The door rips open, slamming into the wall with a hollow echo as a massive black wolf tears Jon away from me.
I fall to the ground, my vision still spotty, as loud, wheezing breaths come out of my chest. My entire body aches and it's a fight to catch my breath.
In the back of my mind, I can hear Jon screaming. But everything feels out of focus, wrong. I still can't see properly and my body feels cold. My throat throbs painfully with every gasping breath I take. I don't process what's happening to my cousin, only my body's reaction to the air now filling my lungs.
When I can see again, Jon is gone but there's a mess of thick red blood in his place. The black wolf towers over me, blood smeared across his muzzle. He snarls at me as I try to shift position, leaning so my back is against the hard wall.
He's warning me not to try anything.
I'm not sure I could even if I wanted to.
I just stare back at him, my expression blank. I'm too stunned to worry about the fact that the wolf—the very same wolf who has haunted my nightmares for the last four years—is staring at me like he wants to rip my head off.
He wants me to submit.
I don't. I may be trapped, I may be physically weak, but I won't give him that. The Clara from four years ago would be quivering in her boots right now. But I just meet his stare, unblinking.
He can do what he wants to me. We both know that.
But I refuse to submit to the very man who tore my life apart, even if it's the last thing I do. I can't. I won't.
I lean my head back against the metal wall, keeping my eyes locked on his. "You going to kill me or what?"
A low, menacing growl makes my heart pound in my chest. But I keep his gaze. I've been scared before. Fear, I can handle.
He shoves his snout into my neck. I feel for the fire instinctively, but I don't have the energy to harness it. Trying to use it right now would be sheer idiocy. Still, I give the thought more credit than I probably should.
His nose is cold as it presses against the side of my neck and I flinch. He growls sharply. I stop squirming.
What if he kills me? What if he marks me?
My entire body starts to shake as his tongue touches the side of my neck. What is he doing?
His movements are swift and he growls every time I try to shift away from him, before finally placing a large paw firmly on my thigh, as if to keep me in place. After a couple minutes of this, I realize he's lapping up the blood from where Jon's claws dug into my neck.
He is licking my neck. He is licking my neck. Don't panic, Clara.
He is licking my neck.
There's nothing even remotely normal about this.
I feel his teeth then, as they brush along the side of my neck. I freeze. I don't even breathe. Please don't, please don't, please don't.
I focus on Tiberius, conjuring up an image of him in my minds' eye. For the first time in years, I hope someone is coming for me. I hope he is coming for me.
Ira pulls away from my neck suddenly, backing across the room. His lips lift in an angry snarl when I try to pull myself further away from him, so I lean back once more, watching him warily.
His limbs contort violently, skin slowly replacing long black fur and fingers and toes replacing claws. The change is over in seconds and Ira pulls himself up to stand in front of me. He's naked, and his black hair hangs loose around his face.
His arms and legs are splattered with blood, but, even more ominously, his neck and jaw are caked in it. He grins at me, licking his lips. I shrink back unconsciously, meeting his gaze but clutching myself tightly with my arms across my chest.
"You look just like her, you know," he tells me.
"Who? Charlie?" I scoff, "she is—was my twin."
"Not her. Clarice." His expression softens for half a moment and I almost can't believe my eyes. But it vanishes just as quickly. "You're a lot like her. Hesitant, sweet at first. But you get the same fearsome look in your eyes as she did whenever she felt threatened.
"Do you feel threatened, Clara?" He pauses, staring at me appraisingly. I don't answer and he smirks.
"You're going to be in this room for a long, long time." He tilts his head, the same calculating look in his eyes. "I'll give you a choice. Submit to me now, and leave this room. Live in peace, with me. Or..." He smiles, "stay in here. And for every hour you make me wait," he licks his lips, "you'll face the consequences. And they won't be pleasant."
He seems to savour the words as he says them and I can tell he wants me to go with option two. He wants to hurt me.
I guess it's his lucky day.
Narrowing my eyes at him, I force my lips to curve up in a fake smile. "Then I guess we better get started, huh?"
*
He wasn't joking when he'd said I'd have to face the consequences. Not, of course, that I'd thought he was.
The room is freezing.
I hadn't noticed it before, but there's a small vent on the wall above the bed. He's using it to flood the room with freezing cold air. And it isn't like the metal walls are conducive to heat—it's as if I'm locked in a refrigerator.
But I guess it makes sense, in a sick, twisted kind of way.
After all, what do you do to the girl who burns things? You freeze her.
Or at least, that seems to be what Ira thinks.
I'm sitting on the bed, huddled in a ball and wrapped in a thin sheet—the one that used to cover the mattress. It's the only thing in the room, other than the bed.
My feet are starting to go numb and I begin to wish for shoes.
But why stop there? I think. I wish I had a parka.
It's so cold I can see my own breath.
I'm a bit worried about the effect this could have on my asthma. Assuming I don't die of hypothermia, I'd prefer not to die of an asthma attack instead. Like exercise, the cold is one of my triggers.
Unlike exercise, I can't avoid the cold.
