Hey guys, i am SO sorry i haven't posted for 3 MONTHS! I'm so lousy. I've probably lost 99% of my readers... But to that 1 percent who had stuck around, and understood that i've been having a rough time, i am so thankful.
Also, i have decided to start writing Split Second while editing White Tiger.
I won't keep you any longer- here it is! The long awaited 33rd chapter of White Tiger.
"White Tiger"
2013 Copyright © All Rights Reserved.
Stryder Sweetman.
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Chapter 32
I was drifting in darkness, sinking into liquid, slowly falling, and yet I felt nothing. No pain, no fear, no adrenaline. Just numbness. It was soothing, a relief from the pain I couldn't remember.
Perhaps I was dead?
Maybe I was asleep, floating in the deep abyss of my mind, the only place I could find safety.
Or perhaps I was awake? Maybe I was really floating on a soft liquid, sinking deeper and deeper into darkness? Or maybe, I was being deceived, given false hope, false relief so that it could be torn away from me again.
Perhaps I was hallucinating, yet again from the serum repeatedly injected into my body. Maybe I was delirious, and the warm feeling surrounding me was but my imagination.
Maybe I was at home, in bed, sleeping, safe. I would awake and everything would be normal, this whole experience just a bad dream.
Unfortunately, I knew I was only fooling myself- when had I ever dreamt of such horrible tortures, cruel words, and astonishing realisations.
I could only be sleeping, still chained to a wall in a dark, lonesome room, with only myself to offer comfort.
I could suddenly feel the pain I had been ignorant of until then. I had held onto the tiny belief that I was imagining all of the pain, just a cruel game my mind had decided to play.
I felt myself being pulled back into the world I had willingly left, not wishing to return to the cruelty and pain.
I awoke in the disgusting prison, hearing rats and bugs scurry past. I didn't know how long I had been here. But by the aching of my bones, I figured a few days.
I opened my eyes and scanned the dark, ugly room I had come to hate. I flinched every time the harsh ground scraped a cut or bruise.
My mind was in a fog, unable to comprehend why I was here, or what was going on. There was a voice trying to lull me back to unconsciousness, it spoke soothing words to me, numbing the pain.
Something in me knew the voice, I recognised it. It wasn't me, but it was, because we were one. But one with who?
Who was the voice? If the voice was me, then who was I?
A rat scampered over my leg, digging its claws into my burnt skin. I flinched and a whimper escaped my lips. As soon as the whimper escaped my mouth, I regretted it, knowing that he had heard it.
He would be coming down now, to punish me, to accuse me of escaping.
Sure enough, I heard the scrape of chairs, and footsteps as he descended the stairs. I kept my head down, knowing that in the end, it was my fault I was in this situation.
The door creaked open, with agonising slowness, and I knew he was doing it on purpose. He liked prolonging fear, he soaked up the torturous anticipation, he absorbed it, lived off of it.
He entered my prison, with all the swagger in the world, strutting, like he owned it all. A genuine grin lit up his face as he saw my condition.
He revelled in my suffering.
"Ah, sleeping ugly has awoken." He taunted.
I began to sob, but I had run out of tears a while ago. He sat down on the chair in the middle of the room, licking his lips as he searched my battered body for any sign of the pain he had inflicted. When he saw the bruises, burns, cuts, and tears, his whole face lit up.
I could see it in his eyes, the malice, the anger, the insanity.
"Let's have some fun then, hey?" He threatened, enjoying the fear showing on my face.
As soon as I saw he was enjoying my fear, I wiped it off of my face, trying my hardest to keep a blank face.
I could feel that the serum was beginning to wear off, and I knew it might be my only chance of escape, so I had to hold him off.
He walked toward me, pulling out his favourite blade, tiny but sharp. He called it 'Xenia', and it was his favourite- as he said, 'small enough to avoid too much damage, big enough to cause enough'.
He smirked as I tried to break loose of my chains, and he hissed, "This is why I have always been superior, I have always been more important than you."
"You are the vilest scum, scraped off of the most disgusting shoe, like a wart on Mother Natures behind." I spat.
He raised an eyebrow, "I think the serum's wearing off."
My eyes widened and I began to hyperventilate, he couldn't find out yet, I needed a few minutes longer!
But it was too late. He pulled the large needle from behind him and held it above him, as if examining the liquid inside of it.
