Rogue Wolf by Paige Tyler

Chapter 17

Samantha struggled, swimming through water so thick and dark it felt like molasses, straining to reach the surface before choking to death. But every time she seemed close to reaching the light, something would wrap itself around her body and drag her back down into the darkness again.

A little voice in the back of her mind whispered that this was just a bad dream, that if she relaxed and stopped fighting, she’d wake up fine and happy in the morning. But there was another part, one of pure instinct, that screamed out in warning, telling her that if she gave up now, she might never see the light of day again. So she fought with everything she had, clawing her way back to the light.

She jerked upright with a gasp, her heading pounding so hard that the edges of her vision began to gray out again. Having no desire to pass out, she kept her eyes closed and tried to breathe through the moment. Remaining calm became a bit difficult when she started remembering the string of events that had brought her here—wherever the hell here was.

It had been bad enough discovering Hugh was involved in the Butcher case. But finding out Louis had something to do with all of this crap as well before being held down and chloroformed? It was more than she could wrap her head around at the moment.

It was the sound of movement and a slamming door from somewhere above that pulled Samantha out of her slow-motion tailspin, bringing her back to the reality that she didn’t have a clue where she was, who else might be in here, or what they planned to do with her.

She slowly opened her eyes, expecting her headache to worsen the second she did. But wherever she was being held was poorly lit, which helped calm the throbbing at her temples a bit. Black metal grating was the first thing she could make out when her eyes cleared, and all it took was a quick glance left and right to confirm she was in some kind of cell. Or a cage. She forced herself to focus on the details around her, rather than give in to the panic attack threatening to creep up and overwhelm her.

The cage was no more than six-foot square but had a ceiling that was high enough that at least it didn’t feel too claustrophobic. There was a door in the grating directly ahead of her, closed with some kind of hasp and lock on the outside that she couldn’t make out from where she sat on the rough concrete floor. Windowless stone walls behind and to her left made her think she was in a basement, which suggested this was an industrial building, since residential basements definitely weren’t common in this part of Texas. But the heavy wood beams that crisscrossed the ceiling, with the antique-looking planks above that, suggested something not quite so industrial. Maybe a do-it-yourself basement? Constructed by her psycho boss as a place to lock up his kidnapping victims?

Deciding it didn’t matter where she was, Samantha edged closer to the door, reaching out to give it a soft nudge, just to see what happened. It rattled a little in its frame but didn’t give much. Taking a deep breath, she laced her fingers in the grating and use it to help her stand. Her knees shook a little, not sure they liked the idea of being vertical right then. She stood there holding on, breathing slowly, and waiting for the weakness to pass.

When she could finally managed to move, Samantha leaned forward and peeked through the openings in the grating, trying to see what was keeping the door locked. It took a bit of work, twisting her head this way and that, mashing her face right into the grating and pressing hard. But in the end, she got the idea that the only thing actually keeping her in was a bolt dropped through the locking mechanism of the latch. Not that knowing that helped any. There was no way she’d ever be able to get her fingers far enough through the openings of the grating to reach the bolt. It might as well have been on the other side of the planet.

Turning her attention to where she might be, Samantha peered through the grating at the rest of the room, trying to see what was beyond her cage. There was a lot more stone and heavy wooden support columns. After catching a glimpse of large glass jars with human parts floating in them along with the stainless steel table and the trays of surgical equipment, her first impressions was that Louis had created his own twisted version of an autopsy lab down here. But then she saw the glass cylinders of thick neon-green liquid mounted to the wall, right next to a rack full of electrical gear. That’s when she realized there was definitely something else going on.

The rack held dozens of exposed coils of copper wire, some running upward to fragile-looking ceramic electrodes, while others ran into the liquid-filled cylinders. Heavy black cables snaked all over the place, connecting everything together, ultimately, in a series of junction boxes along the far side of the steel table. What the bizarre arrangement was supposed to do was beyond her. It looked like nothing she’d ever seen in a hospital or ME’s office.

The area directly opposite her cage was draped in shadows so heavy she had a hard time making out the large rectangular shape draped in dark plastic sheeting. But when she saw the half-dressed man standing to the left of the big box and caught sight of large glassy eyes staring at her, she jumped back so fast she almost fell on her butt.

It took a few second to realize the man wasn’t really standing. Instead he was reclined back against a metal bed frame attached to the wall, held in place by massive steel bands across his chest, waist, forearms, and lower legs. Another bracket of lighter metal, covered with more of those heavy-duty cables she’d seen before, was strapped around his head, holding it in place. His whole body was completely motionless, so still she might have thought him dead if not for the slight rise and fall of his massive chest. It was beyond creepy.

