3. Annabella
Chapter three
Annabella
Ilay on my mattress for a long time, waiting for the pain to subside to something manageable.
It didn’t. Everything hurt—my ribs, my kidneys, my knees, my wrists where the silver had burned.
My face throbbed where it had hit the wall when Daniels and Martinez had thrown me in here.
The cold was the worst of it. Not the sharp cold of the decon shower—that at least ended.
This was the granite cold of the mountain itself, patient and permanent, pulling heat from my body faster than I could make it.
My fingers had gone numb hours ago. I couldn’t stop shivering, and every shiver sent fresh fire through my cracked ribs.
I blinked hard, forcing back tears. Crying wouldn’t help. Wouldn’t change anything. Wouldn’t get me out of here.
I reached for my wolf again, desperate for some connection, to know she was there, that she was okay. Nothing. Just muffled emptiness where she should be.
Sam’s face flashed through my mind unbidden. The way his fingers had felt on my skin. The heat of his touch. The way he’d looked at me like I mattered, like I was more than just the abomination everyone said I was.
All lies. All manipulation.
Except.
Except for all of it. The bar fight we definitely shouldn’t have started.
The training sessions that turned into competitions that turned into us collapsed on the mat, breathless and grinning.
The time we had to pretend to be a married couple to take down Talia Johnson and to practice, he’d kissed me.
My first kiss. For thirty seconds, I was just a twenty-two-year-old with a guy who looked at me like I was the only person in the room.
That was the thing about when Sam was undercover as Felix.
He’d made me feel young. Before him, everything had been the mission—Ellie’s safety, Mom’s illness, Simon’s plans.
I’d never know what it felt like to do something just because it was fun.
To laugh until my ribs hurt. To want something for myself that wasn’t survival.
He’d given me a glimpse of the life I could have had. Should have had. And now I didn’t know if any of it was real, or if it was just another tool in his spy’s toolkit: make the asset feel human, she’ll trust you more.
That was the worst part. Not the betrayal itself, but the not knowing which pieces to keep and which to burn.
Goddess, all I wanted, more than anything in that moment, was to feel his touch again. To hear his voice. To know, even for a second, that I wasn’t completely alone.
My throat tightened, and I pressed my fist against my mouth to muffle the sound that wanted to escape. I couldn’t let them hear me cry. They would pounce on any weakness.
Ellie. I had to think about Ellie. Had to focus on getting out of here, on finding some way—any way—to protect her.
I’d paid Lucas three weeks ago. Three months in advance, like always. I’d used almost one of those months.
Ellie had been two when she’d started having nightmares.
Bad ones—the kind that had her screaming until she couldn’t breathe.
Mom was too sick to get up most nights, and Aunt Jo was exhausted, so when I could, I stayed over, and it would be me padding down the hall, scooping her out of the sweat-damp sheets.
“Shadow man,” she’d sobbed into my neck one night. “He takes me away.”
“No one’s taking you anywhere.” I’d held her tighter, feeling her tiny heart hammer against my chest. “I’ve got you. I’ll always have you.”
She’d pulled back, all blotchy cheeks and wet eyelashes, and looked at me with absolute certainty. “Promise?”
“I promise by starlight and shadow, and by silver streaks and moonspell,” I’d said, and the phrase had stuck. We now said “I love you” using the same words.
She’d nodded once, like that settled it, and burrowed back into me. Five minutes later, she was asleep—just like that. Because I’d said I’d protect her, and she believed me.
I’m sorry, Ellie. I’m so fucking sorry.
That last payment to Lucas meant I had nine weeks of protection left.
Nine weeks before I needed to make the next one.
Except Lucas would know by now that I’d been arrested; the Council would have it all over the news that they’d captured the terrorist group that had been targeting Council members.
And once Lucas knew I was in Adarcan Prison, he’d know his cushy gig was up, and I couldn’t make the next payment.
Would he wait nine weeks? Would he keep protecting Ellie and my mother when he knew I wasn’t coming back? Unlikely. Lucas only tolerated them because of the money coming in.
How long would he wait before kicking them out, or worse, giving them up to the Council? A week? Two? Maybe a month if he thought there was a chance I’d be able to somehow arrange payments from here.
