Chapter 24 - Kit
Kit
The floor beneath me was different now.
Still concrete, but smoother. Industrial. The rough texture that had scraped against my cheek for—how long?—was gone, replaced by something that felt almost polished under my palms.
They’d moved me while I was unconscious. Again.
Memory came back in fragments. The screech of metal hinges. Voices I couldn’t quite make out. Then the sensation of movement—not a car this time, but something else. The steady thrum of engines, the way my stomach had lurched with changes in altitude.
A plane. They’d put me on a bloody plane.
My eyes cracked open. Fluorescent lights blazed down—harsh, white, fucking bright.
I squinted, turning my head. Gone were the bars and the thin strip of natural light.
Instead, I faced a seamless metal door that looked like it belonged in a bank vault.
No handle on this side, naturally. Just smooth silver and what looked like an electronic lock.
The silver didn’t stop there—each wall had also been lined with silver coating—thin strips that caught the overhead lights and threw them back in my face.
The bastards knew what they were doing. Silver would burn my wolf’s skin, causing unbearable pain.
Even in human form, this much made my skin itch like I was wearing clothes made of nettles.
A prison-style toilet sat in one corner. Next to it, a thin cot with a grey blanket that looked about as warm as tissue paper. Lovely. So considerate of them.
The chill hit me then. Proper arctic air, not the damp unpleasantness of before.
My breath misted in front of my face as I sat up, and despite myself—despite the fact that I rarely felt the cold, not really—I started shivering.
It probably didn’t help that I was starving.
A pitiful meal of stale bread and a single slice of cheese had been slipped into my old cell while I slept, but I hadn’t eaten since then, hadn’t had anything but one tiny plastic bottle of water.
How long had it been now, since I was taken? The move suggested significant time had passed. Long enough for them to arrange transport, find a more secure location. Days, maybe. Possibly even longer.
The team would be looking.
The thought felt hollow now, echoing around my skull like a prayer I wasn’t sure I believed in anymore.
They’d be frantic. Seb would be able to put up a pretence of calm, possibly. But Rory would be climbing the walls, probably driving everyone mad with his inability to sit still when people he loved were in danger. All I could do was hope Theo was taking good care of him.
And Felix…
My chest seized up so suddenly that I gasped, the sound echoing off the silver-lined walls. The pain wasn’t the dull ache of missing someone—it was fierce, immediate, like someone had burrowed deep into my chest and squeezed.
Felix, who’d been waiting under our tree with something he wanted to tell me. Felix, who probably thought I’d simply not shown up. That I’d abandoned him without explanation, just when things between us were finally…
I doubled over, pressing my palms flat against the cold floor as the pain spread outward from my chest. Physical, real as any injury. The wolf in me was howling, clawing at my ribs from the inside. I hadn’t been away from him this long since I met him, and it was destroying me.
He’d be terrified. Probably blaming himself somehow, because that’s what Felix did—found ways to make everything his fault.
The realisation hit me with such force that I collapsed forward onto my knees, forehead touching the concrete as waves of anguish crashed over me.
I will never see him again.
Not him, not Rory. Not Seb, or Priya, or Flynn, or Theo.
Clang.
The noise reverberated through my silver prison as the door burst open.
Two figures filled the doorway. Military fatigues, tactical boots. The older one—maybe late thirties, built like a brick shithouse—stepped forward first. Behind him slouched a far younger bloke with the kind of cocky smirk I longed to punch.
Both had toolbelts loaded with enough hardware to level a small building. Tasers, silver-lined restraints, tranquilliser darts. And guns. Proper ones.
“Hands out for cuffs,” the older one barked, his voice flat and professional.
I remained exactly where I was on the floor, meeting his stare. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me why I’m here.” My voice came out like gravel, croaky from disuse and dehydration. Even I could hear how wrecked I sounded. How weak.
“No can do, buddy.” The younger one’s grin widened. American accent, all swagger and barely contained violence. “Orders are orders.”
“Then you can go tell your superior that I’m not going anywhere until they come to see me. With food and water.”
I wasn’t bluffing. They needed me alive—had made an effort to keep me that way so far. Whatever they wanted, it required me breathing. That gave me leverage, even chained up in their silver-lined hellhole.
The younger soldier’s smirk turned nasty. He opened his mouth to deliver what was probably going to be some smart-arsed reply about how I wasn’t in a position to make demands.
I saw red.
Pure, blinding rage crashed through me like a tsunami. These bastards had taken me from Felix. From Rory. From everything that mattered. And this little shit thought he could stand there grinning about it like it was all some bloody joke.
The shift hit me faster than thought.
