2. Annabella
Chapter two
Annabella
They didn’t take me back to my cell. Instead, they led me to a communal cafeteria—a large, echoing space filled with metal tables and stools that were all bolted to the floor.
Prisoners sat in groups, segregated by level.
Alpha level with red jumpsuits. Beta level wore orange.
Gamma level wore yellow. Color-coded for easy identification. Color-coded to mark our threat level.
Martinez uncuffed me.
“You got twenty minutes. Cause trouble, and you’ll regret it.”
I joined the line for food, feeling dozens of stares on my back. I was the new kid; they’d start testing me soon to see how tough I was, if I was going to be a threat to their positions here or not.
Good. Let them test me. I’d learn more from their challenges than from cooperation.
The prisoner in front of me—a bear Shifter with a bald head and a weak chin—turned and looked me up and down.
“You’re the half-breed,” he said. Not a question.
“Annabella McGrath,” I replied, keeping my voice neutral.
He grunted. “Heard about you. Webster’s dispensable pawn.”
“I’m nobody’s pawn.”
“Right.” His smile was ugly. “That’s why you’re in here, and he’s still out there.”
I narrowed my eyes but didn’t say anything. He had a point, and that pissed me off.
The food looked barely edible; some kind of gray protein mash, stale bread, and lukewarm coffee that smelled like it had been brewed with dirty water.
Nutritional value minimal, just enough to keep prisoners alive but weak.
Another control mechanism. Everything here was designed to break you down slowly.
What I wouldn’t give for a sip of Sam’s coffee, the way he knew how to make it just how I liked it. I blinked. I was really going to have to stop thinking about Sam fucking Shaw. I took my tray and scanned the room, looking for an empty spot.
Most tables were full, but I spotted a table in the corner with one open seat—occupied by a thin, older woman with gray streaking her dark hair.
I made my way over. “This seat taken?”
She looked up, her eyes sharp and assessing. After a moment, she shrugged. “I would say it’s a free country, but we’re in fucking prison, so that’s a load of bullshit.”
Okay, so not openly hostile. I figured that was the best I was going to get.
I sat down. The woman went back to pushing food around her tray, not eating much. Up close, I could see silver burns on her wrists, far worse than mine. Old burns, layered on top of each other. She’d been here a long time.
“How long?” I asked quietly.
“Four years.” Her voice was rough, like she didn’t use it much. “Life sentence. I castrated a Council member’s son.”
“Did he deserve it?”
“He was raping his female employees. The Council didn’t give a shit.”
The fucking Council.
“Thank you.”
She glanced up at me.
“Thank you,” I repeated. “You did what had to be done when no-one else would.”
She snorted. “Fat lot of good it did me. Eat your food and keep your head down. That’s how you survive in here.”
I looked down at the gray mash on my plate. “I’m not planning to be here long enough to worry about survival strategies.”
She actually laughed at that, a dry, bitter sound. “That’s what they all say, sweetheart. You’ll learn. We all do, eventually.”
“I have people on the outside. They need me—”
“Everyone has people on the outside.” Her eyes were hard now.
“Sister. Brother. Mate. Kids. Doesn’t matter.
The Council doesn’t care about your people.
And your people will stop caring about you.
That’s the real sentence here—not the years, but the way life just goes on out there, without you.
You’ll soon be forgotten, just like the rest of us. ”
Across the cafeteria, a young prisoner—maybe early twenties—stood up and started shouting.
He had the kind of face that belonged in a university library, not a supernatural prison: delicate bone structure, a fading chemistry equation tattooed on his forearm.
His sandy hair stuck up at odd angles like he’d been running his fingers through it obsessively, and there was something incongruous about the way his oversized prison uniform hung on his lanky frame.
“This is bullshit!” His voice cracked, but the rage behind it was real. “I want some proper fucking food. I want a fucking burger, one with actual meat and cheese and—” He slammed his fist on the metal table, making his tray jump.
Three guards converged on him instantly, batons out. The first strike dropped him to his knees. The second snapped his head back, spraying blood. He collapsed before anyone could blink. They dragged his unconscious body out of the cafeteria, leaving a smear of blood across the floor.
“That’s Jenkins,” the woman said quietly. “Third time this month he’s done that. He’ll keep doing it until they kill him or break him. Most people, it takes a few beatings to learn. Some people never learn.”
I thought about Mina and Zeke, somewhere in this prison. Were they having similar conversations? Were they watching similar beatings? Were they learning the same lessons?
“I’m looking for two people,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Mina Tong and Zeke Thornton. They were arrested with me. Have you heard anything about them?”
The woman’s expression closed off immediately. “I don’t know anything about anyone. And you shouldn’t be asking questions; anyone you came in with is dead to you now. That’s your learning for today.”
“Please. They’re my crew. I just need to know if they’re okay—”
“Your crew is gone.” Her voice was sharp now. “Whatever you had before, whoever you were before, that’s over. The sooner you accept that, the better.”
She stood up and left, taking her tray with her just as Martinez appeared at my shoulder. “Time’s up. Let’s go.”
I stood, memorizing the cafeteria layout as I moved. Exit points. Guard positions. Blind spots in the camera coverage where a pillar blocked the lens. Everything was information. Everything was useful.
