Oh Hell No

Chapter 23

"Chris, you rat bastard!"

The werewolf in question froze, as did everyone else in the gaming room. A couple brave souls "ooh"ed like school children taunting a classmate who got called to the principal. He could even imagine them chanting, "Somebody's in trouble!"

Ryder jumped over the railing of the basement stairs, not even flinching as he landed. Granted, most werewolves wouldn't feel much shock from falling such a small distance, but it was still an intimidating gesture coming from the very angry future alpha, "Where's Jamie?"

"What do you mean? I dropped her off here, made sure she shifted back- without looking until she was done!" He figured it was best to specify before Ryder could take it the wrong way, "And then I went to meet up with Zeke's patrol on Alpha Mason's order."

"And you didn't think to put someone in charge of watching her?" He roared.

"I'm sorry, but I think she would've gotten upset if I gave her a babysitter. Also, I didn't expect her to leave," Leave as in run away. At least, that's how Ryder took it.

"Shit!" He pulled at his hair in frustration, "What if she ran away again? Or what if she went out to help but got attacked? I shouldn't have let her out of my sight but I didn't want her to get hurt, cause that plan turned out great!"

"Ryder!" Chris said sternly, placing his hand on the other's shoulders. Ryder didn't even notice him walk over, "Jamie is a tough girl, if she wanted to run she probably would have told you that."

"Oh so you think she was attacked? Well, that's even better!" He replied sarcastically, shrugging Chris's hands off him.

The future beta sighed, "If you want to freak out, then go ahead. I'll get your mom to make sure you don't break anything and talk to Alpha Mason about sending a search party."

When you knew Ryder for as long as Chris did, you picked up some tricks along the way to help deal with him. If Ryder's panicking like this, the best thing to do is threaten to handle the problem for him while he calms down. His pride wouldn't let him sit back in a situation like this, so suggesting he should stay back would make him focus on the problem, as well as get super defensive.

"No! You can organize a search party if you want, but I'm going out to look for her now!" He ran back up the stairs while Chris smirked. It had gotten too easy to manipulate him.

He shakes his head slightly, "I'm not going to force you guys to help, but he might once he realizes that he can't search the entire territory on his own. So, have fun while you can, I'm going to make sure he doesn't tear anyone's throats out."

Ryder didn't have much trouble following Jamie's scent with the way it seemed to stick out to him. He almost tripped several times along the way because of how fast he was running without really paying attention, but managed to stay upright. He stopped in a clearing, taking notice of the trampled grass near the center. The spot was too small for Jamie, but he couldn't get a definitive scent from it. So, one of the rogues had been here, a small one. There was no blood, so the possibility of her killing it in self defense was out.

That brought up a question though; where was she?

- - -

Jamie could now say with complete confidence that being stabbed sucked. Specifically, being stabbed with a silver knife sucked. Not that a regular knife would be much better but she didn't exactly have experience with them.

She woke up to find that the pain had barely faded, and apparently Artemis was still out of commission. It had taken a lot out of the wolf to even close all the wounds before she bled out, and she was now taking a power nap in Jamie's mind. Now she was left alone to be sore and more than irritated. At least they had let her out of the handcuffs while she was blacked out, which was a bit of a surprise. She had kind of figured out by now that they wanted her to suffer as much as possible, so this seemed generous. She could work with generous.

Her escape planning was interrupted at the sound of light footsteps. Both Marcus and Jenny, whose names she had learned during the former's "experiment" weren't very light on their feet, even if Jen was one of the tiniest full-grown werewolves Jamie had ever seen. The little girl from the clearing hesitantly poked her head out to look in the cell. She approached the cell nervously, and Jamie spotted the plate in her hands.

"H-hello," The girl whispered, "Um, I brought you some leftovers from dinner. Mom and dad don't know that I'm down here, and I don't know how long it'll take them to notice. So you might want to eat fast."

She set the plate down on the little open ledge for passing larger objects through the bars. Jamie grabbed the plate without leaving the ground; she didn't think her back and legs would agree with that plan. There was a roll and a quarter of a pork chop on the plate, the roll was unbuttered and the meat looked cold. Then again, Lucifer and Hera (as she decided to so kindly call Marcus and Jenny) probably didn't plan on feeding her until they absolutely had to. Given her werewolf genes and body fat percentage, it would take about a week and a half until Artemis took over to get food herself. If she got to that point her wolf wouldn't accept anything other than meat, and whoever was charged with passing it through the bars might lose a finger or two.

"Thanks," She muttered, "What's your name, kid?" She hadn't realized that Katey had a younger sister, or any living family for that matter. The girl often went out claiming she was visiting some human friends, and while Jamie suspected that was complete bullshit she didn't care enough to follow her and find out.

The girl looked surprised that she asked, but answered anyway, "Elizabeth."

"Well, it's nice to actually meet you, Lissy. By the way I'm gonna call you Lissy now," Jamie stuffed half the roll into her mouth, and the rest was gone within seconds.

It was a little messed up to think of parents who would rope their, what, seven year old daughter into helping them kidnap someone. Actually, more than a little messed up, so she chose not to dwell on that too much, "Are you okay?" Lissy asked.

Jamie was pretty sure that lying to a child was wrong, but giving her the traumatizing truth couldn't be better so lying it is, "Peachy, why do you ask?"

"You're all bloody," She pointed out.

"Right," She may have forgotten that part, "I heal fast so it's fine."

"Dad did that to you, didn't he?"

Well, how is she supposed to respond to that? There wasn't a way she could spare Lissy's feelings because the girl would probably be able to piece together that no one else could have done it but her parents. But, how can you tell a child that their parents, the people that are like superheroes to them, are bad people?

A/N: I feel bad for Lissy, because when Ryder figures out who took Jamie he probably won't be very forgiving