8. Annabella
Chapter eight
Annabella
They came for me in the late afternoon.
Not Martinez. Not Daniels. Not any of the Council guards I’d been monitoring.
These were Kane’s men—Brennan and a younger guard whose name tag read Drummond.
Fresh uniform. Clean boots. The kind of face that might’ve been handsome if not for the thin-lipped disgust twisting his mouth every time he looked at me.
I stood in the center of my cell. Hands behind my back. Eyes forward.
Brennan circled me slowly, taking his time. “Heard you were trying magic in the yard today. I thought all you dogs were told there were witches on payroll monitoring any magic sparks?”
Fuck! I’d been reaching for my power this morning—subtle pushes against the dampening fields, testing for gaps in the yard.
“I was stretching,” I shrugged. “Yoga. Very therapeutic.”
He hit me across the lower back with his baton. Before I could draw breath, he drove a knee into my stomach. Air left my lungs in a rough gasp, and I doubled over.
“Still got that smart mouth?” Brennan asked. “Good. I was hoping you hadn’t learned your lesson yet.”
Drummond moved fast. He grabbed a handful of my hair and slammed my head against the wall—once, twice. Concrete scraped my cheek raw. Then he twisted my wrist, right where the burns were.
“Down, bitch.”
I struggled, but he kicked the back of my legs.
I went down hard. Knees on cold stone.
“You know what I don’t get?” Brennan crouched in front of me, the coffee on his breath washing over me. “How you people think you’re better than us. You’re animals. Literally. But you walk around like you deserve rights. Like you deserve to exist.”
I should have stayed quiet. Every survival instinct I had screamed at me to swallow the words, take the beating, live to fight another day.
But something in me had cracked. Maybe it was five days of silver burning through my system. Maybe it was the way he said “you people” like we were a disease. Maybe I was just so fucking tired of men who thought cruelty made them strong.
“You know what I don’t get?” I wheezed. “How someone with your IQ remembers to breathe.”
He stood. Grabbed my right arm. Yanked it behind me at the wrong angle.
Something gave with a dull, wet pop.
White-hot pain shot through me—stole my breath, my voice, everything. The world went narrow and bright, and when my vision cleared, Brennan was holding something.
A knife. Small. Utilitarian.
But the edge caught the light wrong. Silver-edged.
“This is for the cafeteria,” he said quietly.
The blade bit into my side, just below my ribs.
Not deep—he wasn’t trying to kill me. Just hurt me.
Mark me. The silver burned like acid as it sliced through flesh, and I bit down on my tongue hard enough to taste copper.
He pulled it out and drove it in again, two inches to the right, out, then in one more time.
I didn’t scream. Wouldn’t give them that.
He threw me to the ground, then pulled the knife away. Blood welled up, dark and steady. The cuts wouldn’t heal. Not with silver in them. They would fester and infect and hurt for days.
That was the point.
“You think you’re tough?” Drummond’s voice was quieter than I expected. Almost conversational. “You need to learn that this is what happens to animals who forget their place.”
Brennan straightened, adjusted his uniform. “Clean yourself up, dog. You’re bleeding on the floor.”
They left, locking the cell behind them.
I stayed where I’d fallen, half-curled against the wall. My right arm hung useless at my side. Blood dripped steadily from my wounds, pooling on the concrete. Each breath sent a sharp pulse through my ribs and shoulder.
I didn’t move for a long time. Couldn’t.
When I finally did, it was because I knew I couldn’t stay there. The cold floor was sapping what little heat my body was producing, and the silver set in amongst the concrete burned.
I rolled onto my side, dragging myself toward the bunk one slow inch at a time. My right arm still useless. Every scrape of my elbow against the concrete made my vision blur.
By the time I reached the bunk, I was shaking. My skin was slick with sweat and blood.
I had to set my shoulder; knew I needed two working arms in case they came back. I took a deep breath. I so didn’t want to do this, but my shoulder wasn’t going to reset itself, and I was fresh out of helpful prison staff.