Most wolves took at least thirty seconds, usually much longer.
Bones cracking, muscles tearing, the whole agonising process drawn out like slow-motion torture.
Greywatch had beaten that out of me years ago.
Broken my body down and rebuilt it so many times that the transformation was muscle memory now—five seconds, maybe less.
My clothes shredded instantly, the fabric that had been with me since they’d dragged me from London finally giving up the ghost. Bones lengthened and reformed with wet pops that echoed off the walls and my vision sharpened into hypercolour as my wolf senses exploded online.
The two men freeze. Eyes wide. Fear-scent sharp in the air.
Good.
Lunge.
Younger-prey stumbles backward. Hits wall. Pulse thundering under soft throat-skin. Sweet terror flooding the space between us. Teeth so close to warmth, to meat, to—
Pain.
Silver burns through paw pads. Floor coated in it. Agony shooting up legs but rage burns hotter. Starving. Furious. Will not be caged-thing for them.
Boy-prey whimpers. Delicious sound.
Older-prey moves. Weapon raised. Scent-markers of dominance. Alpha-threat but fear underneath swagger-smell. Can taste it. Salt-sweat. Adrenaline-spike.
Snarl.
Lips pulled back. Show teeth. Show what happens to cage-makers. To ones who tear me from soft-sweet-one.
Boy-prey pressed against wall now. Breathing fast-fast-fast. Heart rabbit-quick under ribs. So easy to tear. To rend. To make pay for grinning-smugness.
Step forward.
Silver-floor burns but fury stronger. Always stronger. Hunger clawing belly-empty. Need meat. Need blood. Need revenge-satisfaction.
“Jesus Christ—”
Words meaningless. Human-sounds. Only scent matters. Only fear-smell and weakness-markers and—
Crack.
Ribs explode with fire. Electric current seizes muscles. Body hits silver-floor. Burning. Burning everywhere.
Pain-white. Vision spots. But still moving. Must move. Must survive.
Roll.
Away from weapon-threat. Paws slipping on silver-slick. Every step agony but rage feeds movement. Drives muscle. Drives bone.
“Stand down!” Older-prey shouts. Weapon smoking in his grip.
Growl.
Low. Rumbling. Pack-threat sound. Leave-territory-now sound.
Boy-prey making small noises. Whimpering. Submissive-sounds that sing in blood. Prey-creature recognising predator-truth.
Run.
Corridor stretches ahead. Narrow-space. Walls closing territory. Paws screaming against silver but moving anyway. Must move. Must escape cage-place.
Door. Locked. Scent-markers of metal-cold. Of barrier-thing.
Slam.
Shoulder against door-thing. Pain shoots through muscle but door stays closed. Trapped-trapped-trapped.
Another door. Locked. All locked-locked-locked. Territory denied. Freedom stolen.
Behind—footsteps. Shouting. Human-pack giving chase-sounds. But slowing. Why slowing? Scent-trail confused. Fear-smell stronger than hunt-smell.
Sniff.
Air currents carrying information. Weapon-oil. Silver-tang. Concrete-dust. And underneath—freedom-scent. Open-space beyond walls.
Double doors at corridor-end. No silver-smell here. Metal-clean but not poison-metal.
Push.
Shoulders against barrier. Doors give way. Swing wide.
Freedom.
Concrete under paws now. Cool relief flooding burned pads. Wide room. Empty-space. Territory unmarked by cage-makers.
But men have stopped. Why stopped? Why not chasing?
Listen.
Breathing. Not from corridor-hunters. Different breathing. Closer breathing. Here-breathing.
Sniff.
New scent-marker in territory. Human-form but wolf-scent underneath. Old scent. Ancient scent. Pack-memory scent that makes brain stutter and fail.
No.
Eyes adjusting. Shapes forming in blackness. Someone here. In territory-space. Waiting-still like predator-patient.
Scent again.
Deeper inhale. Scent-trail older now. Changed-scent. But underneath—pack-bonds. Blood-ties.
No-no-no.
Fight-flight explodes through every nerve. Wrong-wrong-wrong. Pack-bonds severed. Broken. Shouldn’t-be-here-scent.
Need to shift back. Need human-thoughts to understand this impossible thing. Wolf-brain cannot process pack-ghost. Cannot understand severed-bonds-walking.
Bones cracking. Muscles tearing. Must be human to face this.
The figure stepped forward into what little light bled through the doorway behind me. Older now. Greyer. But the face—that face I’d tried so hard to forget.
He was dressed in dark, loose clothing, stripped of any identifying marks. An anonymous uniform. His feet were bare against the concrete.
The silence yawned between us like a chasm.