9. ~Sebastian~

Isolation.

That was their pedestrian tactic.

Well, clearly also to starve me, because it had been days since I'd last eaten a meal. Hell, anything. That also went for fluids.

At first the isolation had been getting to me.

The absolute silence.

It was one of the worst things for somebody like me, with my issues. It gave me too much time to think, for my mind to wander. Especially bad when I was also being weakened through being without any sort of nourishment.

All I'd been able to think about was Sky taking that hit back at the gas station.

Just before I'd been shoved into that van, I'd seen Damien lift her out of that place and gather her into his arms, her blood dripping down over his hands. That visual had tormented me over and over.

Until I'd managed to get a grip on my anxiety and employ the techniques my therapist had taught me to stop it from spiraling. Namely, for this particular situation, reassuring myself that, although he could be a fucking bastard, Damien was beyond capable. I strongly believed he would do everything he could to ensure her safety. In a large part to prove to me that he had my back now, but also because from the interactions Sky had shown me via those text messages, it was clear he actually cared about her too. Not that either of them would ever admit it to themselves, let alone each other. It didn't matter—for now—it was still there. I also had faith in Cas. Once Damien had gotten her to safety, he would've stopped at nothing for her.

Just like he would've done for me.

That made it all the more worrying that so much time had passed and he still hadn't come.

And that had led me to my other method of sublimating all the shit swirling around in my head and threatening to take me over and put me in a desperate headspace.

Keeping busy.

Currently, that meant working on getting the hell out of here.

The easiest—although, painful—part had been breaking out of the cuffs.

After that last time I'd been kidnapped by Jett Bane, I'd undergone an intensive crash course from Cas and Luke that had given me some useful tips and tricks to handle this sort of thing.

I was actually lucky they'd used cuffs. I was sure they thought it was hardcore to go this route, but it had actually helped me out. Zip-ties would have been another story altogether.

I'd dislocated my thumbs and slipped out of them.

Doing that without making a sound, and then snapping them back into place too, had been a bit of a challenge, but I'd managed it.

Then had come the trickier part of trying to escape the actual room they'd confined me to, an unfinished basement with exposed concrete walls. The tiny window about eight feet off the ground had been my indication of how much time had been passing—how many days.

Since I'd escaped the cuffs and chair, I'd been using the limited items available in the space to my advantage. Rocks and stones likely intended for a rockery of some sort, patio stones, and an old bistro set.

I'd checked the door up at the top of the wooden stairs and determined that it was locked from the outside by a padlock. I needed something to leverage against it to wrench it open in spite of the lock. And I needed a couple of weapons to defend myself with. That was especially important considering how lightheaded and weakened I felt from the lack of food and water.

So I'd been using a combination of a couple of rocks and a patio stone to first compromise the melded wrought iron of one of the bistro chairs so I could use one of the arms or bars as a lever, and also to pull two smaller pieces free. Once I'd managed that, which had taken mind-numbingly long given the tools I was working with, I'd set about sharpening one end of two pieces to fashion makeshift weapons—shivs, basically.

Satisfaction coursed through me as I finally finished.

I swung my head toward the window.

Darkness.

It was time.

I couldn't wait to escape this hovel, along with the scent of piss. After the first little while of escaping the chair, before the dehydration and hunger had set in, I hadn't had many options when it came to voiding my bladder, given that there was no toilet or sink, nor even a bucket, so the far left corner of the room had needed to do.

I snatched up the two shivs and the piece I was going to use as a lever and made my way over to the stairs. With my head swimming and weakness permeating my body, I stumbled in my step a few times.

Climbing the stairs was a lot more challenging, but my determination to make it out, along with adrenaline starting to spark at the thought of my coming liberation, pushed me onward.

I put the shivs down and shoved the other piece between the doorframe and the door, positioning it at the optimal angle.

And then I bore down on it with my strength against the lock.

Come on, come on.

It became clear to me just how much weaker I was than normal with the effort and strain it took, and my need to take a beat every few moments.

There was no fucking way I was stopping, though.

I was sweating by the time I finally managed to wrench the door open.

I put the makeshift lever down, then grabbed both of my weapons, holding them at the ready as I pushed out of the basement, finding myself in a small hallway.

There was nobody there.

At least not in this limited space.

I made my way through the house, noting that there were no noises at all, no voices, no movements. It was a modest open concept space with peach colored walls and minimal furniture, just the basics of a two-seater couch with a pine coffee table and a television hung on the opposite wall. It gave way to a dining area, a simple pine four-seater table with high backed chairs.

There was no one here anywhere.

I made my way over to the kitchen, ugly brown cabinets filling my vision. My focus was on one thing, though. The tap.

