Captured Boxed Set: 9 Alpha Bad-Boys Who Will Capture Your Heart (66 page)

Chapter
Fourteen

Cindy had just barely managed to
pick herself up from the floor in Jack's room after she finished crying. She
was almost embarrassed by it. It had been years since she'd cried like that,
not counting when she'd thought Jack was dead. Those tears had gone on for
weeks.

Jamie had always said she was an
emotional person. Cindy denied it, but this was proof, at least to herself,
about how true that statement was.

After searching the room, looking
for spare keys to her shackles, and finding only Jack's old art books, which
made her cry all over again, she gave up. Cindy found a clean plaid shirt and a
pair of shorts, both of which smelled like Jack's Old Spice body wash. She got
into the bed, pulled the covers over her head, and hugged one of his pillows to
her body.

Somehow, despite her misery, she
eventually dozed off.

She woke up what felt only like
minutes later to someone shaking her shoulders.

Cindy jumped a bit as she came out
of her twilight state, but when she realized it was Jack and not a collector,
she relaxed.

She was too miserable to be angry
with him, but he looked frantic.

"Cindy! Wake up already!"
he snapped. Jack was putting a lot of force into how he shook her awake, and
just like that, Cindy was completely up and aware. It was morning, and she'd
slept for several hours at least.

"Are the collectors here?"
she asked, terrified of what the answer would be, and if Jack would actually
hand her over.

"No, a case worker. She's not
here yet but she's gonna be. You need to get up now. You can't be in my room."

So he was just worried about his
career as a hunter? Ouch.

Regardless, Cindy did as she was
told, and she did it quickly. Jack didn't say anything about her wearing his
clothes as she got back into her dress, but that could've been because of the
hurry they were in. There was no time for her stockings, and she had no idea
where her shoes were.

There wasn't even any time to
splash some cold water on her face or make an attempt to clean her teeth before
Jack was yanking her out of the bedroom and down the hall. He was clearly
serious when he said that someone was coming. Whoever this case worker was, she
was probably only minutes away, and Cindy found herself back in the basement
before she knew it. That was when she started to struggle.

"Don't put me in the box!"

"I won't. I promise,"
Jack said as he brought her to the bolts and chains on the wall and attached
her shackles to them. He brushed several stray locks of red hair behind her
ear, and then touched her cheek before pulling away. "I'll be back soon."

Cindy opened her mouth to say
something, though she wasn't sure what she would even say. Jack was gone
anyway, having locked her up and rushing back upstairs to get ready for whoever
was coming to the house. She was all alone.

For the second time since Cindy had
been in Jack's home, she found herself chained up and needing to use the
bathroom.

She realized that she probably
wouldn't have to wait long when the doorbell rang two minutes later.

Cindy had never heard of case
workers in the hunting business before, but probably because she'd always been
taught to only fear the hunters, the collectors and the labs, nothing else.

Maybe the case workers were part of
the life that only hunters and collectors had to deal with. Maybe whoever was
coming was just here to check up on Jack and make sure that his permits and
licenses weren't expired.

Cindy told herself that over and
over as she listened to Jack's footsteps above her, moving to answer the door,
and then stepping aside as another person entered. More than one, actually.
Cindy wasn't very good at counting people based on their footsteps, but there
had to be at least three extra people up there.

Jack's voice was muffled as he
spoke to his case worker, but Cindy could still make out the tone he used.

He wasn't happy.

Cindy had a hard time catching her
breath all of a sudden. Something was wrong. Something was definitely wrong,
and she started pulling against the chains that held her to the wall even
before she heard the footsteps walking toward the basement door.

The damned things were as strong as
ever, and the bolts wouldn't be moved from their place. The door opened at the
top of the stairs, but she still couldn’t make out what Jack was saying.

"I was told I had three days
with her. You can't just show up here with a piece of paper and think you can
take her."

"I listened to the recording
of your call, Mr. Marilla. You were eager to be rid of her then so what does it
matter if we came earlier than you expected?"

"It matters because she's a
pyro, and you are a pair of pencil pushers with only one collector behind you.
I thought there was going to be a team coming here."

Cindy's heart rate spiked when she
heard them on the other side of the door. She
was
being taken today. The
collectors had come and there was one on the other side of that door who was
going to take her away.

She groaned and pulled at her
chains some more. She tried to summon the fire inside of her but she could
barely feel anything at all. There was only the tiniest spark instead of the
wild inferno she once had trouble controlling. She couldn't escape these chains
with only a spark. She couldn't defend herself or even have a fighting chance.

She was going to be taken away from
Jack. Again.

The door opened while she was still
furiously yanking on her chains. The shackles bit into her skin, and the
frustration was enough to bring a few angry tears to her eyes.

"Why isn't she in the box?"
asked the woman who was probably Jack's case worker. Cindy didn't give the
bitch the time of day. She didn't want to even look at her.

"It was scaring her,"
Jack said, and Cindy jumped a little when she realized Jack was standing above
her, then he knelt down and took hold of her forearms, stopping her from
pulling on the chains and tearing her skin. "Cindy, stop, you're hurting
yourself."

"Don't do this, Jack, it wasn't
me. I swear to God it wasn't me."

Now she was full on crying.
Probably ugly crying, too. That was just great.

"You're both on a first name
basis? Not something I would have expected, considering what you accuse her of,"
the bitch case worker said.

