“Aw, Phillips you can’t be serious?” Sparky barked.

Then looking back at me, Phillips said, “I’m taking the book.”

“No you can’t…” I started to protest, but then I realised that I didn’t actually need it to assist my escape anymore, as I would be gone tonight and they would discover the hole tomorrow anyway. But if my dreams – memories – were true, the book had some deeper meaning – it had a code hidden within its pages.

Seeing my distress, Sparky began to chuckle again, and if I hadn’t of needed all of my remaining strength for what lay ahead of me that night, I would have punched him straight in his fucking face.

“Tell me who brought the chair or I’ll take that as well,” Phillips said.

A surge of panic now swept through me, as I knew that without the chair my escape would be over.

“I don’t know their name,” I tried to convince him.

“This is your last chance! Tell me their name or the chair goes!” Phillips warned.

I looked at him and I knew that he meant every word. But I remembered Nik had told me that if he’d been discovered bringing me the book and chair, Phillips would have ripped his throat out.

“They never told me their name!” I shouted.

Phillips looked at me then turned and snatched up the chair.

“No!” I yelled. “You said I could use it to help heal my leg. Don’t you need my leg to be better?” I pleaded.

Phillips turned at the cell door and grunted.

“Your leg is good enough for what I have planned for you!”

Sparky then turned, produced a large broom from the corridor outside and threw it at me.

“And clean this cell – it’s disgusting!”

“You clean it, you piece of shit!” I shouted.

Phillips slammed the cell door shut, taking my chair and my chance of freedom with him.

“No! Bring them back!” I screamed. But it was no good, from within my cell I could hear Phillips stomping away down the corridor, Sparky chuckling insanely beside him.

I got to my feet and limped over to the cell door. I banged on it with my fists and roared over and over again.

“Let me outta here! I’m not an animal – it’s you who should be locked up in here, not me!”

I slid down the door and settled on the floor, rolling into a ball. I looked up at the ceiling and wiped away the hot tears that ran down my dirty cheeks. The last shards of daylight shone through the square hole and I knew that my escape was over. The thought of spending the rest of my life locked in a zoo terrified me and I knew that the thought of escape was the only thing that had kept me going over the last few days. Now that had been taken away from me, I didn’t know how I would get through tomorrow – let alone a life time of captivity. And what about the book with the code? He had taken it.

What was it that Phillips had in store for me? I wondered.

Tomorrow morning he would come for me and the thought of that moment filled me with dread.

I rolled onto my back and looked up at the square hole and the wire mesh. Over the last few days, as I had toppled on the chair, frantically scratching away the plaster, freedom had seemed so close – but it was something I now believed I would never have.

Closing my eyes, I pictured lakes, forests and mountains. I imagined running towards them, feeling the sun on my face, the rain on my skin, the wind tugging at my hair and the…broom! My mind screamed at me suddenly.

I can use the broom that Phillips gave me to get out of here!

Clambering to my feet, I snatched it up from the floor. I looked up at the square hole and could see only blackness outside. There was no moon tonight and I was grateful for that, because tonight I was going to escape and the darkness would hide me.

Taking hold of the broom firmly in my hands, I raised it above my head and began to jab away at the pages from the books that I had pressed into the holes. The paper began to fall away in large chunks and land on the floor of my cell. I continued to prod away at the papier-mâché until I had broken it all free.

Once I could see the edges of the wire mesh, I worked the handle of the broom under it and pulled it loose. The edge of the mesh hung down like a drooping lip and I turned the broom over and worked the head of it between the edge of the wire and the hole. I yanked on the broom and bent the wire mesh back on itself, so there was a gap. Standing back, I looked up at it, but could see that it still wasn’t quite big enough for me to squeeze through.

If only I had that chair with its little silver caps for just one more night, then I would have been able to have scraped away enough of the plaster to release one more side of that wire mesh. But I hadn’t one more night – I only had tonight and I would just have to improvise and make the best of the broom.

Then, I heard a growl come from behind the hatch. I froze in the darkness, my heart racing against my chest.

The paw never bought food at this time of day – it had always been early morning!

Maybe it had heard the sound of the broom banging away at the ceiling – perhaps that was what had roused its attention. I listened intently and I could hear whatever it was moving about outside the hatch. Pulling the broom away from the hole, I quickly swept the pieces of paper into the corner of the room and lay down on top of them.

