Greykin Valley

| 22 | Inimă

⥐ ⋞ ☽ ⋟ ⥐

| Jackson |

The hunters left in groups of four. They went with their weapons and traps; some were on foot, and others took the jeeps they'd loaded with chains. Jackson had no idea what their plans were, but he could assume that they were setting up a perimeter around this camp. They were going to use him for bait, right? And they hadn't moved him, so that was all that made sense.

Jackson still didn't feel great, but he felt better than earlier. He could move his body a little more now; he sat up, but the fact that he couldn't lean his back against the silver bars made it hard for him to stay up for long.

He waited until the last group of hunters left. Once their jeep departed, he sat up on his hands and knees and looked at the growling muto. "Wilson," he called, keeping his voice hushed. Lieutenant Lewis didn't leave with his men, and Jackson didn't want to wake him up and make him come out of his tent.

Wilson stopped glaring into the trees and stared across the camp at Jackson. "I'm gonna get us out of here," he told him.

"But...it's silver," Jackson replied. "Neither of us can break it, right?" He wasn't actually sure if silver was toxic to muto.

The tiger snarled quietly and shifted his sights to Sebastien. "We need him."

However, the winged hound hadn't said a word since Jackson woke up—the guy hadn't even moved. The silver chains binding him were still sizzling against his skin, and Jackson could swear he could now smell his burning flesh.

What were they going to do? They had to get out of there while the hunters were gone. Jackson wasn't going to let them use him as bait, but there wasn't much he could do against silver. He looked down at the floor; his ass wasn't burning, so maybe the floor of the cage was made of something else.

Jackson hastily glanced around, and when he spotted that one of the corners of whatever the floor was made of was bent upwards, he shuffled towards it and tried pulling it away. It hurt his body, but he couldn't let that slow him down. There was no telling how much time he had.

"What are you doing?" Wilson called.

"Trying...to...see," he grunted, tugging, "if I can...get out...through the floor—"

The material gave way and tore. Jackson fell back, his head hit the floor, and he groaned painfully. But there was no time to complain. He hurried back to the corner; however, what he saw made all his dismay come flooding back in. The floor beneath the material he lay on was silver.

He scowled sullenly and returned to sitting in the middle of his cage.

"What?" Wilson called.

"It's silver," he grumbled.

The tiger made an irritated sound and started looking around. "There has to be something."

"There's not," Jackson said despondently. "We're just gonna have to sit here like idiots." What was the point of lying to himself?

Wilson growled quietly as he paced around inside his cage. "The silver doesn't burn me like it does you guys, it just makes me as weak as a fucking human. Maybe I can...try busting the lock or—"

"It won't work, Wilson," Jackson muttered hopelessly. "Just face it. We're stuck here."

"What the hell's wrong with you, Jack?" Wilson asked, staring across the camp at him. "Usually, you'd be coming up with a hundred ideas of how to get us out of this place, but you're all...mopey and depressed."