Wolf Watch (The Madison Wolves Book 8) (25 page)

I nodded. "Will you talk to me while I shower?"

* * * *

Portia brought my Saturday breakfast: pancakes and hash browns. The pancakes would have egg in them, but I ate them anyway. They were filling. Afterwards, she kept me company while I showered and dressed.

I didn't ask her what she had voted, although I thought about it. I was pretty sure I wouldn't like the answer.

She kept me entertained for a couple of hours. Then I was alone until Angel brought my lunch. She stayed for a while. Eric brought dinner and stayed until Elisabeth showed up. She kept me company until I told her I was going to sleep.

Sunday started the same, but then Elisabeth stopped in. "Would you like some exercise?"

"Yes."

She had new workout clothes for me. She left them for me then told me to come out when I was dressed.

Five minutes later, I got my first look at the open sky since the trip to the bank. I looked around.

"What kind of exercise?"

"Your choice. We can go for a run, or we can go to the gym."

"Gym, I guess."

"If you like to swim, I can make that an option tomorrow."

"I do," I admitted. "How long will you keep me in prison?"

"I don't know."

But she helped me get a good workout, doing everything with me, although at a far higher level of intensity. She talked easily the entire time.

And that set a new pattern.

I waited a week.

On Thursday morning when Karen brought my breakfast, I told her, "I demand to see the alpha."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. Either kill me, release me, or allow me to see the alpha, and she can explain by what right you continue to keep me like this. These conditions are unacceptable. I've given you a week to get your shit together."

She stared at me for a moment. "I will relay your request."

"Get it right, Karen," I
spat. "It wasn't a request. It was a demand. Get the fuck out and take that with you. I am not eating or drinking anything until I have my answers."

She sighed, collected the food, and disappeared.

Elisabeth appeared twenty minutes later.

"You're not the alpha. Get out."

"Calm down."

"Go to hell," I said. "Kill me, release me, or get the alpha here to explain why I continue to be treated this way. I came here in good faith, and I have not been treated fairly."

"Zoe..."

"What?" I spat.

"This isn't the way to handle this."

"I tried being nice," I said. "I came here. I told you everything. I answered every question in great detail. I submitted to your insulting search, and I made a joke of it to try to make
you
feel better. I didn't have to tell you about the contents of the safety deposit box. I could have arranged for that poison pill, but I didn't. I didn't do a single thing to justify this treatment. Now, either you are going to tell me you are responsible for the decision to keep me in here, and I will tell you to fuck off, or you will get the person in here who is. And when she gives me her crappy explanation for why I'm being treated like this, I'll tell her to fuck off."

"Those are not words you want to direct to the alpha."

"Was there a plan to release me today?"

"No."

"Kill me?"

"No."

"Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow is tomorrow."

"Can you give me a date and time when I will know what you intend to do with me?"

She paused. "No."

"Then get the fucking alpha in here!" I screamed. "And you can fuck off!"

Her lips tightened.

I hadn't even bothered standing up, but I did then, then marched up to her and puffed out my chest, glaring at her. "Going to hit me? Going to slap me down for asserting my rights? Go ahead. I've been beaten by jailers before. You won't be any different."

"Zoe..." she said quietly.

"Do you want an excuse?" I asked. I shoved her. It was like shoving a mountain, and while she rocked slightly, that was her only reaction. I pushed harder, trying to shove her in the wall."

"Stop it."

"Or what?" I asked. "What are you going to do to me that you aren't
going to do anyway
?"

"Lara is on the fence. Screaming at her is going to push her off the wrong side."

"If I was going to tell anyone about you, I wouldn't have come here in the first place! I would have done it. Go get her. Or don't. Whatever. Get the fuck out."

She tried calming me down, but I turned my back on her and then just told her to "fuck off" every time she said something.

"This is a mistake, Zoe."

"Wanting to meet you was a mistake, Elisabeth. Even after my other jailers beat me, I got to talk to a lawyer. What are you offering?"

