Chapter 33
OUR TREK LEADS US DEEPER into Marcana's woodland reserve, into a massive semi-cleared clearing that sits near the edge of a hill that leads down a rocky cliff onto a thin stretch of white sand shoreline.
The evening high tides bash against the sea wall at the bottom of the cliff, reaching us all the way at the top.
Cold, salty ocean breeze wafts up, rustling the leaves, swaying branches, and ruffling our clothes and hair.
The entrance to the holding cells is a one-story compound complete with metal fences and barbed wire at the top. The compound itself isn't large, consisting three one-story buildings and an open grassy field all of it half obscured from view by tree canopies scattered in between the buildings.
Weres on patrol and assigned specifically to the facility mill around the concrete courtyard. The gates slide open and the Were situated at the security booth on the other side of the gate, inclines his head in respect as we pass by.
The grass field is to our right where six warriors are paired off and sparring against each other.
Up ahead is the administrative building, the smallest of the three.
It's no larger than half the ground floor of my house, complete with a washroom, a small kitchenette, and two small offices one of which keeps paper records of every inmate housed at the facility.
"I'll go check in with them," Dad says, pointing to the administrative building. Alpha nods and while Dad saunters off toward the building, inclining his head to the Weres who pass him by, the alpha and I head over to the first building on our left.
It's the entrance to the holding cells and the largest of the buildings.
The one next door serves as barracks for Weres who spend most of their time patrolling the compound or overseeing inmates.
It's a relatively new building that the alpha had commissioned for those Weres who find it troublesome to go back and forth.
It's fully furnished with furniture and appliances, utilities, a kitchenette, two bathrooms, and ten sleep quarters.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Alpha Isaiah asks, leaning against the wall. His arms are crossed over his chest and his feet crossed at the ankles. He watches me closely like I'm a ticking time bomb he expects to explode at the slightest provocation.
I can't blame the man for being cautious. What Lianna did is an unforgiveable offense so better it be Dad who enforces her sentence than me. I would have requested her a swift execution.
"Is it wrong that I want to scare her a little?"
Alpha barks out a quiet laugh and shakes his head. "You're Steven's kid alright."
Across the concrete yard, the door to the administrative building opens and Dad steps out. His face is disgruntled, jaw clamped tight and mouth pulled into a thin line, a frown creasing between his brows.
"What's wrong?" Alpha Isaiah asks, glancing between my dad and the building he came from. To that, Dad expels a weary sigh and crosses his arms over his chest. He looks at me briefly, turning his attention to the alpha.
"Lianna's parents are in there."
Hearing this wonderful news, I perk up, my reaction catching Dad off guard because now he looks tensed and worried for a different reason as if he can tell what I'm thinking with one look at me.
"This'll be fun," I murmur walking around him to the door, a black-painted iron gate left open. The windows are barricaded behind reinforced steel bars, a precaution during the building's construction to prevent easy escape if an inmate manages to break free from the holding cells.
Inside the one-story building, the main area is split between an office and a lounge.
Two desks take up on side of the room, and a long brown-leather couch is jammed against the opposite wall where Lianna's parents sit no doubt waiting for us.
Four Weres on duty are huddled around one of the tables, a deck of playing cards between them.
They come to, standing at attention when we walk in. The men incline their heads in a show of respect, settling back down when Alpha gestures for them to do so.
At the moment, we have four inmates – the rogues apprehended from Lativa for questioning and Little Miss Delusional.
An adjoining hallway leads away from the lounge, separating it from the rest of the block through a door that lets out onto a platform balcony.
The right side of the platform extends to three interrogation rooms with large two-way mirrors.
Adjacent to those mirrors are observation rooms. Both ends of the platform has a stairway that leads down to the sublevel floor, a deep cavern carved into the rock and separated into two sections.
Leaning over the railing of the platform balcony, the holding cells beneath are among the oldest structures at Marcana.
Made of steel and iron bars embedded deep into the rock, most of them sit unoccupied.
The inmates were strategically placed in selected cells, at least two gates away from each other.
They might speak to each other to avoid going insane pumped with wolfsbane, but they won't be doing much escaping.
The other section is where the interrogation cells are located.
It's different from the interrogation rooms, less sophisticated and less clean with heavy chains attached to iron hooks embedded into the walls.
It's not brightly lit either but the illumination is sufficient considering the torture that sometimes happens within those walls.
We take the stairway to the left of the platform, passing by a six-foot long concrete sink built into the wall of the adjoining corridor between the interrogation cells and the holding cells.
The lighting isn't much because in a space that holds twelve eight-by-eight cells, there are four bulbs in total.
Most of the cells are in total darkness and again, it's a strategic decision.
The entire area is designed to increase discomfort and break inmates – mentally and emotionally – when they're starved, sometimes left without clothing and only a thin, sorry excuse of a blanket to fend off the coldness.
Confined in darkness, I imagine it plays tricks on their minds.
This place feels eerie and I don't envy anyone who has to stay here as a prisoner. I don't envy them at all.
"Have they said anything?" Alpha asks the Were on duty, sitting in a metal chair next to the first cell which remains empty at the moment.
Eric Vega stands at attention. "Other than Lianna's occasional crying and a few threats from the cocky son of a bitch in that cell," he resents, pointing to a cell on the other side of the dirt corridor with a light bulb above the gate, "nothing useful.
They're loyal to whoever hired them, but we'll keep trying. "
Alpha nods. "Keep up the good work, Eric."
"Who're you guys here for?"
"They came to find out if those rogues squawked yet," I tell him, jabbing a thumb where my dad and the alpha stands. "I came here for Lianna."
