When Adam and Samuel, Charles, and Bran went to breakfast in the morning, no one had any idea what had happened in the night. They were all morning people, and sometimes Mimi slept in longer, so that didn't raise any suspicion for several hours.
The men went about their business. Bran was still harassing Samuel about Mimi's heat, and he showed his father the undeniable test results that showed Mimi was nowhere near being in heat. Samuel also told him very frankly that Mimi might not get into heat anytime soon as the first heat was forced, traumatic, and violent. Mimi's body was not ready for it, and it might take time for the proper heat to come naturally. Mimi should get to be stress free, in a good mood, and now what Salvatore was doing again was not helping matters.
Bran drove back to Montana as Lady was less than impressed with him. Adam said nothing as the Lady was tightly attached to Adam whenever Bran was around.
It wasn't until Bran left the house that the Lady started exploring her enclosure, marking and scratching at the trees, being the big cat that she was.
Adam supplied her with good portions of meat, and Samuel sat beside the enclosure, tablet in hand, analyzing the machinations of this fascinating magic cat.
It was past ten in the morning when Adam went to knock on Mimi's door, but there was no answer. Well, he was the pack leader and had already knocked, so he went in.
The room was empty, Mimi's bed was open, and there was a single black rose. Adam cursed for a long time. At what fucking point had Salvatore gotten into the house and grabbed Mimi right under their noses?
Adam went outside and told Samuel, who called Charles, who still couldn't handle it as he was driving Bran to Montana, and Bran had a couple of gigs for him. Samuel cursed his father and understood Charles's situation. At the same time, Adam was calling Magnum, who was also using some pretty fucking colorful language.
They tried to look for where the hell Salvatore had gotten into the house in the first place. Adam studied the security camera footage carefully, then noted where there was always a gap and ordered more cameras to cover it.
They started with Samuel and Magnum, who had also come in to go through those areas of vulnerability. So that they could at least find some clue as to how the hell this was possible. Now, Salvatore hadn't stalked or threatened. He'd grabbed Mimi right away. What it meant, the men couldn't say but didn't want to speculate at all.
The men wandered around the house for hours and then discovered that Salvatore had been hiding in the attic. Adam had never even used an attic and hadn't even considered that the house had one. The attic had stairs leading down from it, which made it quite easy to move from one area of the hidden to another.
Adam then noticed that some cameras had been adjusted, so the hidden areas got deeper. Salvatore had gotten to the attic through the roof and found a way in, and Adam cursed his own carelessness pretty fucking hard.
Adam swore he'd fucking check every fucking attic from now on. Every fucking house. Then came the tricky part, finding out which way Salvatore had gone out, and as unbelievable as it was, they found on the tapes how he'd just walked out of the main door with Mimi in his arms with her head hanging at a weird angle, and nobody heard anything.
It was obvious that Mimi's neck had been snapped, and the men then began frantically searching for the direction in which Salvatore had gone driving. Since they again had no Charles' computer, connections, or skills to search, the results were pretty fucking modest.
They did their very best and same time they had all the time keep an eye on those evil medical facilities when there was at least six bounties on Mimi so they did not want to alert those as well. Magnum swore long and hard when Adam showed those bounties. Those were very nasty people, and it meant that even after this Mimi should be kept quite safe and no idea how long.
Adam and Magnum, and Samuel had once again been searching for Mimi for three weeks. Charles had finally finished his job and refused to do any more when Samuel and Adam told him of their desperate attempts to locate where Salvatore had taken him. Charles had located them now on Rhode Island.
A straight drive would have taken just under fifteen hours, but Salvatore had taken a back road, and it was a slow job for Charles to find Salvatore wherever he had gone, but it became clear that he had ended up on Rhode Island.
Charles didn't have access to a plane, so it meant a long and painful drive for the men, knowing that Mimi had been languishing in Damon's clutches for at least three weeks now.
Adam cursed in his mind and vowed that he would try to prevent this sort of thing in the future. How the fuck were they going to keep Salvatore on humanity and prevent these fucking torture sessions? Nobody knew, and they weren't even that sure what had caused the humanity to go off.
If it had been just jealousy, it wouldn't have been so good, but if it had been his and Mimi's passionate sex, maybe next time they'd be more careful. He should talk with Salvatore about this too. When he had his humanity on.
The journey seemed to take forever, and Samuel had now equipped the van quite well. He hoped he was over-equipped, but then again, he feared that even this equipment wouldn't be enough. He could even do a simple surgery in the van.
It wouldn't be the most sterile place in the world, but then again, he had on strong antibiotics with him. He had also taken some of Damon's blood with him and hoped to use it to help her a little bit.
What he knew was that she would not be in good shape or weight, and it was going to take time and patience to get her into some kind of shape. None of them knew whether she had a ball of fear and dread in her mind again or whether Damon had now changed that job.
Was it just the evil spirit of the time? Adam and Samuel had called Damon a black mamba just because of those bites, but now they didn't know if this was a black mamba or not.
Eventually, Rhode Island was only half an hour away, and because it was such a small state, there was only one Bran cabin; the men prepared, and now only Charles would be the wolf.
The Magnum had his darts loaded, and everyone was ready. The tension in the car was building, and the atmosphere was so tight you could almost cut it with a knife. If anyone had seen any of these men, they wouldn't have given them any trouble, though.