So instead I stay huddled, breathing into the sheet and hoping to trap at least some of my body heat. I'm in the same pair of jeans and ratty t-shirt I was wearing the night Jon brought me here. I guess there is one bright side to the cold: I'm so preoccupied with trying not to freeze to death, I no longer notice how bad I smell.
It's hard not to wonder how long it's been.
An hour? Several?
Is this all he meant by 'every hour that I make him wait'? Or does he have some new punishment in mind for each of those?
I know he doesn't want to kill me, otherwise he would have already.
But I'm not entirely sure what that means.
Is he so obsessed with my great-grandmother that he thinks he can somehow replace her with me? Or is it my ability that he wants?
Maybe it's a bit of both.
Though I'm not really sure how he stands to benefit from my ability.
The door swings open at that moment and I lurch awkwardly to my feet, stretching out my frozen limbs for the first time in ages.
Ira smiles at me, taking in the naked mattress and the white sheet clenched between my icy fingers. I don't give him the satisfaction of looking embarrassed.
If he thinks a little cold is going to change my mind, then he has another thing coming.
"I see you aren't ready to submit to me." His voice is almost as chilly as the room, but there's an excitement in his eyes that makes my stomach churn. "Pity."
He leaves the room, the door slamming shut behind him, and I inch slowly back onto my perch on the bed.
That was too easy.
I stare expectantly at the outline of the door on the wall. He'll be back. And I want to know when he is.
Time creeps by, dragging on and on. Everything is cold. So cold.
A loud whirring noise interrupts the sound of the fan above me and I look up, watching as four sprinklers descend from the ceiling above my head.
No. No way.
Immediately, water sprays out, soaking me and my feeble sheet. I keep it wrapped around me, peering around the metal room—box—searching for a dry spot. But the sprinklers are placed strategically around the room and I'm forced to wonder if he's been planning this out since the day he killed my sister four years ago.
I'm frozen to the bone. While the water falls from the ceiling, the fan continues to fill the room with ice cold air.
I wonder how long it'll take for the water to turn to ice?
The longer the sprinklers pour down on me, the more exhausted I feel. This must be what hypothermia feels like. The sprinklers stop suddenly and I'm mid-yawn when the door opens again.
This time it isn't Ira, and I don't bother moving. I'm not sure I could move if I wanted to.
The two men who enter my room storm over to me, somehow maintaining their balance on the slippery floor. They each grasp one of my arms and drag my shivering body between them as they walk.
They pull me through the freezing water and into a hallway, toward a set of stairs.
I don't have the energy to haul myself up, so instead, my icy feet slam limply into each stair on the way down and my arms burn where their fingers dig into my biceps.
Briefly, I wonder if my lips have turned blue.
The men gripping my arms drag me into what seems to be a sitting area. It's dim and, much Ira's office, lit only by oil lamps mounted on the wall. The furniture is all dark leather and has almost a Victorian feel to it.
Maybe Ira is trying to relive his glory days. I snort at the thought.
My arms are released and I fall unceremoniously onto the hard, wooden floor. "Ooph."
The air is knocked from my lungs as I hit the ground, and it takes me a moment of wheezing before I'm able to pull myself up into a seated position and take in my surroundings.
Ira stands directly in front of me, a smirk splayed across his face as he stares down at my soaked, shivering form. I can't imagine just how awful I must look. By the almost contented expression on his face, it's definitely not good.
I meet his stare head on. It's not much, but my pride is the only thing I have left and I will not let him break me. I am better than this. I have to be.
"Oh, Clara," he tuts. "You have so much to learn."
The superior glint in his eye infuriates me.
Staring at him, I can't stop myself.
"Go fuck yourself," I spit.
It's the first time I've actually sworn in years, and it has more than the desired effect.
Rage washes over Ira's face and in seconds he's standing directly in front of me. He wraps one hand in my wet hair, pulling me up to eye level with him. His other hand pulls back to smack me hard across the face, before he releases his grip on my hair and I collapse onto the floor.
I don't need to look at him to hear the fury in his tone when he speaks again. "Bring him in," he growls.
His words catch my attention and I force myself up, my ears ringing from the blow. The inside of my cheek is bleeding, having caught on my teeth with the force of his hit and my head is throbbing harder than ever. If nothing else, he succeeded in further rattling my concussion.
The world is spinning as I stand on shaky legs, but I can see clearly enough as they drag a familiar figure into the room.
He's taller than I remember, by at least a few inches, but his hair is shorter. His shoulders have broadened out and he's no longer the skinny kid Charlie and I used to make fun of.
"Callum?"
My voice cracks, and it's that moment that I know I'll do anything Ira tells me to.
I can't move. I can't even peel my eyes from his face. He has a black eye, a cut over his left cheekbone, and a split lip. Tears well up in my eyes. No. Not him too.
Ira knows he has me. He must.
I won't let him kill my baby brother too.
But even though I'm ready to throw myself at his feet and beg him to let my brother go, it's not enough for Ira.
I glance at him just on time to catch him nodding toward one of the men who dragged me into the room, and then the sound of Callum's screams cut through the quiet.
He falls to the ground, his body seizing violently. I gasp, my heart pounding in my ears as the realization hits me: he's being electrocuted.
I hadn't noticed it at first, too caught up in seeing my brother again, but there's a shock collar wrapped around his neck.