The Bureau (A Cage for Men and Wolves Book 1) (7 page)

"Here." She set the bread down in front of him, taking the adjacent seat.

"How am I supposed to eat this?" he asked, frustration clouding his otherwise calm voice.

"Well you
are
a dog now, aren't you?" she said, despite her attempt to play nice. The satisfaction of returning the horrible slang humans had been using on her and her people was worth it, though. "Shouldn't you learn to eat like one?"

"You're going to be arrested for this." His face flushed.

"Oh, relax." Clover sighed, then tore a bite-sized piece of bread from the loaf. "I'm not gonna make you eat it with your face. Here."

Trying to look passive, she held the bit of bread to his mouth, but he pressed his lips together in defiance and they stared at one another again. After a moment Clover shrugged and put the piece she'd offered into her own mouth, continuing to speak as she chewed.

"I figure you're probably…
confused
. Probably wondering why I broke in and locked you in your bathroom." She offered him another piece of bread, only to eat it herself when he refused again. "The thing is, I need your help,"

"Help?" He laughed. "Why the hell would I help
you
?”

"Well," she began, taking another bite to keep her temper distracted. "I don't know if maybe you
forgot
about being infected, but you're gonna help me because, if you don't, you'll never get the antidote."

"You're lying." Elliot's answer was immediate and confident. It made Clover's stomach clench. "There's no such thing."

"You think so?"

"If there
was
, wouldn't you just use it on yourself?" He watched the loaf of bread shrink.

"You humans think you're so smart, don't you?" Clover was grateful for her time spent lying to officers and to her aunt—her finely honed skills were paying off. "The antidote only works before someone's
first
transformation. Besides, it doesn't work on people who were born infected..." She looked down for effect, "Like I was."

The pause was slightly longer this time.

"Why should I trust you?"

"Well, the way I see it, you can trust me, help me and get a cure that might not exist." She leaned back in her chair. "Or you can refuse,
not
get a cure that
may
exist, and eventually get picked up by the Bureau.”

Clover watched the battle going on behind his mask of composure, and saw him begin to lose. Her knee bounced restlessly under the table as she tried to hide her impatience. She needed him to believe her lie—
really
believe it. Without him, everything she'd accomplished would crumble.

Just when she was about to open her mouth, planning to deliver a more direct threat, Elliot blinked, breaking their heated eye contact to look at the table instead. The sigh she let out was silent. She recognized his submission and spared his pride by offering him another bit of bread, not asking him to say anything out loud. This time he took it.

"I'm really hungry." His shoulders slumped in defeat.

"I know." Clover reassured him. "Come on, eat up."

For several minutes Clover fed him what remained of the bread, resentful of how weak he was to hunger. He'd gone less than twenty-four hours without food and was already desperate enough to eat from his captor's hands. It wasn't his fault. She was sure he'd never gone more than a day without a substantial meal, but it still made her angry. She fought the urge to ask if the Bureau fed their prisoners as regularly as they fed themselves.

When he was done, she retrieved a bottle of water and held it to his lips so he could drink, neither of them seeming to care as some spilled onto his stained shirt.

"You have a first-aid kit?"

"I do, if it wasn't destroyed when you threw it." Now that his stomach was full, he seemed to be trying to regain a bit of his pride.

"You better watch the way you talk to me." Clover stood up, yanking his shirt to get him up as well. 

Elliot said nothing as she led him back up the stairs, the puncture-wound in his side seeming to be a fresh enough reminder that she meant business.

"It's that white box by the dresser."  Elliot tilted his chin toward the small kit laying amidst the bottles of hand soap, toothpaste and cologne.

"Sit down." She shoved him onto the edge of the mattress before retrieving the box marked with a red cross.

It had everything she'd need, but as she tossed it onto the comforter, she realized she'd have to get his shirt off to patch his wounds. It would be hard with his hands still cuffed, but she wasn't about to remove them. Instead she went for her knife, intending to cut the disgusting tee-shirt off. But as she unfolded the blade, something changed in Elliot's expression. Maybe using the weapon she'd threatened his life with wasn't the best choice, because he panicked.

One kick to her solar plexus had Clover on the floor, her mouth open like a dying fish. Her stomach still convulsing, she rolled to her side, catching Elliot's ankle as he made for the door. The floor shook with the force of his un-broken fall. The struggle that followed was weak as Elliot tried to shove Clover away with his legs, both of them bruised and tired from the day before. Once Clover managed to straddle his chest, safe from his inflexible legs, she gained the upper hand. Then her blade was at his throat again.

"Stop!" Her scream was warbled by the muscles still jumping in her abdomen as the edge of her knife drew a small line of blood just below Elliot’s Adam's apple.

They both went still, both trying to catch their breath as they scowled at each other. Clover wanted to slap the defiant expression from his face, shake him and make him realize that he'd lost. She knew she was lying, but
he
didn't, and his attitude was infuriating.

"Do you not get it?" Her voice was steadier this time, and she refused to move off of him. "It doesn't matter if you get away from me, because I've already ruined your life. It's in your blood already, and the only way to fix it is to do what I tell you."

She was impressed with the ferocity of her own lies, almost believing them herself. She needed him to give up the hope he was still hanging onto—he had to be obedient. The heat in his eyes cooled, but didn't disappear. Instead, the muscles under her relaxed and his head tilted back like a dog exposing his vulnerable spots. Clover took a few more breaths before getting up, hooking his arm with both hands and pulling him to his feet. She drug him back to his bed and forced him to sit down.

"I'm not going to hurt you, alright?" She didn't sound very convincing, and really, why would anyone in his position believe her.

"You pulled a knife on me."