Eric Vega laughs. He's a warrior Were and while his day job often sees him managing the bar and restaurant named after his family, his duty to Marcana is as a warrior and direct assistant to my dad.
"Her parents are upstairs. They're waiting for you."
"I know. I'm looking forward to it."
The darkness is a pressure on my eyes – the kind that feels alive.
Whispers continue to echo in the half-dark hallway and the deeper we walk, the clearer they become.
We come upon the first rogue we apprehended in Lativa, sitting in the farthest, darkest corner of his cell, back pressed to the iron bars, knees drawn up.
He whispers to himself, regret over the decision to take the job, to target the alpha's daughter.
A string of muttered, remorseful apologies fall from his lips, apologies to someone named Sarah.
I don't feel an ounce of sympathy. He should have known better because at the end of the day, only a man with nothing to lose would risk making an enemy of Marcana.
A voice, hollow and drained yet carrying a level of snark that pokes my nerves suddenly calls out from the other side of the corridor, from the cell Eric Vega pointed out.
Four of the six cells on either side remain unoccupied.
The goading voice of one of the rogues float out of the darkness of his cell to taunt us.
"You know we can get out of here, right." He sits with his back pressed to the bars, one knee drawn up, a cocky smirk plastered over his mouth.
So, this is the cocky son of a bitch who made Eric Vega look like he wouldn't mind skinning a person alive.
He peers out of the dark of his cell, staring straight at Dad who steps forward and crosses his arms over his chest. Dad tilts his head in typical Steven Daniels fashion – the kind that says, 'I'm amused, entertain me some more'.
"Why haven't you tried?" He steps closer to the gate, malicious amusement coating every word he spits. "Too weak? Too drugged up and miserable to try? Go ahead, I beg you to try something."
"You think I can't?"
"You won't," Dad quips, a smile in his voice. "Even if you do, I can't guarantee you'll live long enough to find help. That is if whoever you're working for doesn't kill you for snitching."
Silence and then the rogue moves from where he's sitting on the ground.
He stands slowly, taking his sweet time approaching the gate.
The light above the gate illuminates his face, casting eerie shadows across pale drying skin from too little water.
His eyes are dark, blackish spots beneath them, the white around his irises an angry red.
The standard issue plain white jersey and pants swallow his frame. He's lost some weight over the past three days because he's smaller than I recall.
The rogue grips the bars with both hands, peering out at us with hate in bloodshot eyes.
"We're not telling you a damn thing so, go ahead and do your worst." He speaks with all the confidence in the world, as if he is certain that none of them – himself included – won't break.
"I admire your bravado," Dad taunts. The rogue scoffs but doesn't say anything else, content on glaring his hatred at the man who oversees his misery.
"But here's the thing," Dad continues, enjoying the back and forth as much as he enjoys breaking inmates.
"There are three of you and a hundred different ways to break you. "
Dad holds up his hands, miming a scale of balance. "If one method doesn't work, I can try another. If that doesn't work...well you get the picture. And if none of those are effective, then you're forcing me to get creative. That wouldn't end well for you."
"You think you can scare me?" the rogue growls, slamming his palms against the bars. They don't rattle, but the force of it echoes through the corridor. "You don't. None of you do."
The rogue flicks his gaze to Alpha Isaiah, a slow sinister curl of his mouth unsettling me. "How's your pretty daughter, alpha?" he sneers.
Faster than either me or Dad could react, Alpha Isaiah moves. In the blink of an eye, he's reaching through the bars and grabbing the rogue by the front of his jersey, pulling him until his face is smashed against the gate. The bang echoes, the gates rattling now with the force of the impact.
Blood trickles from the inmate's nose bent at an odd angle, his lip busted and teeth bloodied.
A fine layer of black hair covers the alpha's arm, his eyes glowing sharply in the overhead light and his canines are elongated. He growls quietly; a soft rumble that's equal parts warning and menace.
"The only reason you still breathe, rogue," Alpha Isaiah seethes through gritted teeth, "is because of your potential usefulness. I'd be very careful with my next words if I were you."
"You'd kill me because I mentioned your daughter?"
This guy has a death wish. There's no other explanation for why he continues to provoke Alpha Isaiah, who, while he may be fair, has a reputation that proves he can be ruthless if the stories about him is anything to go by.
"I've killed for far less."
The rogue laughs a bloody-toothed laugh. "Threaten me all you want but as long as he's out there, and so close to her, your daughter will always be in danger. She might even be the first to go."
He laughs again, a grating, manic sound that has the hair on my arms standing on end. The rogue sweeps his gaze past Alpha, to Dad, and then settles on me.
"He's coming for all of you. You won't be able to save anyone."
The ominous meaning of those words sweep over me, raising chills in their wake.
Something about the manic look in his eyes, his mocking tone settling like a boulder dipped in acid in the pit of my stomach.
It feels like he's talking about more than what hell is waiting for us, as if he's talking about me specifically.
He's slow to break eye contact, a hidden meaning in his stare. The realization slaps harder than I can imagine, cold horror blowing through because now I'm certain that the two incidents aren't coincidental and unrelated.
Stepping forward, I grip the bars, anger roiling beneath the surface. "Did your benefactor order a hit on a human family?"
The rogue grins, bloody and cruel. "It was a test. Soon, you'll get to watch that boy die."
Red rage blinds me. I don't think about what I'm doing. I don't stop to consider the aftermath until I've reached through the bars and grabbed the rogue by his head. He drops a second later, his neck broken and twisted at a strange angle.