She was still for a minute. "Is that what you feel now? It was a mistake?"

"You've had a week. You've had enough time to go through everything I have. There is no more reason to wait. Either she intends to let me rot in here, or she intends to kill me. I think she's hoping I'll go crazy enough to justify killing me. This is like Guantanamo. People go in and aren't enemies, but they all come out enemies."

"It's not like that."

"Bull. Shit."

"So we're enemies now?"

I turned to face her. "Unless you torture me, I won't betray your secrets. But beyond that, I don't know anymore. You haven't treated me like someone whose friendship you value. None of you have."

"That's not fair."

"Bull. Shit."

"We've been trying to keep you company."

"You feed me food you know I find morally objectionable. You keep me locked in this airless cell. You make me sleep on the floor like an animal. I have to ask permission to use the bathroom. You won't let me do my job. I have bills to pay, and I haven't checked to see if I have orders to fill. People expect them mailed out within three days. I can't afford to lose the business, and I really can't afford a poor reputation due to non-delivery, especially as people will already have paid and expect their photos to be shipped."

I turned away again.

"I'm going crazy. Every time the door open, I wonders if it's going to be the execution squad. I wonder if Karen is bringing in another wire. Or maybe you'll be humane, and there's something in the food. I look at everything carefully, wondering if there's a drug in the salad dressing or baked into the bread."

I turned around. "When you take me outside, I wonder if it's going to be filled with wolves, and you're going to tell me, 'run', and then all of you are going to tear me to shreds."

"Is that what you think of us?"

"I don't know what to think. Everyone comes in pretending to be a friend. You took me on that trip, pretending to be friends, while the entire trip was so you could invade my privacy. Every ounce of friendship any of you showed me was so you could find out why I wanted to meet you. Did you do what you did in the shower so I wouldn't notice little things in the apartment, maybe the computer a little crooked or the clothes in my hamper in a different order than I took them off?"

"Zoe..."

"You all come in here, pretending to be friends, but then one of you is going to turn around and kill me when Lara gets tired of feeding me? Friends don't do that!"

"Maybe no one coming in here thinks that's how it's going to end."

"I don't believe you! You haven't once told me it's all going to be okay. You haven't even done it to try to make me feel better. Not once. If you believed it, you'd have said it."

We glared at each other for a while. Well, I glared. I'm not sure what Elisabeth was doing should be called glaring, but I was so mad, I can't be sure.

Finally she said, "Lara isn't going to be impressed if you scream at her."

"Lara has already made up her mind! She just isn't willing to tell you yet. She's waiting for an excuse. Well, I'm tired of being terrified, and I want it over. Go get her. I'll scream at her, and she'll have ample excuse."

"Zoe, please..."

"Go! Go on! Get the fuck out!"

"Please calm down."

"How?" I screamed.

"Zoe, what do you want from me?"

"The truth!" I screamed.

She stared. "Fine. The truth is, Lara doesn't know what to do."

"Other humans have found out before. Why am I so hard to trust?"

"You're the second Lara's had to deal with that didn't make it easy."

"Make it easy?"

"Trying to photograph us with the clear intention of making millions."

"And the other one?"

"Someone Michaela had known for years and that the pack knew for almost a year."

"Fine. Go get her. Tell her to come here. And I'll tell her to make a decision."

"That is a mistake. You need to give her time. The longer this goes with nothing happening, then easier it is to believe nothing will."

"You're talking months. Years."

She didn't answer.

"No!" I screamed. "I'm done eating. I'm done drinking." I plopped down on the floor. "Consider this a hunger strike. It ends when the Alpha comes in here and tells me she's letting me go or she's killing me."

"We'll force feed you."

"So you'll add to my degradation? Isn't that an answer in itself?"
I replied. "Fuck off, Elisabeth. Go tell her I demand to see her."

"This is a mistake, Zoe."

