Cooper felt surprised by that. Werewolves’ higher metabolism usually meant they processed things like food, alcohol, and other drugs a lot quicker. But Park had barely regained consciousness before Cooper had.

He tried moving backward, piecing together what had happened. It was rather dark in the cages, only lit by moonlight that filtered in from the tiny, high up barred window along the outside wall. It must be fully night then, and unlikely anyone was going to come wandering by. Which was probably the point of keeping them tied up here waiting.

He thought of the person walking up to him just before losing consciousness. Not an enormous bug-man but someone wearing a gas mask staring down at him. Protecting themselves from the mist that had come out of the sprinklers, just after they’d seen Eli watching them from the doorway and Neil on the...

Cooper exhaled shakily while regret, sadness, and anger flipped over in his stomach like a stone dislodged by the tide and resettled heavily somewhere so deep within he didn’t think he’d be able to budge it again for a long time. Foolish to feel so viscerally because of a man he’d only just this morning despised. But loss was too complex a thing to always feel what you were supposed to feel.

“Are you okay?” Park was asking, clearly sensing some of the turmoil Cooper felt.

“I’m not hurt,” Cooper said. “You?”

Park hesitated for so long Cooper had halfway convinced himself the next words out of his mouth would be Actually, I was just clinging to life long enough to say goodbye.

“I’m not injured,” Park said finally. “But I’m having a hard time...moving.”

“Okay, in what way?” Again, the silence stretched between them. Cooper tried to help. “Aching pain? Sharp pain? Numbness? Coordination problems? Stiffness?” he asked, quickly trying to remember what each one might indicate, some more serious than others.

“Yeah, those,” Park said.

Cooper stilled. “What, all of them?”

Park shifted on the floor, and Cooper could feel him straining against him, as if trying to crack his own back into place. “Yeah, my spine feels like crumbled cement, someone’s stabbing me in my shoulder, my ass is just one enormous hunk of aching meat and everything’s...muffled,” Park said, still trying to stretch. “My nose feels all stuffed and my ears are still full of water and it’s so. Fucking. Dark. In. Here,” he went on, getting more and more frustrated, stretching his back and rolling his neck and shifting on the floor.

He was moving around so much it was really starting to irritate Cooper’s skin as their cuffs pulled together. Almost as soon as he noticed it, Park stopped tugging. “Now my wrists are burning. It’s like as soon as I focus on one thing, something else starts hurting instead.”