I staggered over, managing to make it, then I turned on the cold tap.

As soon as the water started flowing, I angled my mouth under the stream and gulped it down. Thank fuck.

I wiped my mouth with the sleeve of my dirtied white shirt, then approached the windows back near the seating area.

Easing one of the beige curtains aside slightly, I carefully peered outside.

Given that I'd spent the last several days in darkness, it was easy for me to make out what I needed to through the dark.

A mansion a few feet away over by a courtyard being protected by wrought iron gates.

This was only a guesthouse then.

The fact that no one was around in the immediate vicinity of this place guarding me made it clear that I'd been left here to waste away and die.

Part of Elijah's plan to break Caspian, I figured.

I caught sight of a few people milling about around the mansion itself. Guards, it looked like. With that protection in place, it pointed toward Elijah being here.

I grasped my necklace. It should have led Caspian and his people straight here. The fact that it hadn't pointed toward there being some sort of interference around, either on the grounds, or perhaps a mobile signal jammer on Elijah's person.

Now I was free of the basement, I just had to escape the grounds, evade his guys, then get far enough away for the tracker inside the pendant to no longer be blocked, then Caspian would be able to head right to me, and I could give him Elijah too.

Easy enough, right?

Not exactly.

Especially not in my current fucked-up state.

Here goes nothing.

As I crepttoward the main building, intending to sneak around the side, steal a car in the courtyard, then ram the gates and make my escape, two guys dressed in sweats just like my kidnappers had been came walking out of a side entrance.

I bolted the few feet remaining to the building, then flattened my back against the brick wall out of their line of sight as their voices reached me.

"You think he's gonna break the guy?"

"Bane doesn't stop until he gets what he wants, we all know that."

"Maybe he'll do like he has before, put him on a literal leash and have Rowland serve us all on his knees, mouth open wide, as his initiation into being Bane's pet boy."

I froze, my gut twisting at their words.

Caleb was here as well?

I'd been operating under the assumption that I'd been taken alone.

Fuck. And he was enduring what? Jesus Christ.

"Not my thing, but you can have at it all you like."

"Unless he goes all possessive because Rowland is King's piece."

"Could go that way. He's got a thing about copying the guy."

I gritted my teeth as they both started laughing, then headed around to the front of the mansion. Not long after I heard a car start up.

Change of plans. I'm coming, Cal!

I hugged the wall as I made my way around to the side entrance.

The hugging part wasn't just about staying out of sight, it was a fucking necessity with how damn dizzy I was. Aside from that and the weariness, there was now a shitload of nausea. Probably something to do with me gulping down a load of water after days of not having any.

I forced myself to push past it as I reached the bland white door of the side entrance.

Relief flooded me as I turned the knob with no resistance. It wasn't locked. One less thing to deal with.

Scanning my immediate area and determining no one was near, I slipped inside.

While the exteriorwas all Georgian, the interior decorating of the mansion was straight out of the Victorian era. Heavy fabric and curtains, fancy upholstery, detailed walls and woodwork.

I'd made it halfway through the ground floor, encountering two guards, but managing to evade them and keep my presence undetected.

This seemed to either be a home Elijah didn't use often, or one he'd commandeered, possibly a recent foreclosure. The latter made more sense, because if it was actually one of his properties, Cas would've already raided it looking for us.

Fuck, I had no doubt he was going absolutely insane trying to find us. The sooner we got back the better, for all of our sakes. I couldn't even imagine how Sky was handling this either. I hoped to God it hadn't caused her to backslide into all that darkness that we'd managed to pull her from.

Voices reached me as I finished clearing the last room on the ground floor, a space filled with antiques and not much else.

I pushed out of the room and followed the sounds to the stairs leading up to the second floor.

"Fuck, yeah, that was real good."

"You're telling me."

"Gonna have some real sweet dreams after that."

"His whimpers added a nice touch too."

"Elijah's gonna bring in the girls soon. It's gonna be another level."

"Can't wait to see Rowland squirm."

"The begging's finally gonna start then."

Three sets of voices.

The content of the conversation had my nausea reaching a whole other level.

I slapped my hand to my mouth as my stomach lurched and it was a fight to keep myself from actually vomiting.

I heard them coming down the stairs and I staggered into the antique room, flattening my back behind the door, as I watched them pass on by talking about getting some shut-eye.

I waited until the sounds completely dissipated, and then I crept out of the room and made my way up the stairs.

Every step I took caused a massive strain on my body. I had to use my shivs for support a couple of times, digging them into the steps.

My heart sank as I finally made it up to the second floor only to find a corridor with ten fucking doors, five on either side.

I leaned against the wall and listened carefully.

A whirring sound caught my attention.

Then… spluttering?