"You know, if one teensy tiny little bubble was to... Oh, I don't know, somehow end up in this needle? It would be injected into your bloodstream, resulting in your untimely death. And what a slow, agonising death it would be, just waiting for the little bubble, filled with the air you breathe, to kill you." He taunted.
I used all of the moisture in my mouth and spat at him, it landed right in the middle of his forehead. He grinned deviously, before beginning to suck all of the saliva in his mouth in to one area.
Unsure of what he was doing, I was forced to watch from where I was chained on the wall. He grinned and then sent his saliva into the cuts down my forearms.
I screamed as the salt stung my wound, his disgusting saliva sliding in the cuts. I looked up just in time to see the needle coming toward my neck, before I felt the burning pain of the injection, and my mind began to once again fog over.
I saw him take out a few more devices, but I already knew what they were for- he would take my blood. He was doing something to it- mutating, copying, studying, who knows.
All I knew was that I had become his own personal science experiment.
Willow
It had been a week since Ben's disappearance, the pack had panicked before finally calming down, understanding that they needed to help us.
We had narrowed the search down to fewer people, among the suspects, Ophelia remained. Jason had gotten help from his uncle, who seemed surprisingly eager to help us with the search.
We had found the scent of Rogue shifters near our borders, and deduced that they had helped with the abduction.
Rogues were shifters who had reached the lowest of the low- being kicked out of packs or leaving themselves, because they had done horrible things.
There was a difference between Nomad shifters and Rogues- a Nomad chose not to live with a pack, travelling, and they were respected by other shifters.
Rogues were disgusting. They fed on hatred, murdering innocents for the joy of it, turning on their closest friends for their own benefit, deceiving others, and some strove to the destruction of packs.
When Rogues grouped together, bad things happened; usually they would try to bring down a pack.
It was a group of Rogues who attempted to bring down Jason's uncle all those years ago, they had killed the Alpha pair- Jason’s parents- and were trying to destroy the pack. Luckily William, Jason's uncle, had been able to stop it.
The news that there had been a group of Rogues camping out near our territory was shocking- how had none of the members running the border missed it?
They were gone now, their scents just as old as Benina's trail. They had left at the same time, and had been extremely close to the abduction site.
It was too much to be a coincidence.
We had questioned the remaining subjects multiple times, none of them letting anything slip. Of course we kept a close eye on Ophelia and her trips to the 'beach'.
She had gotten even more suspicious when she shook the tail we put on her. We were clutching at straws, the Rogues had also used cars to make their escape, and so we had come to a dead end.
Now all we had left was help from William, a couple of suspects, and the hope that we would find Ben.
When Marc heard of Ben's disappearance, he had bought a flight back, he was arriving some point tomorrow.
Jason was going mad with grief, terrified by the loss of his mate, but two days ago, he had been filled with determination. He left his room, Morte on his shoulder, and left the pack house without saying a word.
We had all worried about him, but it turned out he had done his best at tracking the Rogues, and had come across a camp full of them.
He became blinded by rage and with Morte at his side, they had destroyed the camp and brought few survivors back.
They shouldn't have messed with him.
I was 'interrogating' one of his prisoners.
He was strapped to a chair in the middle of a spare room in the mansion, unable to move, at my mercy. Get this straight- I don't enjoy inflicting pain, but sometimes it is necessary, and others often won't step up to the job.
"I'll never tell you swine!" The Rogue hissed.
I sighed, as if I was sad, and looked him in the eye. "Well, you see, you messed with my friend. My best friend. So I guess I will have to try harsher methods, eh?"
I grinned and pulled my lacy black gloves off, showing my extended claws. "Do you want me to show you what I can do with these?" I asked in a sweet voice.
"Ok! Ok! I'll tell you! I know where another camp is, but I don't know if it's the right one or not, only a select few get told!" He spilled the beans. He was easy to crack.
Show him a TV, he gets excited, take it away, he's your little slave.
I hated his type.
"Alright, tell me where. If I find out you lied to me? My friend, you will be in a world of pain." I threatened.
He gulped and nodded, "I'll tell you the truth, I swear."
I pulled my gloves back on and strolled out of the room, the location the only thing on my mind. I double-locked the door and nodded to the pack members guarding it.
I was the only one with the keys, so there would be no one getting in there without my permission.
I climbed up the stairs and was met by an impatient looking Jason. When he saw me, his face brightened and he quickly joined me. "Where?" He asked.
Giving him the rough area, he nodded, but I stopped him, grabbing his arm. "Jason, I’m coming as back-up, I need to make sure you don't do anything stupid."
