Chapter 35

I woke up to his voice but he wasn’t in my mental space.

“Wake up, Raven, you need to eat something. Kris will be here soon and I can’t have you looking like you got hurt. You’re better than that.”

The raven blinked and pushed our body to an upright position to begin eating without hesitation. I wanted it to refuse the strips of meat and water but it wouldn’t listen to me. It didn’t care if he had poisoned the meat, only that there was food to be had.

“Don’t worry, I don’t have any reason to poison you. I want you to go back to my brother and your friend Leo. It’s not safe for you to be at my side yet.”

He spoke but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Why would I stay by his side when I didn’t even know him? Was he going to use me to get things the way Warren had been doing?

“Will you let me give you energy or are you going to panic if I touch you?”

The raven paused and looked up at the man and finally took in our surroundings. We were in a bird cage that hung in the corner of the office and the man was sitting in the chair where he had been when we fell unconscious.

“Why would he want to give us energy?” I spoke to the emptiness of my mental space.

“I think he is a friend but the memories are blocked from us,” the raven replied through the mental space. “I’m going to let him give us energy.”

“What!? No! What if he does something to us?” I protested but the raven didn’t listen to me and we bowed our head to the man, waiting for him to reach through the bars and touch our head.

Energy ran through us like electricity. It was warm and sent tingles all over my body but it also gave me a slight twinge of pain that held me in place until he removed his hand from the cage. With the contact cut, I sucked in a breath that I didn’t know I had been holding.

“We haven’t done that in a while,” the man laughed as he slumped into the chair.

So we did have a history and he could remember it. Why couldn’t I remember it?

The raven cocked its head to one side in questioning and he flashed us a smile.

“You’ll remember me when you need to. I’ll make sure of that. For right now, just know that I would never hurt you.”

I couldn’t understand why but his words were somehow soothing to me. It was a deep held trust that I didn’t have to fully remember to feel. I understood that I trusted him but everything else that surrounded this man was so mysterious and dangerous that it made for a strange combination in my already confused mind.
He sighed and drew our attention back to him. “Finish eating and we’ll have to get moving. The fights have just begun and I’m sure that Kris has a raid party on the way if they aren’t already here.”

I wanted to ask where he was taking me but it didn’t make it out of my mouth before he answered me as if he could read my thoughts.
“Don’t worry. I’m sending you directly to Kris where Orin can’t touch you.”

Those words sent shivers through me but I didn’t know who Orin was to me other than being the Russian leader. What was I not remembering and why couldn’t I remember it?

“I know that you don’t remember it but trust me, it’s better that you don’t.”

The raven ate another piece of meat and watched the man until someone else knocked on the office door.

“Come in Anthony. You’re late.”

A rat of a man in a wet trench coat entered the office, hunched over and grovelling to the man in the chair. I could see him shake in fear as he came closer to the table that separated him from the other man.

“I’m so sorry sir,” Anthony sniffled, never lifting his head up. “The streets are being watched heavily tonight.”

The man rose from the chair and came over to the cage again. “I need you to deliver this bird to my brother’s apartment in the Nest.”

The dirty groveling man sucked in a breath. “But sir…”

The man cut him off. “I don’t want to hear it Anthony. You are in my debt and you will do as you are told.”

His tone made not only me but also Anthony flinch. This dark side of the man felt out of place and terrifying.

“This is a very special bird and if you harm her in any way, I will not only know but I will make sure that you never forget it. Am I understood?”

“B-but the Nest? Sir, it’s…”

“I said I didn’t want to hear it,” the man snapped as a cover dropped over the cage blocking me from seeing what what happening.

“I-I know but…”

There was a growl and the cloth ruffled as air moved around it but it didn’t let me see what was happening.

“You will do as you are told and never question me. This bird is more valuable to me than your miserably disgusting immortal life so I don’t care whether you are caught or not, only that you get the job done. Am I understood?”

The growl to the voice of the man sent shivers through me again and involuntarily step back away from the center of my mental space until I was on the very edge and the raven croaked out a warning for me not to go any further.

There was a silent moment before the cloth was lifted and the man reached in to stroke our wing. “I’m sorry for scaring you, sweetheart. It’s all going to be okay. You’ll be back to Kris in no time at all.”

I watched from afar contemplating how to escape the cage and get away from this man but it seemed impossible. The cloth was put down again and then the cage was moving. The raven struggled to stay stable on the perch as it swayed around us but after a moment the movements were less jerky and it was easier to remain upright.

I listened to the sounds of cheering as we passed out of the building and toward what I guessed was the street because I was pretty sure that I could hear a car passing. It wasn’t until we were well past the street that the ratty man began to mutter. He muttered a nearly constant stream of curses and obscenities about the other man and how ridiculous he felt taking a stupid bird to the Nest for what he assumed was some kind of joke between two deranged brothers.

I could feel the tension roll off him as we got closer to the Nest. He did not want to be anywhere near it from the sounds of his grumbling but he kept going on and on until suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks.

