Kitty’s Big Trouble by Carrie Vaughn (books to read as a couple .TXT) 📕

my pocket, thumbed it awake—and nothing happened. I’d just charged the thing that afternoon, but it was dead. Like Cormac’s flashlight, like the gun.

The pain was spreading, a deep throb up and down my right side.

I’d been shot once, with a non-silver bullet. The pain from that had vanished surprisingly quickly. I’d been cut, clawed, mauled, and slashed more times than I could count in various werewolf battles—all surface wounds that had closed and healed in a matter of minutes, growing healthy pink scabs while I watched. This was different. This was deep, invisible, and it didn’t fade.

I’d always wondered what happened when a werewolf broke a bone. I assumed the rapid healing still played a part, but I had no idea how long it would take or if it would even heal the way it was supposed to. I couldn’t guess what exactly was broken, or what had shifted around inside. I was afraid to move.

Gritting my teeth, I let tears fall. I wanted my pack. I wanted my mate. “Ben!” I shouted, hands around my mouth, focusing my voice up the shaft. “Ben! Cormac!”

Nobody answered. Which meant they hadn’t busted through the door, they weren’t in the corridor, and they had no way of knowing what had happened to me. They had to know that something had happened when I stopped answering their calls, but as far as they could tell, I had just vanished. And as far as I could tell, they’d vanished.

Maybe they needed help as much as I did. What did I do then? I had to find a way out of here on my own and get back to them.

I gave myself ten or fifteen minutes, though my sense of time was growing wonky. I felt like I’d been in this bizarre maze for hours and that dawn ought to be approaching. Maybe the time between when Grace had opened the door and now had only been an hour. Between the pervasive dark and my racing heart, I couldn’t tell.

The pain lessened, but I didn’t know if that meant the break was healing, or that I was succumbing to shock.

Happy thoughts …

I braced myself, held my breath, pushed up on my arms. And gasped as a new shock wave of pain hit me. After waiting for that to subside, I tried again, rolling to my good side, getting my left leg under me. Another stabbing pain racked my right leg, and I felt nauseated, and also like I was getting used to it. Just as long as it didn’t get any worse than this, I’d do okay.

Trying to stand would certainly be interesting. But dammit, the leg had to start healing sometime. Carefully, I bent both legs, and was encouraged when the pain didn’t spike. Even if it didn’t improve. Reaching out, I found a wall and leaned against it. Keeping all my weight on the good leg, I stood. And didn’t pass out.

I could see the wall in front of my face but not much else. Creeping forward, I leaned on the wall, shuffling, trying to use the right leg without moving it. It hurt, the whole thing throbbed, but I must have been getting used to it, because I managed to make some progress. Progress toward what, I couldn’t tell.

This seemed to be a room made of brick, wide and round. I didn’t encounter anything like a door, but at one point the wall gave way to a rudimentary staircase, wooden slats built into the brick on a rickety frame—it had no railing. But it did go up, toward the light and escape, I hoped.

I started climbing, which was harder than walking, but I kept my shoulder to the wall and took it one step at a time. Pondering why anyone would put a big hole in a corridor, have it drop into a room that seemed to be self-contained and serve no useful purpose, and then build a staircase that led right back to the original corridor, gave me something to focus on. It made me angry, since I was beginning to think I was the butt of someone’s practical joke. I’d get to the top of the stairs, and Ben would be waiting for me, and Grace would be there to explain what was going on. Everything was going to be just fine.

Fighting through the pain left me flushed and sweating. Even if the break was healing and hurt less, I wouldn’t be able to tell.

Finally, I reached up and touched the edge of the shaft back in the hallway. Just a few more steps brought the rest of me to the top. I slumped over and dragged myself away from the stairs, then lay gasping, whining with every breath like the hurt Wolf I was. My hands and face were scraped and sore from the climb. My hip and leg felt like someone had tried to rip them apart by slowly twisting them in opposite directions. Lying on my back, I looked around.

I wasn’t in the hallway.

The room was dim and cramped, like Grace’s video store, but bare. The floor was concrete, the walls painted off-white. I smelled ginseng and restaurant cooking, as if I was back on Grant Avenue in Chinatown. It almost seemed normal, except that I wasn’t supposed to be here. I didn’t think I had gotten so turned around. I’d kept the top of the shaft within sight the whole time. At least I thought I had. But I was somewhere else now. Ben and Cormac would never find me. I’d never find them. Maybe if I howled, Ben would hear me and come running.

I tried my cell phone again, and hallelujah it worked this time. This meant more than having my lifeline back—it meant I was out of the tunnels, out of the maze, and back in the real world. When I called Ben, though, he didn’t answer. Because he was still in there somewhere. When the voice mail clicked on, I took a deep