I wedged my right hand through the gap in the bunk frame, gripped the bar, and slowly leaned my body away—letting my own weight create the pull I needed. Slow. Steady. Every instinct screaming at me to stop.
The joint resisted. My vision blurred. I kept leaning, kept pulling, teeth clenched so hard my jaw ached—
The shoulder slipped back into the socket with a wet grinding sound that I felt more than heard.
The pain was blinding. A flash of white narrowed my vision. I might have screamed. I don’t know.
Then nothing.
When I came back to myself, the corridor lights had dimmed to night cycle. Just a thin strip of neon that made the bars glow faintly blue.
My right arm throbbed with every heartbeat. I lay there staring at the ceiling, running through today’s lessons:
One: Kane’s guards were operating independently. No oversight. More dangerous than the Council guards because they weren’t following protocol; they were following ideology.
Two: Brennan carried a silver-edged knife. He’d used it on me as a warning. Next time, he might use it for more than a cut.
Three: My shoulder had been dislocated. The joint was weakened. It wouldn’t take much to pop it out again.
Four: The cuts were already infected. The wounds in my side burned with that particular silver-poison heat, but whether my shifter healing could still function through this much suppression was anyone’s guess.
But I was still breathing. Still thinking. Still—
A sound broke the silence. Faint scrape of metal on metal.
I turned my head. No one should be here at this hour.
But someone was. A figure standing at my bars, backlit by the dim corridor lights.
Brennan.
My stomach clenched. I couldn’t survive another beating. Not tonight. Not with my shoulder barely functional and silver-poison spreading through my blood.
He didn’t reach for the access panel. Didn’t signal for backup. Just stood there, watching me through the bars with that lazy contempt I was learning to hate.
Then he flicked a white envelope through the gap. It landed on the concrete with a soft slap.
“Special delivery for the half-breed.” His voice was amused. Almost friendly, which was worse.
Then he turned and walked away.
I stared at the envelope. Even in the dim light, I recognized the handwriting on the front.
Elegant. Precise.
Simon’s.
My stomach dropped.
What would one of Kane’s guards be doing with a letter from Simon? Had Simon bribed him? Put Brennan under a spell? If so, there might be options for getting out of here.
It took me a long time to reach the letter. I blacked out twice on the way, came back gasping each time. But I made it. My fingers wouldn’t cooperate; I tore the flap jagged, pulled out the folded page with clumsy, desperate movements.
The paper was thick. Expensive.
Simon’s handwriting stared back at me, clean and sharp:
Annabella,
I cannot tell you how profoundly disappointed I am. Your capture has compromised months of careful planning and exposed resources I cannot afford to lose. I expected more from you. Much more.
You have failed me.
I read it once.
Then again.
The words didn’t change.
You have failed me.
Not “Are you alive?” Not “What do you need?” Not “I’m coming to get you.”
Disappointed. Like I’d broken a promise. Like I had wronged him.
Shame hit first—sharp, automatic. The old reflex, trained into me over years of trying to earn his approval. I had failed him. He trusted me with his mission, and I got caught. I was stupid. Weak. I deserved—
No.
The shame curdled. Twisted into something darker.
Rage.
Because I was lying in a pool of my own blood with silver wounds that might not heal and a shoulder that barely worked, and his only response was disappointment.
Because I had given him everything—my loyalty, my crew, my belief in his cause—and when I needed him, when I was put in a cage built to break people like me, he wrote to tell me I’d let him down. How fucking dare he?
I crumpled the letter in my left hand, leaving blood smears on the expensive cream paper.
No one was coming. Not Duke or Lydia. Not Simon. Definitely not Sam Shaw.
I was on my own.
I let the paper fall to the floor. I didn’t cry.
I was past tears. Past anything that simple.
I just lay in the darkness of my cell, alone.
My body was broken. My magic was gone. My wolf was barely a whisper anymore.
And the one person I’d trusted to have my back had just told me I wasn’t worth saving.
For the first time since arriving at the Kennel, I had no plan. No next move. No strategy for survival.
But I was still breathing.
And tomorrow, I’d start again.
Even if I had to crawl, I would get myself out of here.