Everyone was so charged up. And no one could blame them. Each man more or less blamed himself and swore in his mind that they would learn from this. Dresden was already making the bottom of the pot, this time even stronger, longer lasting if it would help and give Mimi and Damon a good time together instead of one torture session after another.
They went straight to Bran's cottage, which was empty. Then, it was time for the hunt. But with no luck and the cottage seemingly untouched, it was time to find other ways to find out where the devil Salvatore might be hiding.
Adam and Magnum called their contacts. They tried to search by satellite, but no, no hits, and they had no access to the satellites that would have been the ones that mattered.
So they had to find other ways to locate Mimi. Adam swore he didn't bloody well want to be doing this all the time, searching desperately for Mimi, knowing what she was going to go through when they just couldn't find her any quicker. His nerves were quite damn frayed.
Charles finally got word from the real estate office that Salvatore had bought one of the summer cottages. They went there, saw Damon's car, and knew this was the place. The men were all ready.
With the Vervain darts loaded, they again rushed in. First, Charles jumped on Damon again, breaking his neck, and Magnum fired three darts. They were special and had Dresden's little potion in them, which would weaken Damon even more—just this side where there was no humanity. Damon would go to Dresden again.
Charles opened the door, and the men entered. Magnum began dragging the already unconscious Salvatore into his own car. Ready to go to Dresden once more.
Mimi was tied to the table. She was still conscious but confused and not really making any noise. Samuel took a silver syringe from the table and sniffed. Mimi's vocal cords were paralyzed. She shook from time to time.
Samuel lifted his medicine bag onto the table and drew medicine into the syringe. The shed smelled of blood, piss, shit, pain, and agony, too, but not the fear and terror of before. So this had been a different session, but judging by Mimi's condition, worse.
Samuel, Adam, and Charles went to unhook Mimi from the machines of hell. Mimi was lying on her back in the white and always complaining in a raspy voice. They took the plugs off the wall.
Charles wrenched the shackles open. They had been spiked shackles, and Mimi's wrists were ripped open badly. Samuel grabbed some bandages and came quickly to bandage Mimi's wrists. He could drain into them in the car with Damon's blood. Samuel had his bag open.
Charles and Magnum went to take Damon to Dresden.
Adam looked at the box on Mimi's stomach, and he removed it from the table first. It had some sort latches that kept it onto table and he wrenched them open so box would move. He didn't know what the hell it was. Adam lifted the box off Mimi's stomach, and he saw dozens of blades ripping out of Mimi's insides. That sound was something that he would not forget so easily.
He took a sharp intake of breath. Waiting to see if Mimi's stomach would heal at all. Samuel brought large bandages and covered her stomach with them when Mimi didn't heal, and judging by the way her entire abdominal cavity was minced meat, that device had been used and used a lot. Samuel was fast and gentle as possible. He wanted to prevent infection on Mimi and to them. As that mince meat was full of Mimi's intestinal germs and those could affect them too.
Samuel started taking syringes out of his bag that were pre-loaded. He had drawn cocktail ready earlier on.
He said to Adam, who was about to remove the crushing belt, "No, let me put her to sleep. More painless."
Adam nodded, his eyes yellow. Samuel came over to Mimi and spoke to her soothingly, not at all sure if she could hear or if she was even sane enough to understand. He pushed the needle into the vein, in her neck, she had some kind of heartbeat so drug would go to her brain quickly as possible, and pressed the plunger. Mimi sighed, and her eyes rolled back before they closed completely.
Samuel retrieved another board from his car, onto which Mimi would then be transferred. The plywood sheet was easy to carry with handles attached.
When Adam undid the belt and put his hand on Mimi's back, it came away covered in blood. Samuel came back with the plate. He had already taken his medical bag into the car and knew he had his work cut out for him on the drive. He knew that he was able to do something at least for her. He pushed his rage down and focused on medicine..
Adam showed him his bloody hand, and Samuel said, " Hold on a minute, and I'll give you a hand. "
Samuel turned Mimi around, very gently, and they saw Mimi had been stabbed in the back. Samuel and Adam took a sharp intake of breath. Samuel tried it gently, and Mimi had no spine, but knowing that Mimi didn't need a spinal cord to feel pain, she had been in pain for a long time.
Samuel took a plate and put some sheets on it. Together, they tucked the sheet and the sheets under Mimi. Mimi's chest was crushed again, almost as narrow as her waist—sheer crushed flesh, like the poor girl's whole body. She was now in deep sleep, painless state.
They moved Mimi to the car, and Samuel gave her some more medicine. First thing was to keep her fully in coma, in painless state. The drive to Chicago would take a while. Samuel knew he could at least do something in the car, keep Mimi out of pain, and help with Damon's blood.
They packed Mimi in the car. Samuel got in the back with her and started working as Adam started driving. He used several bags of Damon's blood. Got Mimi's wrists healed, got her back cleaned up and grew a new spinal cord, but he had a limited amount of blood, the damage was very extensive and not enough blood for everything. Her spine was still kind of soft as bones weren't strong enough yet. They were more or less cartilage.
Samuel knew he had another long and difficult surgery ahead of him. He'd even cleaned up a bit of Mimi's chest. The cartilage ribs were growing. Mimi was thin and cool, and that also limited what Samuel could do in the car. Mimi was in such a fragile condition that he didn't want to expose her to any more infection. And when Adam's voice announced that they'd be in Chicago in half an hour, Samuel wasn't surprised that 14 hours had gone by.