“Just let me rip the fuckers’ throats out here and let them drown in their own blood. There wouldn’t be a case to erase if no one knew about it,” my liger pointed out, knowing my answer before she even shared her thoughts.
“Listening to you is what got me in this shitty situation, to begin with,” I snapped at her and stared at the ceiling as the female officer adjusted the microphone nestled between my breasts.
“Remember, don’t lead them, you want them to admit everything. We need to hear them say it, not you,” she instructed me.
“I think she understands her job,” the male officer barked in a harsh tone. “She’s a criminal, just like they are. She’ll feel right at home.”
My eyes shifted across the room to where he smugly sat as he leaned back in the chair and crossed one of his ankles over the other. I chose not to reply because the more I interacted with him, the more I considered shifting and carrying out the liger’s plan.
“You’re scaring her, Justice.” She glared at him over her shoulder. “Quit being a dick.”
He shrugged his shoulders and folded his arms behind his head. “I call ‘em like I see ‘em.”
“Don’t worry about it, you’ll be safe. We’ll keep you safe. Get the information we need, and you won’t have a thing to worry about, honey. I’ll be listening the whole time, and Justice will be there in case anything should happen,” she reassured, trying to comfort me.
279
Trista
Sixty Seconds
My palms crept up the cold stone wall, and my legs trembled beneath my weak body as I made the decision to try again. Once I built up the courage, I pushed off the corner and stumbled forward in a scrambled to get to my feet. I was on the verge of collapsing from the weight I forced my unsteady feet to support.
This was useless. Even if I did stand, I couldn’t do anything productive once I was there. I had to do something, though. It didn’t matter that moving more than a few inches wasn’t a possibility. At the end of an incredibly short chain attached to the wall behind me were shackles that fit snuggly around my neck, wrists, and ankles. Normally, metal cuffs wouldn’t be able to hold me prisoner, and I would shift, letting my liger get us out of this situation. However, these weren’t your typical metal cuffs. If they had been, we would have broken free the moment we found ourselves in this unfinished room.
The sleek metal jewelry I wore wasn’t the typical kind I’d ever seen in movies or read about with the pages of a book. If I inhaled too deeply or moved as much as a centimeter further than I was supposed to, my skin was pierced by razor-sharp spikes. They were the warden of my prison. When I stepped out of line, they reminded me that freedom wasn’t my choice anymore.
Every attempt to escape ended the same—in failure. Each time I forced myself to stand a little longer, I gritted my teeth, attempting to endure the agony. Jagged metal spikes penetrated my skin and drove my pain threshold further than the last. I had once heard somewhere that in life if you could withstand something for sixty seconds, you could defeat anything. Even if the next minute was a repeat of the last, you only had to deal with it for the next sixty seconds, and then you did a recount. I had to think this way. If I allowed myself to count the days or even hours, all this torment would be intolerable. Even the strongest of people or creatures fell. I did every time the pain became too unbearable, and warm blood trickled down my body. I dropped back to the cold, damp floor in defeat.
I wanted to shift every time I inhaled the rusty aroma streaking my body, and rage filled my lungs. My human body was so tiny and fragile if compared to my liger. Usually, my human size didn’t bother me, it worked to my advantage. It did quite the contrary in this situation, though. A petite body required a small circumference in shackles. Within seconds of shifting, the blades would no doubt slash my carotids or some other vital artery before I reached the end of my transition. Fury was my fuel and panic, my fire. I had to get out of here.
My second option was to use my powers. Yet, despite how hard I willed them to work, they hadn’t since the strange man preyed on me and the others. A change had to come. Anything was better than this. A person on the verge of giving up wasn’t incredibly picky, at least, I wasn’t. More than anything else, I prayed for help. However, the only thing that came was the same thing that surrounded me, and it filled my insides: nothingness.
280
Trista
One week? Five days?
I had no fucking clue how long I had been here, and there was no doubt in my mind I was surviving on sheer stubbornness. It sure as hell wasn’t the gourmet food I was served in the darkened room, which was now my new home.
The rare glimpse of light I had seen wasn’t ever much. It bled beneath the door on occasion when he’d forgotten to shove the rug back against it. I wiggled my toes and stretched them to the max as if when I reached the light, it would mean I was saved. It had happened five times since I arrived, and I’d given up the sixty-second theory I’d clung to.
I had no lucid concept of how much time had passed since I was brought here