"I was gonna cut your shirt off so I could clean you, you ungrateful ass." Her face heated when she said it out loud. "But if you really wanna keep it on, then I won't. Open your mouth." She stuffed the hem of his shirt past his teeth. She wanted it out of her way while she cleaned the crusty puncture at his side. She also wanted him to shut up.

Her body still shook from the high of fighting, her stomach complaining as she continued to catch her breath. The silence was a relief, though she could tell that Elliot still had more to say. His chest worked to catch up as well, and she could feel a tiny tremor in him as she worked.

The first time she'd touched him on the stairs' landing she'd been struck by how firm his body was. Given his prim appearance in the photo, she'd expected him to be frail, but he wasn't. He wasn't wide and thick like her father or Byron, their pack leader, but he was well-built—solid.

"Ow!" Elliot jerked as she pushed on his wound too hard.

"Shut up." She stuffed the shirt back into his mouth, embarrassed that her attention to his body had distracted her. "First you're stronger than I expected, now you're whinier."

He growled into the cotton, but held still, seeming uninterested in another fight now that a new bloodstain was growing around the collar of his shirt.

"Look," she began, trying to use the passive voice that seemed to work on him in the kitchen, "I'm really not interested in killing you, alright? Or having you captured and tortured. I'm not a monster. All I want is a chance to get inside the Bureau where you hold prisoners. My family's in there somewhere, and I just want them back." She thought she'd done a good job at sounding gentle.

They both stayed silent as the small hole at Elliot's side was cleaned and covered with an adhesive bandage. Figuring he needed time to consider his situation, Clover didn't press the matter. Instead, she moved on to his bite wound which would take more than his shirt hem being held up. Trying to seem more considerate she kept her movements slow as she pushed his shirt over his head, leaving it bunched awkwardly on his upper arms behind him.

This wound wasn’t as neat as the other—the skin torn rather than sliced. Once the dried blood was wiped and peeled away, she saw an outline of her teeth, haloed by a deep purple bruise.

Elliot's eyes burned holes through her as she moved to clean what turned out to be the very minor cut on his throat. She tried to remain steady under his gaze, fighting the urge to break his nose. Maybe it wasn't fair that all her hatred for the Bureau had fallen to his shoulders, but, when she looked at him, all she saw were black uniforms, metal tipped boots, and cells crammed full of children ready to be sent off to
finishing schools.

The cut on his neck didn't need a bandage, and she figured the high collar of his uniform would hide it.

"We'll have to come up with an excuse for that bruise on your forehead." She repacked the first-aid kit as she spoke, purposefully avoiding his stare.

"How do you expect me to get you into the Bureau?" Elliot's voice was incredulous. It was obvious he didn't expect her to have an answer.

"I'm going to pose as your slave." She wrestled his shirt back over his head.              "They're 'indentured servants,' not slaves." Elliot's head was ducked at an odd angle as he wormed his way through the neck hole of his shirt, so he didn't see the disgusted look she gave him.

"Are you serious?" Clover scoffed. "It doesn't matter what you call them. They
are
slaves. And if you're not careful, you're gonna be one too."

Elliot seemed settled after their latest brawl upstairs, so several hours later, Clover finally untied him. Of course, she fashioned an ankle-cuff that was then zip-tied to the leg of the couch. Somehow, he didn't seem to mind and sat quietly eating the dinner she'd let him make—the last thing she wanted was to cook for her prisoner.

Having already finished her portion, she sat on the floor, nursing the fire she'd made in his pristine hearth, her parcels laid out in front of her. After a cursory glance through the brochure and handbook she moved on to her registration papers. Her physical information was printed down one side, and on the other was information about Elliot, listing him as her “legal owner." There was a line he would have to sign in order to make it official.

At the bottom was the photograph Fisher had taken of her along with a shiny seal and a five digit identification number. She'd never seen a photograph of herself before, but Fisher had done a better job of cleaning her up than she'd realized. Too nervous to open the heavy parcel, she pulled out the package she’d gotten from Hannah and a small sewing kit she’d found in Elliot’s upstairs closet; it was the kind people got for emergencies, but never ended up using.

After a glance in Elliot’s direction, she opened the package she’d brought from home. She’d not re-wrapped it as neatly as Hannah had, but her messy knot had done the job. Inside was the uniform she’d gotten, dry this time. The orange piping on the brown blouse reflected bits of firelight into her eyes as she spread it out on the carpet in front of her. The skirt went beside it, and the shoes were tossed out of the way.

The brochure probably had something about attire, but she'd seen slave wolves on the street enough to know how they were supposed wear their uniforms. Holding the shirt up to her body she decided to let it stay baggy, afraid of butchering it in an attempt to tailor it to fit. The skirt would have to be hemmed though, since it hung well past her knees, something she never saw on other indentured werewolves.

"Where did you get that?" Elliot asked from where he was sitting, left with little to do other than watch her.

"None of your business."

"Did you kidnap someone else and steal it?" He seemed to enjoy ruffling her feathers.

"Of course I didn't!" Her feigned disinterest fizzled as she snapped at him, playing right into his game. She worked her lips like they'd been glued together, reminding herself to not let him get to her. "It was given to me by a
friend
." Habit kept her from mentioning her pack, even when talking about Hannah.

"Well even with a baggy uniform and fake papers, they're still going to spot you."

"You think so?"

"They only ask for papers if they're suspicious. The first thing they look for is the mark." He tapped the side of his own neck.

Her stomach tensed as he brought up what was haunting her inside the final parcel that she'd set aside. The last one Fisher had given her. It scared her, but the idea of Elliot
seeing
that fear scared her more. Snatching the bundle from where she'd banished it, she threw it on the ground between them and tore it open. Inside was a telescoping rod with a rubber handle on one end and a flat, perpendicular surface on the other. With it, made of the same shining metal, was a set of loose numbers that could be fit into the flat end of what was to become her own branding iron.