The raven flapped our wings trying to keep balance.

“What are you doing here?” I heard a voice hiss.

“He sent me to give this stupid bird to his brother,” Anthony returned in an equally low voice. “Can you get it in and up to Kris’s apartment? I need it to go there specifically or he’ll end me.”

“Why his apartment?”

“I didn’t ask! He nearly ended me right there when I tried to tell him that it was nearly impossible to get me into the Nest in the first place.”

“I’ll do what I can but what’s so special about this bird?”

“He just said that it was more valuable than my immortal life and sent me away. If you don’t get it into his apartment he’s going to end me.”

“Relax. Give me the bird and get out of here. I’ll get it …”

A third voice came near where the two were talking. “What are you two doing over there?”

I heard Anthony let out a small squeak of surprise as the cage fell from his hands only to crash against what I assumed was the ground. I hit the metal bars and the raven croaked in response to being jarred.

“No wait, the bird!” Anthony yelled from a distance.

“What about it? Are you trying to send our director a trap?”

“No, it’s just a bird, I swear!” Anthony protested against the new voice.

“I’ll be the judge of that. Take those two down to the hold.”

Someone picked up the cage and righted it, making the raven croak again as it flapped the wings to try to maintain balance.

“The bird is a gift from his brother. There’s a note!” Anthony yelled from farther away.

The cloth was lifted a little but all I could see were shoes. Someone was squatting near the cage but that was all I knew.

“Take care of your pet? I didn’t know Kris had a pet,” the man’s voice spoke under his breath.

The cloth was lifted by a set of dark skinned fingers to reveal a confused looking man in a silver suit vest and purple tie that went with his gray knit pants and brown shoes. He was a very fancy dresser for being at the Nest where I had assumed everyone needed to be ready to fight.

“Who sends someone a raven?” he wondered before the raven flapped our wings again making it look like we were attempting to escape,

He sighed and put the cloth back down before picking up the cage. I didn’t know where he was taking me but I could guess that it wasn’t to Kris’s apartment.

“What is that?” a female voice asked in disgust after a few more minutes of jostling.

The cage was set down on something flat and the jostling stopped.

“Someone sent Kris a raven. It looks kinda wild,” purple tie replied.

“Have you called him yet?”

“He’s on a raid of that vampire fighting pit. I didn’t want to call while he was busy. You know how he gets. Can you just scan it to see if it’s a bomb or something?”

“Is there really a bird in there? Like a live one?”

“Yeah, it flapped around a bit when I pulled up the cloth. I didn’t see much except black feathers. Should we let it out?”

“And let it fly around here? How would that look when Kris got back?”

“I meant with like a glove where we hold its feet while you scan the cage.”

“Are you going to find a falcon glove for me then?” the female voice snorted. “If it is a bomb, it would have to be on the bottom part so just go get me a pair of wire cutters and we’ll slide the bottom of the cage out from under the bird.”

I listened to a door open and close then a pair of slender fingers lifted the cloth slowly. A female with red hair and glasses met my gaze. We looked each other over while we waited for the man in the purple tie to return with what looked like a pair of pliers to me. The raven cocked its head to the side as she took the pliers from the man.

“Why did you uncover it?” he asked.

“I wanted to see the bird and the cloth has to move if we’re going to cut the cage off the base. It’s standing on the base though, so I’m not sure if we can get the base off without freeing it on accident.”

“We’ll just slide the base out from under it and keep the cage on the table,” purple tie man explained as if he knew everything.

I watched the girl roll her eyes and go to work on cutting the wire pieces that made up the cage I was in. Without the base, it would not hold me and I would be free as long as I could get out of the room. So I waited patiently as the girl worked her way around the cage, watching her work and giving her space to feel comfortable doing it.

“It’s so calm for you. I swear it tried to attack me when I looked into the cage.”

“Maybe it doesn’t like you,” she replied as she cut the last wire and looked up at me. I think that she knew what was about to happen before I did it.
The raven croaked and threw itself into the cage so that it would fall over and allow it to hop out then take to the air all in the matter of a few seconds. The girl ducked out of the way but the man screamed and moved for the door.

“Wait! Don’t!” the girl tried but he opened the door anyway and the raven took advantage of the space to escape down a hallway.

The hallway seemed to last forever and we nearly flew into a window but pushed off it with our feet to make a sharp turn and head down the outside wall of the building until we found the atrium and a perch on a beam high above the vampires.

“What do we do from here?” I wondered.

“We can wait for Kris or Leo from here. It should be safe enough. At least we aren’t in a cage any more.”

“How will we know when they come in?”

“See if you can reach Leo from here,” the raven suggested.

I sighed and sat on the ground of my mental space and closed my eyes. After a deep breath, I sent out a mental search for Leo. He was no where near me so it took a few minutes and was difficult to keep up.

“Leo, I’m at the Nest.”

I felt him attempt to reply but we were too far apart and I couldn’t maintain the connection long enough. All I could do was come back to my mental space and wait for them to get back to the Nest.