The Taint of Wolves

Tongue-tied.

Chapter 23 : Tongue tied.

A bump in the road woke me for a brief few moments.

I was trussed up, chained in heavy links. Everything smelled of lavender and I cut in a whimpering breath, smelling burned flesh. My burned flesh. I was in a cage, only big enough to curl around my body. Not big enough to allow me space to move – space to throw strength into a blow. That cage burned me too.

I couldn't move my head.

A muzzle kept my maw shut. A link kept that snarling mouth pinned to the floor.

I slid a look sideways, the world jolting violently again.

"Stop hitting every pot-hole imaginable." A man's voice snarled ahead of me.

I didn't recognise the voice. Tiredly, I glanced to the side. Another cage was set beside mine. The first Ravager lay inside, encased in chains. He was asleep, his breathing low and shallow. I scented the air. Just lavender. I moved, trying to wiggle from side to side. Enough strength and I could topple the van to the side. Anything to stop me from getting to my dreaded destination.

"I'm not trying to hit every pot-hole. It's not my fault the road isn't paved!" Another man retorted. Then, "The monitor is picking up an elevated heart-beat."

"Which one?" Came the sharp reply.

"The right."

"Shite."

Nothing happened for a minute and then pain exploded behind my eyes, currents rocketing through my body. I couldn't scream, my mouth pinned shut but it burned in my throat and I struggled violently for a moment. It wasn't enough.

I was gone again.

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They had taken the muzzle around my snout.

Burning chains kept my arms pulled taunt. My back legs were pinned to the ground, chained with a short link. I took that in the moment I came around, straining forward as if ready to run that second. It was dark around me with only a luminescent bulb in the hallway beyond.

I raised my heavy head, panting at the burn in my shoulders.

It looked like a holding cell of sort, with a double layer of thick bars. Between those bars was a thick pane of glass. I knew it wasn't normal glass. They had gotten the blueprints off the Ravi. Little red and blue cords ran along the dark ground, and past my mangled feet. I shifted again, feeling the weight of a chain on my neck.

"I can hear the panic inside your chest." A dark figure shifted, standing beyond the glass.

I looked up, tongue heavy. I tried to form his name, but my tongue wouldn't work. Couldn't work. Frustration cut the name up, muffling it into a malformed snarl. Blav.

Blav stared through the bars, lips pressed tight. I had known him, I thought, long enough now to recognise the conflict on his face. "I don't relish in this." He told me.

Blav.

"But you've given us no choice. What you did to that farmer, what you did in Lunar, means you've sealed your fate. Your friend is held in another cell, but he maintains that you were not involved. Several people were injured in the crush to escape the square, some seriously."

I pulled on my restraints, feeling white-hot pain lance across my shoulders. The Omega, burning bright in the fore-front of my mind, fed on my panic and pain. I pulled harder, deepening the pain. If she could laugh, she would have.