For the first time since I’d arrived, they let me join the general population for recreation. Before, it had been just me in the yard—twenty other prisoners watching from behind the fence while I paced alone like some exotic animal on display.
Look, kids. A genuine half-breed abomination. Don’t tap the glass.
Today, apparently, I’d earned the privilege of mingling. Lucky me.
Although outside was a generous term, at least it wasn’t the bone-deep cold of Alpha level.
Even the weak sunlight filtering over the walls felt like mercy after the granite chill of my cell.
The yard was a square surrounded by thirty-foot walls topped with silver-coated razor wire.
Guard towers at each corner. Cameras everywhere.
And coating every inch of the ground, silver gravel that crunched under my feet and sent fresh waves of burning pain through my body.
Fur and flames. Even the fresh air hurt.
Everyone here was wearing the same red jumpsuits. No sign of Mina or Zeke. The others clustered in small groups, or paced alone along the perimeter, or simply stood in place, staring at nothing.
I took a few steps forward. Every step hurt. Every breath hurt. My wolf was so distant now that I could barely sense her at all.
What would happen if the silver burned away my connection to her completely?
Would I lose that part of myself forever?
Would I become something else—neither witch nor wolf, just broken?
A month ago, I’d probably have been happy with the idea of losing my wolf.
I’d spent so long ignoring her, shoving her as deep inside as possible, not letting her out.
But now? Now I was desperate to get to know her.
Desperate to know who I was with her as part of me.
The thought that I could lose her, really lose her, scared me shitless.
As I walked, I kept pushing against that suppression, testing it.
Looking for gaps, weaknesses, any flicker of power that might slip through.
I kept a careful distance from the walls. I needed to watch, work out the dynamics here. Needed to figure out who might know anything about Mina and Zeke.
Most prisoners ignored me. A few watched me with open hostility. One prisoner—a woman with burn scars covering half her face—spat in my direction as I passed.
“Half-breed trash,” she muttered.
Right. Because even the prison full of criminals was still too good for my kind.
I kept walking, completing one circuit of the yard, then another.
On my third lap, I noticed a prisoner sitting cross-legged near the center—a man who looked to be in his sixties, though it was hard to tell with Shifters.
His hair was blond, cropped close to his skull, and deep lines bracketed his mouth like parentheses.
His hands rested on his knees, palms up, and there was something about the stillness of him that felt deliberate. Earned.
I lowered myself carefully to the ground, trying not to let him see how much even that simple movement cost me. The silver gravel pressed into my legs through the fabric of my jumpsuit, burning.
“You get used to it,” he said.
“Sorry?”
“The silver. It still hurts like a bitch, but you develop a certain tolerance for it.”
“That’s good to know.”
He flashed me a grin. “It’s takes about five years though.”
Fucking marvelous. “Something to look forward to then.”
His grin widened.
“I’m looking for two people,” I said quietly. “Mina Tong and Zeke Thornton. They were arrested with me two days ago. Can you tell me who’s good for intel around here? Who might know where they are?”
He studied me for a long moment. “Asking questions in here is dangerous. For you and for anyone who answers them.”
“I have to know. They’re part of my crew. My responsibility.”
“Your crew is gone,” he said, echoing the woman from the cafeteria. “Whatever you had out there, whoever you were…that’s over now. The Council made sure of that when they threw you in here.”
“Please.” I hated the desperation in my voice, but I couldn’t hide it anymore. “I just need to know if they’re alive.”
He was quiet for so long that I thought he wouldn’t answer. Then, he whispered: “There’s new blood in Delta level. Asian, early twenties. She came in two days ago. Could be your Mina. She’s human, though. Not a Shifter.”
Relief flooded through me, so intense it made me dizzy. “And Zeke?”
“I don’t know anything about any Zeke. But men and women are separated in Delta and Epsilon levels. If he’s there, he’d be in a different wing from your friend.”
Before I could ask anything else, Daniels’s voice cut across the yard. “McGrath! On your fucking feet!”
I stood up too quickly, pain shooting through my ribs. The older man didn’t look at me again, staring straight ahead like we’d never spoken.
I walked toward Daniels, trying to look unconcerned.
“Time’s up,” Daniels said when I reached him. “Back to your cell.”
“It hasn’t been an hour.”
“It has for you.” His smile was cruel. “Consider it a lesson. You don’t go near other prisoners.”
“I was just sitting. I didn’t—”
His baton caught me in the back of the knees, buckling my legs, and I went down hard.
“Rule number one,” Daniels said, crouching down beside me. “You don’t talk to guards without permission.”
He grabbed my hair, yanking my head back. “Rule number two: you don’t ask questions about other prisoners.”
His knee drove into my kidney. I couldn’t stop the cry that tore from my throat.
“Rule number three: when I tell you to do something, you say ‘yes, sir. Right away, sir.’ And you fucking jump to obey me. Do you understand the rules, half-breed?”
I gasped, trying to suck oxygen into my lungs.
“What was that, half-breed?”
“Fuck. You.”
Daniels looked down at me and smiled. “You know, I was hoping you’d say that.”
Another strike, this one to my ribs. Pain exploded through my body, and I tasted blood.