Caged

Madam Tigress

He was brushing his teeth when they came. He'd expected to be escorted to breakfast by an armed guard like any other morning. What Stiles had not expected, was for three armed guards to walk right into his room unannounced with one of them leveling a gun at his head. Stiles dropped his toothbrush and spit in the sink quickly so that he could turn to meet them for whatever was going on. His eyes caught on the rattling chains and metal cuffs in the other guards' hands as they approached him without a word.

Stiles bit down on his tongue to prevent himself from protesting and earning himself an elbow to the face or a trip down to the hole.

"Hands." Always with the monotone one worded command. Stiles glared at the ground and held out his wrists for the freezing metal shackles. An equally frigid metal collar was snapped around his throat and connected to the chain of his wrist cuffs by another thick chain. Stiles felt the weight of the enchantments keeping him in his human form like a lead blanket over his shoulders.

They had never been so heavily restrained before and the anxiety of not knowing what to expect was burning him from the inside out. In the five years Stiles had been their captive, they had never needed to be so heavy handed with them when they could easily overpower them bare-handed. He would find out soon enough what was going on, but that didn't stop the awful feeling he had. Like never before, all of his instincts were screaming at him to run.

"Move." At the barked demand, all four moved out into the empty hallway and began their little procession. When they passed the other cells, Stiles realized that they were empty. Either, everyone was at breakfast and he was being taken somewhere alone, or he'd been the last to be retrieved for whatever this was.

They neared the front of the compound and turned off into a hall he'd never remembered entering, which only made his anxiety jump. They were approaching a set of heavy-looking metal doors and slowed just before so one of the guards could step aside to tap away at a key panel.

"Keep your head down and don't say a word unless spoken to." The guard with the gun growled under his breath behind Stiles. His hands closed into fists and Stiles reluctantly lowered his chin while keeping his eyes on the doors.

With a sharp buzz, the doors unlocked and a guard pulled it open for them to go through. The room they entered was fairly large—about as big as their cafeteria—with no windows or furniture, and over a dozen closed doors circling the room. At the very center of the room were the others, all in similar heavy shackles and kneeling on the floor. As Stiles was led over, he couldn't help but compare their positions to that of a line of bodies before a firing squad. Stiles soon found out why they were kneeling on the cold concrete floor when he fell in line and was immediately forced to his knees by a violent yank to the chain connecting his neck to his wrists.

Stiles grunted as his kneecaps impacted with the ground but otherwise made no other protest when the guard pulled the chain connecting his wrists down to a metal half-loop in the floor. Once the chain was under the loop, it automatically snapped closed and locked him into his kneeling position. Stiles gritted his teeth. If he'd been in his tiger shift, his hackles would have been all the way up and puffed out. He fought the need to yank on his restraints to test their integrity. Even if he could break them, doing so would only cause him more trouble than it was worth.

Instead, he tried to ignore the pain radiating from his knees and focus on his breathing to keep himself calm. But no matter what he did, the feeling of alertness and danger never left. In fact, it only grew worse with time. Almost as if something was getting closer--

The metal doors behind them opened and multiple sets of footsteps entered the room out of their field of view with their heads tilted down. Stiles' tiger revolted and raged under his skin like it never had before. His hands twitched and he clenched his fists harder to keep them still as he tried to sooth the near-hysteric beast inside of him. From his periphery he could see the others shift and shiver uncomfortably.