That’s when Sam figured out the man wasn’t staring at her. Yes, his eyes were open, but they were glazed over and distant, like he was unconscious. That shouldn’t have been possible. All she could think was that it had something to do with that thing around his head.

Moving closer to the door of her cage again, she gazed at the huge man. He was the guy she and Trey had assumed to be the Butcher. He was the one witnesses had seen near the homeless camp dumping those body parts. And he was the one who’d nearly caved in Trey’s chest. But if this man was the Butcher and strong enough to take on someone’s Trey’s size, how had he ended up strapped to a table like this, nearly dead to the world by all appearances?

Deep, violent scars covered his chest and stomach, wrists, and upper arms, and circled his neck. If the monster of a man hadn’t been wearing pants, something told her that she’d see more scars along his legs. What the hell had happened to this man to leave him scarred this badly?

Samantha ran her gaze down the man’s arms to his huge hands, wondering for a moment if those were the ones that had held the chloroform cloth over her face. She dismissed that idea immediately. The hand that had covered her face had been rather small, almost dainty. Definitely not as big as this guy’s. Had it been Hugh? But that didn’t seem right, either, leaving her to wonder if there was yet another person involved in this nightmare with them.

She stared at the man’s face, trying to remember where she’d seen him before, because there was no doubting he was familiar. The fading yellow bruising, likely from the fight he had with Trey, made her unsure, and for a moment she thought maybe she was wrong. Then it hit her.

“Kyson?” she shouted, her head spinning as she leaned into the door of her cage, putting her mouth right up to one of the openings in the grating. “Kyson, wake up!”

“I wouldn’t shout like that,” a soft voice said from out of the darkness to her right. “Rogi will come down here and you don’t want that. He’s not right in the head.”

Samantha spun around in the direction of the woman’s voice, peering into the heavy shadows that filled the cell beside hers. All she could make out was a ratty-looking mattress shoved into the far corner and a pile of rags sitting on top of it.

“Who’s there?” she demanded, keeping her voice down this time, not wanting to attract Rogi’s attention…whoever the hell that was. “Who are you?”

There was nothing but silence for a few moments, and then the pile of what she’d thought were rags moved, revealing a woman who couldn’t have been much over five feet tall. As she moved closer, Samantha could see that her long, blond hair was unkempt and dirty, her face pale and exhausted looking.

Samantha gasped as she realized she’d seen the woman before. She’d been in the same photo with Kyson.

“Shaylee?” Samantha murmured, leaning against the grating separating her cell from the one beside it, hooking her fingers through the openings. “How did you get here?”

The woman gazed at her with eyes that seemed so much older than the rest of her. “Do I know you?”

Samantha shook her head. “We’ve never met, but I know Trey—Kyson’s friend. I saw a picture of you and Kyson together.”

“Trey knows where we are? He’s coming to help us?”

The hope that lit up the young woman’s face was heart wrenching to see because Samantha already knew her next words would crush that hope completely.

“No, Trey doesn’t know we’re here.” She gave Shaylee a small smile. “I doubt he even knows I’m missing yet. On top of that, he thinks Kyson is dead. He won’t be able to help us, but maybe Kyson can? If we can wake him up.”

Just as she’d predicted, the glimmer of hope disappeared from the woman’s eyes like it had never been there at all.

“Ky can’t help us,” Shaylee said sadly. “When he came back from taking out the body parts the other night, he was all slashed up. It was so bad I could see his rib bones showing through. The doctor shut him down to heal him. Ky can hear us talking right now, but he can’t do anything to help us. He can’t snap out of the trance he’s in on his own. Only the doctor can wake him up.”

Samantha knew she probably looked like an idiot standing there with her mouth hanging open, but there was so much to unpack after what Shaylee had just said. She needed a moment to process everything. Figuring out what to ask first was even more difficult.

“Shaylee, did Kyson kill himself?” she finally asked. Samantha knew how insane her next question was going to sound, but she needed to know the answer “Is that true, or did the doctor you mentioned make it look that way?”

Tears shone in Shaylee’s blue eyes. “It’s true. I saw his body right after the guy who lives in the room next to his found him. Ky was dead.” She swallowed hard. “But then a week ago, I saw him getting into a truck near the Trinity River Audubon Center and…well, I completely lost it. I chased after him and they caught me and brought me here.”

“They?” Samantha pressed, forcing down the curiosity that also wanted to know what the hell the Shaylee had been doing in the woods near Trinity River. She needed to focus on the important details first. Everything else could wait. “Who caught you?”

“Rogi…and Ky.” Shaylee took a deep breath, letting it out with a shudder. “Ky didn’t want to do it, but the doctor did something to him that makes it hard for him to do anything but what he’s told. It didn’t help that Rogi threatened to shoot me if Ky didn’t grab me. He had no choice.”

