Chapter 4
The new cell was a solo one and she was left with Lana as her guard most of the time, so she wasn’t really alone. She was anxious being separated from Drake and wondering in what corner of this underground labyrinth Erik bled in. But these people seemed to be huffing and puffing without blowing any of the houses down. They would have killed them already if they wanted to. So why were they still here?
In the meantime, Lana was certainly one for conversation and it grated on Alessia’s patience. “See, my thing, is it like a bucket list thing for you people?” she asked. “You know how those sleazy girls in college always have a list of black guys or Middle Eastern guys or Jewish guys and all the other ethnicities they want to bang before they’re done? Is that what it was about?”
Alessia didn’t answer and ignored her flaming cheeks.
“I bet you have some kind of fixation, right? Or a kink? You study this shit so maybe it’s some kind of Freudian thing—”
“Do you ever shut up?” Alessia snapped, finally.
“Thank God, I thought you’d never speak,” she sighed dramatically. “I was afraid I would be talking to myself forever.”
“So why not just shut up and give us both some peace?”
“Because I go just as crazy as you being cooped up down here in the dark, alone.”
“So why not just leave for a while?”
“Would that I could.”
It was a slip on Lana’s part and the first sign to Alessia that something was off in the dynamic of this place. She did her best to categorize these people. James was the leader. Lana was a sarcastic lackey. She hadn’t seen anyone else except for a few stray people here and there, and she quickly suspected the people she saw were, in fact, the only people in this base. Maybe that’s why they kept them all so isolated, to hide the fact that there were less hulking henchmen to threaten them than they wanted Alessia and the others to think.
“So you’re not going to starve me, you’re not going to kill me, you’ve got all the information out of me that you can,” Alessia listed out. “What else do you people want? To make me your sex slave?”
“Oh please, just because you have the professor and the pretty boy drooling over you doesn’t mean you’re some amazing prize, lady,” Lana said.
“So why am I here?”
“I guess you’ll just find out, won’t you?”
“You don’t know either.”
It wasn’t a question but a very bold guess. Lana had no idea. She was as much in the dark as they were, maybe even just as interested. Alessia wished she’d actually paid attention on the days Trish forced her to watch episodes of Big Brother. She’d have to try to work this on the fly, imagine she was a contestant in a reality TV show, gunning for a million dollars (her freedom would feel like that when all was said and done).
“You keep talking and you’ll end up looking like your friend and his one good eye,” Lana said so lazily that it wasn’t even good enough to be called a bluff.
Alessia had to think. How do people in movies get out of these situations? They seduce the guards? Well, she already ruled that one out with Lana’s lovely quip about her average appearance. She had nothing to offer her, she had no money and no power. She was a graduate student saddled with piles of loans. She was certainly not in any position of power with herself behind bars.
The only option was to—God forbid—get to know Lana.
“So, how long have you been working here?” she asked and very nearly cringed herself at the sound of it.
“Really? We’re going this?”
“I’m bored. I’ll go first,” Alessia said, not wanting to stop the flow of conversation. She spoke without a filter now. “I’m a first-year PhD candidate at USC in Shifter Studies and Culture. I was Dr. Tekkin’s teaching fellow and apprentice, which is how I ended up here—”
“Well, no,” Lana said, sitting forward with a smirk. “How you ended up here is you fucked your mentor professor, don’t leave out that bit. I was there. Saw quite a bit of your behind.”
Alessia felt herself going red. But she had Lana’s attention, however uncomfortable it was. This was going somewhere, at least. This was some kind of bonding. She hoped.
“Yes,” she said with a crack in her voice. “That’s how I got here. You took Drake and I went looking for him in the wrong place—or I guess in the right place since I found him. Your turn.”
“This isn’t a therapy session.”
“Oh, come on. It’s not like we have anything better to do here.”
She could see the cogs working in Lana’s head through the confusion in her eyes. She wanted to talk. She probably didn’t get a lot of chances to talk to anyone while she was down here. In fact, she was the only woman Alessia had seen the entire time. And if there was one thing she learned in her nearly three decades as a woman, women always craved other women. Even if it was your worst enemy or the girl who stole your prom date. Any woman was better than a room full of men.
“Shifter’s gotta do what a shifter’s gotta do,” Lana said, shrugging. “It’s not like anyone wants to hire you too much when they find out what you are.”
“There’s laws against that,” Alessia said with a frown, coming forward to sit at the edge of the cell, leaning against the bars.
“Yeah, and there’s also laws against shooting people and robbing them but every morning what’s on the news?” Lana said. “People will do what they want.”
“What is it you wanted to do?” Alessia asked. “My friend, Trish, she got kicked out of an audience once.”
“Shifter?”
“Wolf. Which apparently is a sin here.”
Lana shrugged. “I personally don’t see any difference between dragon or wolf or whatever obscure shifter type might still be out there. Who gives a fuck? It’s James who gets all elitist about it and I’m in a job only because I happened to be born the right kind of society outcast.”
Alessia looked at Lana and saw something completely different in her eyes—a person. Lana looked tired and she looked far smaller than her bombastic sarcasm wanted her to seem when first Alessia met her. They had gotten somewhere and she was afraid to push for more because this was something important. So she stayed quiet and Lana didn’t say anymore. It felt like an understanding. And that was step one towards friendship.