I pulled my knees to my chest, ignoring the screaming pain it caused, and tried to think.
There had to be a way out. Had to be something I could do.
Could I escape? I looked at the silver-infused bars, felt the constant burn of silver in the walls, in the floor, everywhere.
It suppressed my wolf. Magic was impossible here; in addition to the nullstone, the Council employed witches to create a dampening field around the Kennel.
If I could somehow break out of my cell, where would I go?
The prison was a maze, full of guards, surrounded by wilderness.
And I was injured, weakened, barely functional.
Could I cooperate with the Council? Give them everything on Simon in exchange for them promising to look after Ellie and my mom? No, their promises weren’t worth shit, and I couldn’t give up Simon.
I needed to think, needed to plan, needed to—
Despair dragged at me, pulling me under. There was nothing to plan. No moves to make. No options left.
I was trapped, Ellie was in danger, and I was completely, utterly powerless to do anything about it.
I lay on the mattress, counting injuries instead of sheep.
Ribs: cracked, stabbing with every breath.
Left kidney: deep bruise that pulsed in time with my heartbeat.
Wrists: silver burns weeping into my sleeves.
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, dimmed to their version of night—a sickly yellow that turned the concrete walls the color of old bone.
The temperature dropped at night. Or maybe I just had less fight left to keep the cold at bay.
Ellie. Mom. Nine weeks. The numbers circled like vultures.
So much so that I don’t know when the silence registered.
It wasn’t the usual lull between guard patrols.
This was different; a held-breath kind of quiet, the corridor suddenly too still.
Somewhere down the block, a prisoner who’d been muttering for hours went silent mid-sentence.
Then: footsteps. Three sets. Two were standard guard boots. The third was wrong; lighter, precise, the unhurried rhythm of someone who never felt the need to rush.
I pulled myself upright. My ribs screamed.
I ignored them and stood. My body was stiff from the cold, joints protesting every movement, but whoever was coming would not find me lying down.
Two guards I hadn’t seen before appeared outside my cell.
They stood at the bars with their eyes fixed straight ahead, chins lifted, hands locked behind their backs, not resting on batons.
Neither guard looked at the man who stepped between them.
I got the sense it wasn’t a deliberate avoidance—more like a habit they’d trained into themselves.
One shifted his weight half an inch further from the man as he passed, the adjustment so small he probably didn’t know he’d done it. The other had stopped breathing.
My wolf stirred. Not much—she was too beaten down by the silver—but enough. A faint press against my ribs, like hackles trying to rise. Danger, she seemed to say. Wrong. Run.
Nowhere to run, sweetheart. But thanks for the warning.
The man didn’t speak immediately. He just…looked. His gaze moved over my cell—the thin mattress, the nullstone walls, the silver bars—taking in everything with the detachment of someone inspecting inventory. When his attention finally focused on me, it felt like being pinned to a board.
I made myself meet his eyes. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away.
You’re not the first predator I’ve faced, asshole. You won’t be the last.
Something flickered in his expression. Not quite surprise; more like…interest. The way a collector might look at an unexpected find.
The man was human. The scent was unmistakable even through the silver suppression—not wolf, not witch.
Gun oil. Starch. Something antiseptic. He was somewhere in his fifties, though the kind of fifty that came from discipline and luck; lean, straight-backed, with the compact build of someone who still ran every morning.
His hair was cropped close to the scalp, more salt than pepper, and his jaw had that over-defined quality of a man who’d been clenching it for decades.
Everything about him was pressed: his shirt, his trousers, the creases so sharp they looked architectural.
But it was his hands that caught my attention.
He held them by his side, perfectly still, and they were immaculate; trimmed nails, clean cuticles, the kind of hands that belonged to a surgeon or a pianist. Hands that had never done their own dirty work.
Or hands that were very, very careful about cleaning up afterward.
He stopped in front of my bars and looked at me. Not the way Daniels looked at me—searching for weakness. Not the way Martinez looked at me—choosing where the baton would land next. No, he looked at me like I was something in a jar that he hadn’t decided what to do with yet.
Fur and flames. What fresh hell is this?
“Well,” he said. The word precise, stripped of inflection. “You are not quite what I expected.”