Samantha almost groaned out loud in frustration. What Shaylee was saying about Kyson killing himself couldn’t be true. Somehow, Louis must have made it appear that way. Dead people didn’t come back to life. But it seemed that every question she had generated four more. Once again, she had to force herself to focus on the important stuff first.

“Okay, so they brought you here,” Samantha said. “Which prompts the question: Where are we?”

Shaylee shook her head. “I don’t know for sure. I only got a quick look around before Rogi dragged me down here. The place is big and fancy, though. All stone. Like a castle.”

Castle.

That pretty much confirmed they were in Louis’s home and that it actually had a basement. It also confirmed Louis was the doctor Shaylee mentioned, not that she’d doubted that part. But was still being at Louis’s home a good thing? If Trey found out she was missing and that she’d come to see her boss earlier, would he look for her here?

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard the doctor’s name, but he’s older, with a lot of gray in his hair,” Shaylee said, moving a little closer to the grating and lowering her voice like she was worried someone was eavesdropping. “Other than that, all I can really say about him is that he’s effing insane. Even Rogi is terrified of him. I wasn’t here when they brought Ky back to life, but I’ve seen what they do when they replace the parts of his body that are dying. The doctor straps Ky to that damn table, does the surgery, pumps him full of that green junk, and then electrocutes him. He’s done it to him multiple times since I’ve been here, anytime he has to fix something or puts him under so he can study him. It’s horrible.”

The rational, scientific part of Samantha’s mind wanted to rebel at all of this, to rant and rave that it was all impossible. But the truth was standing across the room strapped to an inclined rack, covered in scars that couldn’t be ignored. Kyson had killed himself. The man she and Trey had talked to at that motel had confirmed that and so had Shaylee. Yet he was obviously alive now. If being strapped to a table and used as a test subject could be called alive. Being shut down to heal the injuries he’d obviously gotten in his fight with Trey, to replace parts that were dying, should have been beyond the realm of possibility. But she supposed it paled in comparison to the fact that Louis had apparently raised Kyson from the dead to begin with.

“Shaylee, do you know why they’ve kept you here?” Samantha asked carefully.

She didn’t want to be blunt about it, but while she understood that grabbing Shaylee and bringing her back here was simply about hiding their secret, she didn’t understand why the woman was still alive. After everything she’d heard about Louis, it didn’t seem like he was doing it out of the goodness of his heart. If the man even had a heart any longer.

“Ky has started to resist the doctor’s orders. Rogi’s, too.” Shaylee sighed dejectedly. “But now that I’m here, all they have to do is threaten me and he’ll do anything they want. He doesn’t want them to hurt me.”

The thought of the poor woman being used as leverage like that was almost enough to bring tears to Samantha’s eyes. “But why is the doctor doing all of this? It seems like a lot of effort to go to just to have a chance to play God.”

Shaylee started to answer, but then snapped her mouth shut at the sound of a door slamming nearby, immediately followed by the thud of heavy footsteps.

Samantha watched as a man slowly shambled toward them in the dimly lit basement, stopping halfway between the door of her cage and Shaylee’s. He was short but stocky with wide shoulders that made his head look too small for his body. His face was brutish with thick, dark brows and deep-set, beady eyes.

The man stared at Shaylee for a long time. The way his dark gaze wandered up and down the woman’s body sent a shiver of dread down Samantha’s spine. She was just wondering if she should say something when he suddenly darted forward, his large hand coming up to slam against the metal grating of Samantha’s cage, making a loud noise and shaking the metal walls. She jumped, resisting the urge to take a step back.

“The doctor said he doesn’t want the two of you talking,” the man said gruffly, glaring at Sam. “So unless you want me to open this cage door and give you a reason to make noise, you’ll be quiet.”

His gaze ran down her body, taking in her silk blouse and dark slacks, leaving her skin feeling like it had been coated with dirty oil. She couldn’t help stepping back a little then, a move that drew a short bark of laughter from the creep.

He continued to leer at her for another moment before finally turning and walking over to jab Kyson in the chest with his stubby finger, like he was checking to see if the big man was awake.

Shaylee threw herself at the door of her cage. “Stay away from him!”

The man turned to pin her with a look. “Or what?”

When Shaylee didn’t answer, he laughed and left the way he’d come. A few seconds later, Samantha heard a door slam, then the sound of slowly fading footsteps.

“That’s Rogi,” Shaylee whispered softly from her side of the grating. “He carries the bodies, cuts the hands and heads off when the doctor doesn’t want to do it, and cleans up the blood. He doesn’t mess with me too much because the doctor needs me around to control Ky, but if I were you, I wouldn’t make Rogi mad. He’s not right in the head.”

That thought sent another shiver down her spine, and she prayed Trey figured out what happened to her and where she was…sooner rather than later.