Chapter 20 - Skylar
The ropes have started to fray.
I’ve spent the last two days working on them whenever the guards aren’t watching, and I’ve finally made progress. The fibers dig into my wrists every time I twist my arms, rubbing the skin bloody, but that’s a good thing. Blood makes the ropes slippery. Slippery is good.
I’ve fallen into a rhythm. When footsteps sound in the corridor, I go still and let my head droop like I’m too weak to stay alert.
When the footsteps fade, I start working again.
Twist, pull, twist, pull. The movements are small enough that they won’t draw attention if someone glances through the slot in the door, but persistent enough that the rope loosens a little more with each passing hour.
My wrists are a mess. The skin broke open sometime during the first night, and it hasn’t had a chance to heal.
Every time I move, fresh blood wells up and mingles with the dried crust already coating my hands.
If I were treating a patient with wounds like these, I’d insist on antibiotics and sterile bandages.
Instead, I’m using the blood as lubricant and hoping I don’t develop an infection before I get out of here.
Dina has been watching me from her cell, hopeful. She’s been working at her own bonds, too, though her progress is slower. Weeks of captivity have left her weaker than me. Her muscles have atrophied from lack of food and movement, and her energy reserves are low.
The guards feed us once a day—stale bread and water that tastes like rust—but it’s not enough to maintain any real strength. I’ve only been here two days, and I can already feel the difference in my body. Dina has had to endure this for almost a month.
But she hasn’t given up. Every time I catch her eye, she gives me a small nod that says she’s still trying.
We don’t talk much during the day. The guards pass by too frequently, and we can’t risk them overhearing anything useful. But at night, when the patrols thin out and the one remaining guard tends to doze off around the fourth hour, we whisper back and forth through the bars.
Dina has told me everything she knows about the compound.
The layout of the tunnels, the location of the exits, and the best times to move if we manage to get free.
The service entrance on the eastern side is our best bet—it leads up to a loading dock that opens directly onto a mountain road.
If we can make it that far without being caught, we might have a chance of disappearing into the forest before anyone realizes we’re gone.
I’ve memorized it all, and I’ve turned her words into a mental map that I review over and over while I work at my ropes. Left at the first junction, straight through the maintenance corridor, up two flights of stairs, then right toward the loading bay. I repeat it like a prayer.
Left, straight, up, right. Left, straight, up, right.
The morning of the second day arrives with the usual sounds—boots on concrete, the clang of metal doors, and the grumbles of guards changing shifts.
I count the footsteps like Dina taught me.
Four sets during the day, two at night. The scarred one is on duty now.
I can tell by the way he drags his feet, like he’s too lazy to pick them up properly.
He pauses outside my cell, and I let my head fall to the side like I’m barely conscious.
“Still alive in there?” he mocks. “Boss wants you breathing for a while longer, but don’t worry. That won’t last forever.”
I don’t respond. Don’t even twitch. Playing dead is easier than engaging with him, and it has the added benefit of making him underestimate me. He thinks I’m weak, broken, and ready to give up. Let him keep thinking that.
After a moment, he grunts and moves on. His footsteps fade down the corridor, and I wait until I can’t hear them anymore before I start working on the ropes again.
Twist. Pull. Twist. Pull.
The fibers give a little more.
“Skylar.” Dina’s whisper barely reaches me through the bars. “Someone’s coming. It sounds like Rafe.”
I freeze and listen. She’s right. These footsteps are quicker than the guards’. They’re heading straight for our cells without any of the meandering pauses that mark a routine patrol.
Definitely Rafe.
I slump against the wall and close my eyes, making myself look as defeated as possible. The metal door screeches open, and I hear him step inside. His breathing is heavier than it was during his last visit. Something has changed since yesterday.
“Look at me.”
I open my eyes slowly, like the effort costs me all my strength.
Rafe stands in front of my cell with his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
His body vibrates with fury, and the mask he wore during our first meeting has cracked.
Underneath it, I can see something wild and desperate clawing to get out.
“I said, look at me!” He slams his palm against the bars, and the sound reverberates through the concrete room.
I meet his eyes without flinching. “I’m looking.”
“Your mate. Your precious Bryan. He’s not coming for you. Did you know that? It’s been two days, and he hasn’t even tried to mount a rescue. Some mate he turned out to be.”
I keep my face blank, but my heart stutters in my chest. He’s not wrong. I’ve had the same thought myself. If Bryan was going to rescue me, he’d have done it by now.
“He’s probably already moved on,” Rafe continues as he paces back and forth in front of my cell.
“Found some other woman to warm his bed. That’s what men like him do.
They take what they want, and then they leave when things get difficult.
He left you once before, didn’t he? Walked away without a word and never looked back.
What makes you think this time will be any different? ”
He’s trying to get under my skin. I know that.
But the words still burrow into the soft places inside me, finding all the fears I’ve tried so hard to bury.
What if he’s right? What if Bryan isn’t coming?
What if I’m going to die in this cell, alone, still wondering whether what we had was real or just the bond playing tricks on us both?
No. I push the thoughts away and concentrate on keeping my breathing steady. Bryan will come. He has to come. And if he doesn’t, I’ll find my own way out. I’m not going to sit here and wait for death like some helpless damsel in a fairy tale.
“Nothing to say?” Rafe barks out a laugh. “That’s fine. I don’t need you to talk. I just need you to suffer.”
