16. Sam
Chapter sixteen
Sam
Istood outside Thomas and Wally’s, leaning against my SUV. The morning air was crisp, carrying the scent of pine and damp earth, and Three Rivers felt peaceful.
The roar of a motorcycle cut through the quiet. I didn’t need to look to know who it was.
Gideon pulled up in a spray of gravel.
“Talia is losing her shit,” he said without preamble, swinging off the bike. “Like, apocalyptic-level fury. She’s about five seconds from ordering the entire Wolf Council to storm Three Rivers.”
“We have to stop that.” I pushed off from the SUV. “No matter what.”
“Yeah?” Gideon pulled out his phone. “Glad you agree, because she wants to talk to you.”
He held the phone out to me.
I took it, hearing it ring on the other end.
“Yes, Gideon Calloway,” Talia answered.
I took a deep breath. “It’s me.”
“Sam Shaw.” Her voice was cold, hard, full of restrained fury. “Explain to me exactly what you were thinking? Breaking into Adarcan? Releasing prisoners without authorization? Have you completely lost your mind?”
“Have you ever been to Adarcan, Talia?”
There was a beat of silence. “What?”
“Simple question. When was the last time you visited the prison? Saw the conditions there? How long have you known what it’s really like inside?”
“Sam Shaw, this is not—”
“How long, Talia?”
Another pause. When she spoke again, her voice was carefully controlled.
“Adarcan houses extremely dangerous prisoners. Werewolves who bit humans and turned them. Violent Shifters who cannot be controlled by Pack bonds. Those who go rogue and eat humans. Everyone who is there is a threat to the Council, a threat to our communities. They cannot be safely released into the public.”
“And you believe that about every prisoner in there?”
“We have to keep them somewhere, Sam Shaw. We have to maintain control. The alternative is to kill them all. Is that what you’d prefer?”
“No. You’re right, there has to be a place for those who are a danger to others.
But not this, Talia, not this. Not what they’re doing in Adarcan.
” My grip tightened on the phone. “Silver torture. Systematic abuse. Prisoners left to rot in their own filth. That’s not justice, Talia.
That’s not what the Council stands for.”
“The ends justify the means, Sam Shaw, it always has, and it always will. The work of the Council is too important. It is our job to see the big picture. To not put one Pack above the rest, to not chose one half-witch above your entire species.”
I looked up at the house where Annabella was.
I could feel her even from here. “You know, there’s a famous quote about how you can judge the moral character of a society by how it treat its most marginalized members.
The outcasts. Those who don’t fit neatly into our categories of what a person should look like.
The weak who can’t defend themselves. The sick who need our protection.
And yes, even the prisoners who’ve lost their freedom.
” I paused. “What does Adarcan say about us? What does it say about what we’ve become when we torture those who can’t fight back? ”
“It says we’re survivors. It says we’re willing to do what’s necessary.”
“No. It says we’ve become monsters.”
“Spare me the philosophy lesson.”
“It’s not philosophy. It’s about who we are. There has to be humanity left, even in how we treat our enemies. There has to be rule of law, not torture. Justice, not cruelty. Empathy, not vindictive abuse of power.” I took a breath. “I thought we stood for something better.”
“We stand for the survival of our species.”
She would never change. Would always believe that the end justifies any and all means.
Even if it meant places like fucking Adarcan.
And she had to respond. She would order the Council enforcers to attack Three Rivers.
My brothers would defend me, people would die, and there’d be war.
One that none of us could afford right now.
We needed to be working together against Kane and Webster.
“Talia, if you ever respected me—if anything I’ve done for the Council has meant anything—I’m asking for one thing. Hold off the Council dogs. Don’t let them attack Three Rivers.”
“Do you know how many laws you broke? You walked into Adarcan prison and removed three prisoners without authorization. You have blown up the reputation of the entire Wolf Council and our ability to keep dangerous threats under lock and key. Protocol demands—”
“You don’t care about the prisoners. They’re small cogs. You want Webster and Kane and the people behind fucking ripple. Not Annabella, Mina, and Zeke.”
“Do you not understand the consequences of your actions? Every enemy the Council has ever had is laughing at us. We are already spread thin fighting ripple, Rippers running amok in cities, humans banning Shifters from towns, locking us up in cages. Our reputation was one of the few things we had left. That we were powerful, that if they crossed a line, we would be there to see justice served. Now? Everyone sees us as weak. We can’t even stop one of our own from walking in and breaking out prisoners from the place that is supposed to be unbreakable! ”
She was right. The Council could not afford to look weak right now. They had to respond. But I would do anything to protect Annabella. Anything.
“Tell them you authorized the release of the prisoners, Talia. Give me three days. Three days, and I’ll hand myself in. I’ll face whatever consequences you want. Just don’t punish the others for my choices.”
Silence stretched between us. I could practically feel her calculating, weighing options.
“Three days, Talia. Please.”
I hung up.
Gideon stared at me. “You know what? You’re a fucking idiot.”
“Noted.” I handed his phone back.
“Did you seriously just offer to hand yourself in? You’ll be put in Adarcan, you know that, right? With all the guards that you made look stupid. They—”
“I know what they’ll do. If it protects everyone I love, it isn’t a choice, Gid.”
He ran a hand through his already messy hair. “If this is what love does to people, I never want to experience it. Ever. You know this is just fantastic. Absolutely wonderful. You’re going to die, and it’s going to be messy and painful and completely preventable if you’d just—”
“Gid.”
“What?”
“Shut up and help me figure out how to keep everyone alive for the next three days.”