That seemed to stun him. "You
know about that? I didn't write it in her file."

"We're not idiots, of course
we know you hunted her for the fire incident. Our records show she was living
in the same area as you at the time."

"Jack," Cindy said,
unable to stop her sniffling. She couldn't catch her breath and her chest was
starting to physically hurt from the pain and pressure of not being able to
take a proper breath.

"You need to calm down, okay?
Cindy, look at me," Jack said, and he squeezed her forearms a bit, staring
at her hard like he could get her to just magically get control of raging
emotions that were running amok and making her body shake.

"We have a sedative for that,"
the bitch case worker said, and Cindy finally looked up at the three other
people who were in this basement with her.

The second case worker, a man
wearing grey pants and a white button down with a pocket protector for his many
pens and a clipboard in hand, was studiously taking notes, and then there was
the collector.

He was the size of a small giant,
if that made any sense. He could be a basketball player. The guy was at least
six foot five, and he wore the standard white uniform and helmet with the
tinted visor that all collectors were expected to put on before they went out
and took the paranormals away.

All three of them wore gold badges.
Though hunters and collectors were from different factions of the same
organization, the symbols were the same. A hawk in flight. The only difference
was that, on the collector, the hawk had small prey in its talons.

The blue-eyed collector had a cold
stare as he looked down at Cindy through the clear visor, cold enough to make
her shiver. He had his nightstick at his hip, and Cindy could see the folded
shield on his other side. All that aside, she was most concerned with the
syringe gun that was in his hand.

Her panic overflowed in the form of
helpless shouting. "Jack! Jack, don't do this! Jack!"

"Step out of the way, Mr.
Marilla. We can take it from here," said the collector.

Jack held out his hand, stopping
the man from coming forward. "Okay, hold on one second, this isn't right.
You don't need to give her that."

"She's in a panic. Her powers
will be at their most dangerous until her heart rate goes down."

"I told you she's wearing
spelled cuffs. Will you stop!" Jack snapped, jumping to his feet and
pushing against the collector's chest with enough force that the man stumbled
back. He stayed on his feet though, and there was real anger in his eyes as he
and Jack stared each other down.

Bitch case worker was immediately
on her phone, her fingers flying.

"Okay, what are you doing?"
Jack snapped.

"Letting the others know that
there's a conflict of interests here," she said.

"What others?"

She looked away from the screen of
her phone and up at Jack. "It would've been easier if you would just let
us do our job, but there are other collectors right behind us. They were
running late."

"Late?" Jack asked,
though it was hardly a question, and he was sneering at the woman now as well.

"You said it yourself that
there's usually more than one collector. Now, we three here decided to come and
get this over with because it was on our way, and we got here first. If you're
going to create a problem then our backup will need to know about it, you'll be
put into a pair of bracelets, stripped of your license, and fined for
interfering with our mission. That doesn't include any potential prison time
for endangering the lives of a collector and two agents of your government. I'm
leaving it up to you whether or not I let the others know you’re causing these
problems. I haven't sent the message yet."

"You really are a bitch."

Bitch case worker glared down at
her, and Cindy realized she'd spoken out loud, which was fine with her because
she didn't give a damn about the feelings of a woman who wanted to strap her
down to a table and dissect her brain.

"What're you going to do with
her when you take her?" Jack asked.

Cindy's heart flipped, and she had
a hard time catching her breath. This was going to happen. It was going to happen
and she was going to be taken away from Jack. He didn't believe her and he
didn't want her. She could already see herself on a table, being dissected by
people who wanted to figure out how her powers worked, and determine whether a
profit could be made of them.

"Screw you Jack!" she
snapped, her anger consuming her self-control, and all of it was directed at
him. She yelled louder to mask the slicing pain in her heart. It would've hurt
less if the man had stabbed her through the ribs with a thin blade. "I
didn't do it! You bastard! I didn't do it!"

"Does it matter what happens?"

"Yes it does fucking matters.
What if she's telling the truth and didn't kill my family? There could be other
paranormals out there who are guilty and going unpunished because you're too
busy punishing her."

Cindy tried to make sense of what
she was hearing. Was this the sign she'd wanted? Was Jack starting to believe
her? If it was, then he wasn't invoking a whole lot of confidence. It mostly
sounded like he just didn't want to take the risk that she was innocent, but
was still leaning towards handing her over.

Bitch case worker sighed, lifted
her glasses off her nose and put them on top of her head, and crossed her arms.
"She's in our custody now. All I can say is that she will be receiving the
same treatment as other fugitives. Will you step out of the way now? Or am I
going to have to click send? You wouldn't be the first hunter to turn into a
sympathizer, so I understand if you're having trouble with this. Don't make
things anymore difficult than they need to be."

Jack's lips thinned, and his eyes
narrowed at the woman in front of him. Cindy had never seen that look on his
face before.

Jack must've come to a decision
because he then reached into his pocket, and then he tossed something in
Cindy's direction.

She didn't know what it was but it
was instinct to reach out and catch the tiny thing. When she opened her palm,
the key to her cuffs was in her hand.

The second she realized what she
was holding onto, the collector noticed as well, and he surged forward just as
Jack did, holding the man back.

"Get out of here!" Jack
yelled, but Cindy knew he was yelling at her. Her hands were shaking, and she
almost missed the tiny keyhole, but she got it into each cuff, and the metal
shackles popped right off of her wrists.