"I'm not rotting in here for months, wondering when you're going to kill me. Go get the alpha. We can end this today and save everyone a great deal of heartache."

"Please, Zoe. Give me another week. Calm down. Be a model prisoner. Continue to make friends with everyone."

"Go to hell. No one coming in here thinks I'm her friend. They're in here with the condemned, and everyone knows it. It's in the body language of everyone who steps through that door."

She didn't deny that, either.

She stood there for another minute before she said, "I'll inform the alpha that you would like to see her."

"Tell her to come prepared to make a decision."

"This is a mistake." But a moment later, the door closed behind her.

* * * *

Lara didn't come that morning. They left me alone until Portia stepped in carrying something she called lunch.

"Take it away. I'm not eating it."

"You should keep your strength up. You never know when an escape opportunity will open for you."

"I wouldn't get three steps," I said. "And if I see the doors wide open and a getaway car running, I'll know there's a bomb under the front seat, and you're all too chicken shit to kill me straight up."

Instead of leaving, she sat down across from me, the food on the floor between us. "I've been held prisoner before."

I looked up and cocked my head, trying to offer a droll, "I couldn't care less" look, but the reality was, she had my attention.

"Eat something and I'll tell you about it."

I glanced at it. It was a sandwich. "It's made from animal products. I don't eat animal products."

"We don't know how to cook for you. We're trying. It's a vegetable sandwich."

"Is the bread vegan? It would say so on the wrapper. And that's mayonnaise, isn't it?"

"It's bread and mayonnaise. Nothing died."

"Most bread in the grocery store includes eggs. Mayonnaise is made from eggs. The vast majority of eggs in this country come from chickens standing in cages so small they can't move around. It's inhumane." I paused. "Sort of like keeping me in here, but even smaller and for my entire life."

"How about the fruit," she asked, pointing. "Can you eat it?"

I nodded.

"Eat some of the fruit, and I'll tell you about the first time I was held prisoner. It's not a happy story, but I think you should hear. If you eat all the fruit and tell me what I can buy that you'll eat, I'll go to the store as soon as we're done and buy whatever you need."

"I'm on a hunger strike."

"That won't get you anywhere. If Lara wants to kill you, it's just as easy to let you starve to death as anything else. And if she doesn't want to kill you, there's no reason to make this time worse than it has to be."

"Did Elisabeth tell you to try to get me to eat?"

"Yes, but she wouldn't have had to."

"Why not?"

"Because no one wants to kill you, Zoe. Not me, not Karen, certainly not Elisabeth. Not even Lara. No one. Everyone likes you. But Lara is afraid of making a mistake. She's biting everyone's head off, because she's tormented trying to make the right decision."

"No. She's doing that because she has already decided but doesn't want to tell Elisabeth."

"So you admit that Elisabeth cares."

I stared at her.

"And yet here I sit on death row for her mistake." I looked away. "Tell me your story if you think I should hear it, but I'm on a hunger strike until the alpha comes down here and talks to me."

"She won't come."

"Then that's more evidence I'm right, isn't it? But now she's too much a coward to look me in the face and tell me she's having me killed."

Portia drew in a breath. "Calling the alpha a coward isn't a good way to extend your lifespan."

"Well she is, isn't she? She hasn't come to visit me once. She hasn't offered an apology for my treatment, even by proxy. Neither of them have. She's already decided, but now she's afraid to come see me because she might actually have to realize she's killing a person who doesn't deserve it."

"If you eat the fruit, and if you promise to do your best to be polite, I will do my best to get her to come visit."

"That's a pretty weak promise."

"I think I can get Michaela here. I don't know about Lara."

I looked back at her.

"They're both cowards."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Tell me in what way I'm wrong. Tell me in what way I deserve this treatment."

"You have no idea what Michaela's been through. You have no idea what Lara went through trying to rescue her wife."

"And now they're both letting their past bad experiences lead to my rot followed eventually by my death. Maybe they were both brave back then, but they've become cowards.
"