this whole scenario to turn into a trap, so when I spot metal on the ground, I think of a literal trap. But then I realize what it is, as he already has, and I let go. He continues forward and then crouches as I join him.

It’s a knife. A hunting blade, half out of a leather sheath. Jude checks it from all angles. Then he prods, as if thinking it could still be a trap, a conveniently placed weapon that will launch a cave-in.

He pokes at it. Examines it again. Then lifts it and turns it over in his hands.

It’s a knife. Nothing more. A big one, though, too big to have dropped from a pocket. There’s a hook on the sheath, for hanging it from a belt, and while it seems possible that it did fall off, we look at each other for an alternate explanation, a more sinister explanation. Yet neither of us has one.

Jude takes the knife. When I step into the lead, he only hands me his phone for light.

I shine that light on the walls as we go. I can still hear that sound, coming from around the curve in the passage. There’s the debris on the ground too, as if from an old cave-in.

I’m stepping over the debris when I notice a red dot on my leg. My first thought is blood. But it’s not. It’s a red dot of light, and my foot is already in motion, moving past it. I spin, grab Jude, and stop him. When I look down, I see a small red laser beam nestled in the debris.

Jude crouches and goes to move a piece of rock so he can see where the beam originates, but before he can touch it, there’s a crash from down that left-bending corridor. A crash and then the thump of running feet. No, running paws, the particular rhythm of four legs, and I hear that sound, that rasping and hacking sound, and I turn, yelling, “Run!” as I shove Jude.

I know what that sound is, what it should be. Barking. Frenzied barking. But it’s much too soft for that, and all I can guess is that the beast has been barking so long it’s lost its voice.

I shove Jude, and we start to run, but I forget about the debris and stumble over it and face-plant in the dirt.

I hear Jude’s sharp intake of breath as he wheels and I see the look on his face, the horror on his face. Something jumps on me. Jaws clamp on the back of my neck, and I don’t have time to react, don’t have time to think. All I see is Jude’s face, that horror turning to rage as he charges, hunting knife drawn.

The jaws around my neck disappear. The weight vanishes too, as I hear what must be a yelp, but it’s as terrible and unnatural as the bark. I scramble up, and I see Jude stabbing something brown. There’s flashing fur and there’s spraying blood, and it happens so fast that I don’t register what he’s attacking until it’s over and there’s a dog lying on the ground. It’s Mange. And I don’t have a split second to process that before Scar leaps at Jude. I lunge at him, my switchblade ready, but Jude’s faster; he’s already spinning, already slashing.

Another shape appears behind Scar. It’s Reject, the omega, and I race between them, ready to fight her off, but she’s cowering and she’s making this horrible noise, like raspy crying, and I can see blood on her throat and her eyes burn with pain and terror. She’s covered in blood and patches of missing fur.

I keep watching her, ready for attack, praying she doesn’t because I don’t want to do this—I really do not want to hurt her—but she only cowers there, and then I hear Jude say, “Is she…?” and my eyes fill with tears. I can’t help it. I look at her and I want to cry.

“He drugged them,” I whisper. “Drugged them and damaged their vocal cords so they couldn’t bark. Then he locked them up in here, and between the drugs and the dehydration and imprisonment, they went mad. They turned on her and…”

I start to look toward the other two dogs. Jude stops me with, “Don’t. I had to—” and I say, “I know,” and I look anyway. Scar and Mange are dead. They have the same damage to their throats, the same unfocused eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“You had to.” I squeeze his hand and lean against him. “I’m sorry you had to.”

“He is a sick, sick…” He trails off, snarling as if he can’t even find words to finish, and he’s shaking, the knife jittering against his leg, and I hug him tight and then take the knife and set it aside, and Jude slides down the wall until he’s crouched there, staring at his bloodied hands. I find a napkin in his suit pocket and I wipe his fingers, slowly and carefully, not saying a word until he gives a little jolt, as if waking up, and says, “We have to go. We’ll take the dog if we can but we have to leave.”

“I know.”

Cadence isn’t here. It was a trap. The dogs were set free by that laser trip wire.

And the knife?

That knife wasn’t lost. Wasn’t dropped. It was left, like some kind of bizarre gladiatorial scenario.

And in this next room, you will face a pack of mad feral dogs. Here’s a knife to help you defeat them.

I don’t understand that. I’m not sure it can be understood. This man is as mad as he made those beasts, and trying to figure out his motivation is the fast lane to madness itself.

I help Jude stand. He doesn’t brush me off. He’s still dazed, and when his gaze trips over the dead dogs, he flinches, and I murmur, “Don’t.”

“I—”

“They tried to kill me.”

“But they’re dogs…”

“Don’t think of them that way,” I say. “They weren’t pets, not anymore, and maybe not ever. Think of them as…coyotes or wolves.”

“I’d still feel bad if they were.”

I give him a fierce hug. “I know. Just…let’s help Reject. She needs us. It’s too late for them. It always was.”

I walk to Reject, who’s still cowering. “I’ll check her as quickly as I…”

I trail off as I see his gaze fixed on a spot near the ceiling, his face screwed up. When I notice what he’s looking at, I blink, thinking I’m mistaken. Then I rise from Reject’s side.

“Is that…a camera?” I say.

It is—a tiny wireless lens.

He was watching us? Filming us?

I’m about to say that when I hear a noise that makes us both freeze. It’s a muffled sound, but not like the poor dogs. This is a rhythmic banging. One-two-three. Pause. One-two-three.

I glance at Jude.

“I’m going to go take a look,” he says, and I shake my head sharply, saying, “No, you can’t,” but he cuts me off with, “I’ll be careful. Stay with the dog.” He picks up my bloodied switchblade and then hands me the knife, the large hunting knife. “We have to know.”

He starts down the passage, light in one hand, switchblade in the other. I murmur an apology to Reject and follow Jude, just to the corner, so I can keep an eye on him.

That banging continues. It sounds like wood on wood, the same pattern, repeated. One-two-three. Pause. One-two-three.

Jude looks left. He shines the light down the tunnel, and I spot a doorway. There’s broken wood at the base, as if that’s where the dogs burst through when the trip wire freed them.

Jude peers toward the room and then starts to continue past it. After a few steps, he stops. He backs up to the room. He looks inside. Then he steps through the doorway. A moment later, he’s in the tunnel, frantically motioning for me to come, and I do—I run down that passage, even as he’s motioning, equally frantically, for me to slow down, to be careful.

Before I reach the room, he disappears inside it. I hear a muffled gasp, then what sounds like a muffled shriek, and Jude saying, “Shhh, shhh. It’s okay,” and I race through the doorway and…there’s my sister.

There’s Cadence.

At first, that’s all I see. It takes a moment to register where exactly she is—she’s lying, bound and gagged, on her stomach in a hole near the top of the wall. Her captor stuffed her in there with the dogs right below, leaving them lunging and leaping, desperately trying to get at her.

I’m flying across the room, and she sees me and she yelps behind the gag. Then Jude reaches in to pull her out and that cry of relief and joy turns to fear. “He’s with me, Cady,” I say quickly. “He’s fine. Let him help you.”

He pulls her free and gets the gag off as I cut the ropes on her hands, and she says, “I’m so sorry, you look like…I thought you were…” and then she’s free and I’m hugging her and she’s collapsing in my arms, and if she says anything else, if Jude replies, I don’t hear it.

I have my sister back.

Nothing else matters.