He stops pacing and grabs the bars with both hands, leaning in close enough that I can smell the sweat and something sour on his breath. His eyes are bloodshot and rimmed with red, like he hasn’t slept in days. Whatever composure he had during our first meeting has completely unraveled.
“Do you know what your pack did to mine?” he hisses.
“Do you have any idea what they took from us? The corruption wasn’t a disease, no matter what Luna and her witches told everyone.
It was evolution. It was the next step in what our kind could become.
My father understood that. He saw the potential that everyone else was too blind or too scared to embrace. ”
“The corruption was killing your wolves,” I point out. “I treated them after the purification. I saw what it did to their bodies and their minds. They were suffering, Rafe. Whatever your father told you, the truth is that his ‘evolution’ was destroying his own people from the inside out.”
He releases the bars with a huff and takes a step back, shaking his head like he’s trying to dislodge something.
“That’s what Luna wants everyone to believe.
That’s the story Silvercreek tells to justify what they did to us.
But I was there. I saw my father at the height of his power.
I witnessed for myself what the Cheslem pack could have become if your people hadn’t interfered. ”
“You saw what you wanted to see.”
“I saw the truth!” His shout echoes off the concrete walls, and somewhere down the corridor, I hear one of the guards adjust their stance nervously.
“My father was a visionary. He understood that the old ways were dying, that packs like Silvercreek were clinging to traditions that would eventually destroy us all. He tried to save our people, and they crucified him for it. Luna and her pet witches ripped the power out of our wolves like they were performing surgery, and they called it mercy. They called it healing.”
The bitterness in his voice is so thick I can almost taste it.
This is a man who has built his entire identity around his father’s legacy.
He’s convinced himself that Matthias was a hero rather than a monster.
Nothing I say will change that. The lies he tells himself are the only thing holding him together.
“It doesn’t matter,” he snarls after a long moment. “None of it matters anymore. In a few hours, Silvercreek will burn, and everyone who destroyed my family will burn with it.”
That gets my attention. I sit up straighter and ask, “What do you mean, a few hours?”
“The explosives are already in place.” Rafe’s smile is terrible, empty of everything except hate.
“My wolves planted them while yours were busy chasing shadows at the border. The medical center, the pack house, the school… They’re all wired and ready to blow.
Bryan can search for you until his legs give out.
By the time he figures out where you are, if he even bothers to try, there won’t be a Silvercreek left to go home to. ”
The medical center. Fern works there. Sera works there.
Children go to school every day, pups who haven’t even had their first shift yet.
I think about their faces, their laughter, the way they chase each other across the playground during recess.
The thought of them caught in an explosion makes my stomach lurch.
“You’re insane,” I breathe. “You’ll kill innocent people. Children, Rafe. There are children in that school.”
“Collateral damage.” He shrugs like we’re discussing the weather.
“My sister was a child, too, when your pack’s purification ritual ripped the power out of her and left her a hollow shell.
She died because her body couldn’t survive the loss.
Did anyone in Silvercreek mourn for her? Did anyone even know her name?”
I don’t have an answer for that. I don’t know anything about Rafe’s sister, about what happened to her during or after the purification.
The ritual was designed to cleanse the corruption, to free the wolves who had been trapped inside it.
But magic always has a cost, and sometimes that cost falls on the people who can least afford to pay it.
Still, killing children won’t bring her back. It won’t undo whatever pain Rafe is carrying. It will just create more orphans, more grieving families, more fuel for the cycle of violence that’s already consumed too many lives.
“This won’t make you feel better,” I tell him. “Revenge never does. Trust me. I’ve seen enough people try.”
Rafe straightens his jacket, and the mask slides back into place, though it doesn’t fit as well as it used to. Cracks show at the edges, letting the madness underneath peek through. “Maybe not. But it will make Bryan feel worse. And right now, that’s enough for me.”
He spins around and stomps toward the door without another word. As I watch him go, my mind races through everything he just said. The explosives are already planted. The attack is happening in hours, not days. Whatever window we had for escape just shrank dramatically.
The metal door clangs shut behind him, and his footsteps fade down the corridor.
I wait until I can’t hear him anymore before looking at Dina. She’s staring at me through the bars with her face drained of color and her eyes huge. She heard everything.
“The explosives,” she whispers. “We have to find a way to warn them.”
“I know.” I start working at my ropes with renewed urgency, ignoring the pain as the fibers tear at my already sensitive skin. “How close are you to getting free?”
Dina holds up her hands, and I can see that the ropes around her wrists have loosened significantly. Not enough to slip free yet, but close. “Maybe another hour if I keep at it.”
I twist my arms harder and feel the rope give another fraction of an inch. “Rafe said a few hours. That could mean two, could mean six. We can’t take the chance.”
“I know. I’ll work faster.”
We fall silent as we both concentrate on the task at hand.
The only sounds are our ragged breathing and the faint scrape of rope against skin.
My wrists are slick with blood now, which actually helps.
The rope slides more easily against the wet surface, and I can feel the knots starting to loosen with every twist.
Dina catches my eye through the bars and mouths something. It takes me a moment to understand what she’s saying.
Almost free.
I nod and keep working. My own ropes are close to giving way, too. Another few minutes, maybe less, and I’ll be able to slip my hands out.
Then we just have to figure out how to get past the guards, out of the compound, and back to Silvercreek before Rafe’s explosives turn everything I love into rubble.
I twist the ropes again and feel another fiber snap.