It was coming from the first door on the right, the one closest to me.

I pushed off the wall and walked to it, noting that it was slightly ajar.

With my shivs at the ready, I pushed it open carefully with my elbow.

Inch by inch I opened it more, not seeing any guards lying in wait near the door or anything.

And then I caught sight of the bed.

Jesus Christ.

There Caleb was spread wide on the golden sheets, bound by ropes with some sort of incapacitating device attached to his head. He was whimpering as a thick dildo attached to a fucking machine powered brutally hard and fast in and out of his ass that looked red-raw. His naked body was covered all over in cum and piss and it looked like he was trying to spit some out of his mouth, something barely possible with his head forced still by that contraption.

Those fuckers' words slammed into me.

They'd… they'd jerked off and pissed all over him. Fucking shit.

As if that wasn't enough, there were three massive screens right within his eye line depicting a whole lot of fucked-up abuse being inflicted upon people.

I closed the door quietly, then staggered to him.

"Caleb," I whisper-yelled in my urgency.

"Bastian?" he rasped, most definitely out of it.

"Yeah, it's me. It's all gonna be okay." I turned off the machine and pulled the dildo free, a pained grunt escaping him, making me wince. I turned off the monitors, then rushed to him as fast as possible in my state and released the latch on the thing strapped to his head, easing it free.

He blinked hard, trying to process what was happening.

"It's okay," I told him. "I'm here. I'm here with you." I worked on the ropes, the knots being a real bitch of a thing. But using my shivs helped me out and I was able to free his wrists and ankles in spite of it.

I went to help him sit up, but I couldn't lift his weight, my body shaking at the effort.

"I've got it," he told me. He scrubbed a hand over his face and took a minute. His eyes fell on me. "Shit, B. You need medical attention ASAP."

"Right back at you."

"I'm fine."

"Fine? After what I just walked in on—"

"I handled it, I'm good."

Before I could even begin to get into how that couldn't possibly be the case, he pushed off the bed and rushed to one of the dressers in the far corner. Rummaging for a few moments, he found a pair of black sweatpants and a matching t-shirt and pulled them on.

"This way," he told me a moment later as he wrenched a blackout curtain aside to reveal a double hung window. He shoved it open, then gestured for me to follow.

"You want to go out the window?"

"We can't risk going through the house. You're weakened." He gestured at my shivs. "We've got limited weapons. It's nighttime, so Elijah is asleep, along with one half of his guys. But that still leaves us with ten awake and walking about monitoring the property. It also won't be long before a couple of them come in here to mess with me again. Path of least resistance."

I came closer and he gestured to an addition beneath, part of the roof under the window.

"We duck and roll, using the sloped roof for momentum," I told him.

He nodded. "Wouldn't be the first time we've had to haul ass out a window. Last time I recall it being a fifty-foot drop, right?"

"Yeah. Good thing all that training Cas insisted on when we were starting up The Jackals included learning how to fall properly."

He smiled at my mention of Cas, then looked me over, noting the bruising on my hands. "Good thing he's also had you undergo some kidnapping victim training. Dislocated your thumbs, huh?"

"That was just the start."

"I can see from those sharpened metal bars you're carrying around with you."

I handed one to him. "Let's do this."

"You go first, I'll follow."

"Sure," I said, stepping up to the window.

I was just about to climb out when the door to the room opened and a big guy dressed in sweats strode in. "Were you serious about that offer you made me, Rowland, and—" He pulled up short when he caught sight of us.

Before he could utter another word, Caleb was on him, capturing him in a body lock, his arm slapped over his mouth as the guy yelled into his palm, struggling wildly.

"I was dead serious about it. I would've compensated you big time for letting me go. Good news is, you did. As far as Elijah is gonna know, anyway. Bad news is I can't risk you telling him any different from the story I just told you. He can't know Bastian is the one who liberated me, nor that he's broken out of the room he'd been confined to."

In the next breath, Caleb stabbed the shiv into the guy's throat, blood spurting everywhere, all over him too, as he hit his carotid artery. He lowered the guy to the floor, leaving him wheezing and choking on his own blood.

Then he crouched down and pulled a knife from the guy's holster and tossed it on the bed, right by the ropes, clearly to make it look like it was the guy who'd cut them. Once he was done, he yanked a Beretta out of the guy's other holster, then strode back to me.

"Let's go," he said, mechanically, as though he hadn't just murdered somebody.

"Cal—"

"Don't. Just move, all right?" He wiped away some of the blood on his face, wincing. "I can't, not right now."

Shit.

He tucked the gun into his sweatpants and I turned and climbed out of the window.

