The sound of the door opening woke me up. I would like to say that it woke me up out of a dead sleep, but let's face it; it wasn't that great of a nap.
The ribbons and threads holding my body together froze at the sound.
I was hoping that with how dim the lights were in the warehouse, no one would notice them. But then again, they did cover 95% of my body, so it might be a bit strange if no one commented.
"Where the Hell did your clothes go?" came the voice of The Specialist from the darkness.
"Huh?" I asked, still a bit groggy. "Didn't you take them off? I'm a bit offended that you don't remember that; it was a highlight of my night last night."
Even without my coffee in the morning, my comebacks were on point. I was feeling very proud of myself.
"I don't remember taking off your pants," came the monotone answer.
Well, now I was just insulted.
"I am hanging up here, literally by my arms. How am I going to be able to take off my clothes?!? Why would I want to take them off? Please use your brain. If it is not me, it has to be you. Unless, of course, your crow wears a size medium?!" I snapped, wanting to see how much he knew what was going on around him.
"Last I checked, crows don't wear clothes."
Well, that answered that question.
"Then I don't know what to tell you." I tried to shrug my shoulders, but the slight movement was lost in the dark.
I heard the footsteps come closer to me. The ringing of his dress shoes seemed to echo off the walls.
'Dress shoes? He might not be going to torture me,' I thought to myself. What kind of psychopath was willing to get their dress shoes dirty with blood?
Apparently, this type of psychopath.
The knife slashed across my face, causing the threads holding me together to split.
Threads were my miracles, but they still could not withstand being cut.
The blood splatter was not as spectacular as it was yesterday, what with me having very little left in me. But I did take some kind of sick pleasure knowing that I was dirtying his shoes.
"Now, shall we try this again?" he asked, sounding more and more like one of those villains from the movies.
"Is this a multiple-choice question? Can I choose 'no'?" I asked as I spun around helplessly.
People seem to think that because I am a monster, I should automatically be a badass. And I mean, I am to a certain extent, but I am also human… in a very general sense of the word.
I don't transform, I don't have super speed or super hunting abilities, I am just me. So, until I can figure out a way to get out of this mess, all I can do is just hang around. Waiting.
I felt another cut along my ribs. Those ones usually hurt the most, but I was too cold to really register the latest injury.
What was I waiting for? I was waiting for him to get bored. That was one thing I learned growing up. The baddies didn't have the longest attention span, and, at some point in time, they would assume that I was dead and just let me go.
I mean, it wasn't the way that Vlad would get out of this situation, but it was all I could do.
"One more wrong answer, and I will cut out your tongue," snapped The Specialist, clearly starting to lose his patience with me.
"And if you cut out my tongue, how are you going to get your answers?" I replied, my head hanging down. It took too much energy to raise it.
"That is what your hands are for."
"And that would work... if you didn't break my fingers yesterday." See, stupid. If you wanted me to write my answers, why break my fingers? Clearly, he wasn't paying attention.
He was about to respond when a shot rang out, and a bloody hole appeared in the middle of his forehead.
The crappiest part? Whoever shot the gun didn't take into account I was on the other side. So, when that bullet went through The Specialist, it went into me next.
I had no ribbons left. My shirt, pants, bra, and underwear all went into healing me yesterday. The only piece of clothing I had left were my socks, and they were trapped by my boots and couldn't help.
Yup, you got it right.
I was hanging, bloody, from the rafters of a warehouse, completely naked except for a pair of combat boots. Not a shining moment.
Not being able to remove the bullet or even stitch up the wound, I felt the darkness begin to take over. I passed out, not knowing who fired the bullet and what they were going to do with me next.
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Viktor drove for hours, following the route that his prey took. There were several times that he was driven in a circle as whoever it was wanted to make sure that they couldn't be found.
Still, he persisted, following the trail from Manhattan to the Bronx, back to Manhattan to finally end up south of the state and into South Brooklyn. He circled around a few more times before he felt the pull to the warehouses in the Columbia Street Waterfront District.
His phone rang a few times, but it was not until now that the need to Hunt backed off enough that he was able to answer it. "What do you want?" he snapped, not bothering to see who it was. His Knights knew better than to disturb him at times like this. That was what his Beta was for.
"It's Volasko, Sokol is missing."
Viktor slammed on his brakes, causing the rest of the convoy to swerve and stop to avoid hitting him.
"What do you mean... missing?" He asked.
"She never came back from the sting last night. Jones and White said that she bought them time to leave, but when they went back, she was not there."
"Where is the wolf now?" Viktor growled, his eyes looking in the direction that the Hunt was calling him.
"Which one?" asked Mike, looking at the two men standing in front of them.
"There is more than one? Never mind. Put White on the phone… please," said Viktor, torn. For the first time in countless of years, he wanted to put the Hunt to the side and track down Nads. He closed his eyes in pain as White answered the phone.
"White."
"What happened?" Viktor asked the wolf.
"I don't know. It was shit from the start and there was a crow that made everything worse."
"Crow? Skinwalker?"
"I don't know," replied White.
"Understood." Viktor hung up the phone and cracked his neck in agitation.
He closed his eyes and thought of his Little Cub. He thought about the feeling of her skin against his, her voice, her smell. He pictured every last detail of the woman that had captured his attention. When he opened his eyes, there was a red line coming out of the SUV and winding down the road in front of him.
No one knew this secret of the Van Helsings, but they were able to track down anyone that they wanted to at any time. All they had to do was think of them.
Viktor pulled back out onto the street and followed the red path to the Little Cub that needed him.