I lay in the dark and waited. The paw beyond the hatch – if that’s what it was – continued to move about, woofing and barking into the night.

What was it doing?

Maybe I had been discovered and it was signalling for Phillips to come quickly to my cell. Then I could hear movement in the corridor outside, there was an animal out there and it was coming towards my cell. I lay as still as I could, hoping that if it was Phillips and he did look in to check on me, he might think that I was asleep and leave me alone.

But what about the hole?

I opened my right eye and peered up at it. The wire mesh hung down, bent and twisted out of shape.

Anyone would notice it – even a dumb Vampyrus!

Then the sound of scraping against rust filled my cell as the black iron door was swung open.

Chapter Fourteen

Nik came sauntering silently into my cell; the only sound he made was the soft whisper of his paws upon the ground.

“What do you want?” I asked impatiently. I didn’t mean to be rude, but I was burning up with fever, my stomach was cramping and I didn’t want my escape delayed.

“That’s nice,” he woofed. “I risk everything to come and see you every night and that’s the thanks I get!”

“Why do you bother then?” I asked, as I continued to lay motionless on top of the pieces of paper.

“Because I’m curious,’” he purred again.

“About what?”

“You!”

I looked up at the hole and could see that he was standing directly beneath it. If Nik stayed there, I doubted he would notice it.

“Look Nik, I don’t mean to be rude – but I think you should go,” I told him. “I’m already in enough trouble with Phillips and if he finds you in here – we’ll both get it!”

“Where’s your sense of fun?” he asked.

“Sense of fun?” I asked disbelievingly. “I lost my sense of fun months ago,” and I thought of how much life had changed since arriving at The Ragged Cove.

Nik came closer, stepping from under the hole above him. I looked up and then quickly back at Nik. He came closer still and then to my surprise, he nuzzled his head against my cheek. His fur was smooth like silk and as soft as pillows.

“I know what you are going through, Kiera. I know what it feels like to be trapped behind bars all day, unable to run free,” he whispered into my ear. “Your prison is made of stone walls, mine is the coat of fur.”

“What are you really like?” I asked him, trying to keep his attention so he didn’t look up at the great gaping hole above.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“You’re a Lycanthrope, right?” I asked. “So what do you look like when you’re not masquerading as a wolf? How old are you?”

“I’m sixteen-years-old,” he said, fixing me with his piercing yellow eyes. “I stand about six-foot-seven in height. I have blonde hair and am quite scrawny.”

It was hard for me to picture Nik as he described himself when not shaped as a wolf. It was hard for me to believe that he could look human at all as I’d only ever seen him as a wolf. But to think that there was a person beneath the thick coat of grey fur, made me feel sad for him. Like he said, he was trapped too.

“What was it that you did which was so terrible that you’ve been trapped?” I asked him, and this time I wasn’t asking because I wanted to distract him from the hole in the ceiling – I really did want to know.

“I can’t tell you that,” he said.

“Why not?”

“What I did is too terrible to speak of,” Nik barked at me, then with a swish of his giant tail, he slumped to the ground. “But I have cravings just like you do, Kiera. I understand your suffering – you want that flesh in the bowl over there as much as I want to rip your throat out.”

“Rip my throat out?” I breathed, and if it wasn’t for the fact that I was hiding the mashed-up pages of that book beneath me, I would have leapt to the other side of the cell.

“But it’s more than just wanting to rip your throat out,” he explained, never taking his bright yellow eyes off mine. And just like I’d stared into Jack Seth’s eyes, I could see glimpses of Nik’s true intentions. In those snapshots, I could see him hurting me – but it was more than just hurting me. He was torturing me, slowly and deliberately. He had me caught in his trance, and although my pain and suffering was unbearable, I couldn’t help but tell him how much I needed him, wanted him. And even though in those glimpses I was bleeding and close to death, my whole being yearned for him.

Then those nightmarish images were gone, and Nik had broken my gaze.

“See, Kiera, I’m nothing more than a killer,” he growled. “And like you, fight the urge to run to that flesh over there and devour it, I fight the desire to do all of those things to you that you’ve just seen in your mind’s eye.”

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