He nodded, Morte flew up the hall and landed on his shoulder, and the three of us were off. Ani had stayed to her room whenever we weren't searching for Ben; she was working on her own when we weren't.
I turned to Jason as we exited the building, and I looked up to meet Ani's eyes as she stared at us regretful from her window.
Instead of climbing into a car, we shifted. I shifted into Siobhan and Jason shifted into Griffon, Morte on his shoulder, ready for vengeance.
We passed Kaz's paddock, and saw that the Rhino was not staying behind this time. He was waiting outside of his paddock, looking at us expectantly.
I nodded my head and he fell into step behind us. I was confident the Rhino could keep up.
We ran through the woods, dodging trees, branches, fallen logs, boulders, and ditches. The Rhino was easily keeping pace with us as we made our way to the Rogue camp.
We had been running for ten minutes when we found it, a campfire burning and Rogues set up around it, chatting and relaxing.
It was only 5 in the afternoon and they were already curled up and telling campfire stories.
My lip curled in disgust as I stared at the camp, the dirty scent of Rogues invading my nostrils. I hissed under my breath and turned to Jason, nodding my head, we split up.
Kazak was prepared to charge, in front of the fire, Jason set up on the left, and I was on the right, Morte sitting in the branches opposite Kaz.
They all turned to look at me and I flicked my tail in a sign to go.
Chaos filled the clearing, screams and shouts of protest filling the air as we leapt forward, Kaz splitting a path straight through the middle of the shifters, forcing them toward Jason or me.
I swung into action, flipping over an enraged, red-eyed shifter barrelling toward me.
He snarled as I avoided his attack, spinning to face me. I crouched low to the ground, prepared for his next attack. I saw his weight shift to his left foot, and I knew he was about to leap toward me, most likely shifting mid-air.
He did as I expected, leaping through the air, shifting into a large red-eyed bear. But I was ready.
I leapt into the air at the same time as he did, knocking him off balance as he landed on two paws. I ripped out his throat before he had the chance to fight back, and turned to look at the others.
Jason was moving quickly, fury powering his every swipe. He had taken down three of them already.
Kaz's horn was smeared with blood as he charged toward another unfortunate Rogue.
Morte was tearing the Rogues apart with her claws and beak, blinding many, injuring others.
I saw a Rogue or two escape, but I was ok with that- let them tell the others, let them tell them of how two shifters, and two wild animals managed to take down a whole camp of Rogues.
I dove back into action, tearing two men to shreds as they went for my throat. I was about to kill one of the Rogues when a shadow fell over me. I knew I had no time to avoid the blow coming at me, and when it didn't hit me, I turned to see what had stopped it.
Morte, her feathers soaked in dark red blood, stood atop the fallen shifter, his throat ripped out, jugular lying on the ground next to his face.
I nodded my thanks and turned back to the whimpering mess on the ground before me.
I decided to leave him for questioning.
I turned to help Jason and Kaz with finishing off the rest.
By the end, the meadow was covered in blood, not an inch untouched. My small team had few injuries, three Rogues were kept for questioning.
The rest were either dead or had run away during the fight.
I shifted back, using some cuffs I conjured to bind the three prisoners. They were too injured to go anywhere anyway.
Getting creative, I conjured a collar to go around Kazak's neck and hold the prisoners on his back.
I knew the cuffs and collar would disappear soon, unable to stay in existence if I got too distracted. So I quickly lifted it over his head and strapped the prisoners on to his back.
I shifted into Siobhan and we sprinted back to the pack house, a fresh batch of prisoners to question.
I shifted back and got Jason's help with the prisoners.
Neither of us had spoken a word since the fight had begun. We stayed silent as we took the prisoners inside.
I sent some pack members to accompany Kaz to the lake to wash him off.
When the prisoners were locked up in another bolted spare room, I turned to Jason. "You can go have a shower, I’ll wash Morte and I’ll meet you back in the conference room in half an hour." I told him.
He nodded and Morte hopped on to my shoulder as I walked upstairs to my room. Turning on the shower head, I looked at Morte.
"Thanks for saving me back there, by the way."
She nodded and I turned to check the temperature of the water.
I couldn't help the excited feeling that bubbled up in me- we were getting closer to finding Ben, and when we did find her captors?
I would kill them. Slowly.
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And there it is!
I hope you enjoyed it!
Check out Split Second! It will be my focus for now.
Love you guys! xxxxxxxxxxxxooooooooooooooooo
Stryder- and don't forget-
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