Chapter 16

They drag Maggie and me off to the wolf pens. It is hard not to make a fuss, as Maggie starts to cry and is giving me the why did you let this happen look.

"Chronos!" She yells at me through her tears. "You promised me." Try as she might she wiggles and tugs and drags her feet, but the two men who have her do not even notice her antics. I can only shake my head at her. There are too many people around for me to try and calm her down and I am busy modifying my plan to include Maggie as well

They take us to one of the building I had looked through last night. We take a winding path through empty hall ways till we get to a blockage in the hall. Then the drag us down a ramp to the main area. It looks like a gymnasium, all high celling and old basketball hoops hanging off their wires.

The Brutes have blocked off other interior entrance with the fire doors so that are now sitting on their sides. They may have even been welded together and with some ingenuity they have used the rigging of basket ball backstops as a gate to hold the wolves in there pen. They have brought some heavy fencing, that has been arranged around the old bleacher seating giving the Brutes a safe area to watch the spectacle. they have gone through a lot of trouble with this set up, once again pointing out that they might be brutes but they are not stupid.

Thankfully it there a the prerequisite long tall windows set all around the Gymnasium allowing the late afternoon sun to stream in and give us a good view of space.

On top of it all, the place stinks to high heaven. Human carnage, dogie poop, sweat, and who knows what else. I wrinkly my nose in disgust. Thank the universe, my sense of smell was not one of the things that got upgraded.

We stop just outside the fencing and Coop motions for his men to go before us. His cadre has been following close behind, they now take their places up on the bleachers. the rest of the Brutes stream in pasted us and have to make do with the lesser seating. Not that there is a bad spot in the house.

Coop motions for his cronies to toss Maggie in first, she starts to crying even louder and add kicking and screaming to the mix. The poor kid, was terrified. not that I blame her. Her captors toss her over the fence and she lands with a satisfying thud.

I guess Coop means for me to be the main event, I am going to disappoint him, again. I twist out of the hold of Mase and the other Brute that is holding me, with a fast jump onto the rail, then a bound in, I have joined Maggie in the pit.

They give a yell, but I am gone before they can even think about retaking me. And they don't seem very interested in getting in the pit with us. I guess who ever is in the pit, dies. I can understand that.

Coop has that look like he was going to insist that I climb back out. He gives up right away when his two cronies flatly refuse to get me.

With a wave and a smile to him, I went to comfort Maggie.

"Maggie. My dear, I'm here. It is Chronos" I grab her by the shoulders. "Come on kid, we need to be 100 percent if we are going to get out of here." I give her a little shake to get her to pay attention.

She sniffles a little, but stops wailing long enough to give me a nod.

"All right," I try to get to her to listen, but I am busy keeping an eye on the crowd as well. Coop will be my best indicator of what will happen now. He seems to have recovered his loses and is just going to have both of us killed at once. Good, it will be easier to keep Maggie alive if I am with her.

"I came through here last night. The wolves have only one way in or out." now that I have her focused, I can rely my plan.

"Well boys looks like we get two for the price of one." Coop starts his patter again, he really likes to hear the sound of his own voice. I think to myself as he does a game show host impression. Lots of waving arms and cheering.