I managed to drop down onto the little roof below and duck and roll properly, despite my body protesting every movement. I rolled over smoothly and landed in a deep crouch on the ground. My hands wouldn't bear my weight, though, not after that exertion, and I collapsed onto my ass.

In the next few moments, though, Cal was there giving me a hand-up.

Once I was stable enough on my feet again, he released me, then pulled the gun, cocking it and readying his aim. "Trying to commandeer one of their vehicles over by the courtyard is too risky. They've got two guards manning the gates and another two at the courtyard itself. A couple more watch the house while some are sleeping, and another few will be patrolling around the mansion itself."

"How do you know all of this?"

"Elijah delighted in telling me how hard it would be to break out of here, even if I somehow made it out of those restraints. It was part of him trying to fill my head with negativity and hopelessness."

"Jesus, Cal."

"He was trying to break me. He failed. Don't worry your pretty little head about that."

I grimaced internally, knowing him so well as to recognize his bravado hiding what really lurked beneath, the damage Elijah had clearly done. He might not have fully broken him, but he'd made a dent at least. I could see it through this intense need of his to downplay it, the way he'd killed that guy, and most of all, from the haunted look in his eyes.

We couldn't deal with it right now, though. None of it.

"We'll scale that chain-link fence over there," I said, pointing to the twelve-foot-high monstrosity with a forest just a few feet from it. "We can use the trees as cover."

He nodded and flanked me with the gun as I led the way over there.

Just as we reached it, the sound of voices had us both spinning around to see two guards strolling down the side of the mansion shooting the shit.

One second they spotted us, the next, two shots rang out, driving through each of their skulls, killing them instantly.

I looked to see Caleb's eyes cold, his gun still in firing position.

A second later, the lights inside the mansion went on.

The gunfire had alerted the assholes within. Shit.

"Go, B," he told me, gesturing wildly at the fence with his free hand, looking back and forth between me and the mansion.

His eyes fell on my necklace briefly and he told me, "I got a look at Elijah's signal jammer when he was boasting about his successful abduction. The type he has, we're looking at a two-mile range. Get beyond that and the pendant will be able to transmit again. Cas will come."

I nodded my understanding. "We will. We'll get outside of that fucking thing's range. Let's go."

Instead of moving to climb alongside me, he said, "Elijah doesn't know you're out. And I made sure of it when I killed those three guards. They're not checking on you because the plan is to leave you to rot. You're basically a ghost. At least for a little while. It has to be you and only you, Bastian."

"What? No. No fucking way."

"It won't matter soon anyway. You'll get out of range of the jammer, Cas will be able to track you, and then he'll move in with a fucking army and pull me out too. It's just for a couple more hours. I can handle it."

"Caleb, what I walked in on—"

He grasped my shoulder. "Things aren't always as they seem. Trust me."

"I can't leave you behind. I can't."

"You don't and we're both done for." He squeezed my shoulder. "Please. I need you to do this."

"Fuck." My voice cracked with pain. "Caleb."

Shouts sounded and the mansion doors flew open. "Hurry," he said, coming to me and helping to haul me up the twelve-foot-high fence. I grunted and managed to grasp the top and a final push from him had me clearing it. I landed with a roll, then came up, panting just from that slight exertion.

I walked to him, the fence between us, and reached for his hand.

He grimaced and stepped back. "Go. Now, Bastian. Any second now and they'll see you. Disappear into the trees."

I cursed, then struggled forward until I reached the tree line and forced myself through, using the vegetation as camouflage.

I turned back from my hidden position and looked over at Cal to see a half a dozen of Elijah's guys descending on him. He managed to fire off two shots, killing one with a head shot, then wounding another with a bullet through the side. But then the gun was ripped from his grasp. He was slammed against the fence over and over, then knocked out cold by a brutal knee to the face.

A familiar shithead came into view, pushing his guys aside.

That spiky salt-and-pepper hair, those dead eyes just like Jett's.

Elijah Bane himself.

He was shirtless, just wearing a pair of cotton pajama pants.

He crouched down beside Caleb and stroked his hair in a creepily erotic way.

"My pet's been a very bad boy." He leaned in and kissed his cheek, then rose to his feet, telling his guys, "Get him set up in the banquet hall, the girls will be here soon."

In the next moment, they were dragging him away, Elijah following, completely focused on Caleb.

Fucking shit.

The urge to burst from the trees and go to him was overwhelming.

But it was also stupid.

I was in no shape to take down a small army, and it would just end up getting me caught again too with no way to send out for help.

No, I had to keep going, moving the two miles away from the property, and then Cas would register the signal, and everything would be okay.

Then I'd come back for him with Cas and an army at my back.

And we'd fucking destroy every single one of them and bury that motherfucker, Elijah Bane, once and for all.