Deacon is a brute of the highest order, who probably got his training in Juan’s school of charm for
asshats, and half drags me, half lets me walk on my own feeble legs down the corridor to an elevator.
Only stopping to bark orders at another guard sat at a desk nearby, before shoving me inside and
taking me down to a level that has an air of aircraft hangar. The doors slide open to reveal a large,
empty garage like space, in semi darkness, with concrete floors, and strip lighting on the ceiling, which
stands a good twenty feet above us. The space is huge and there are three trucks parked at the far end
on what looks like a platform, which I’m assuming raises up. It’s dull, definitely many degrees colder,
and seems like a part no one frequents all too often.
As we walk the lights begin to flick on automatically over our heads, and I note at the semi middle of
the wall on the left a low glow is already illuminating from what seems to be an open alcove. From this
angle I don’t really see what it is until we walk level with it and turn right, my head snapping to turn
back, even while being dragged along away from it, so we head in its exact opposite direction where I
catch glimpse of what it actually is.
A room behind a full glass wall stretching its width for ample viewing, that looks like at one point it’s
been a sectioned area for parking and was repurposed. There are tire grids running up to the window,
but the inside room it has concrete smooth floors as though they were resurfaced. It houses a bed right
in the center, surrounded by machines, and carts, and equipment, all making flashes, and low beeps,
and hums, keeping the solitary figure within the bed silent.
A motionless brunette woman, hard from this angle to tell if it’s Sierra, is laid out like sleeping beauty,
amid wires and tubes, under a single dull spotlight hanging directly over the bed. It’s almost like an art
piece of a priceless mummy in a museum, she’s so still, pale, and lifeless, and it tightens my stomach
in knots, choking me with emotion.
She’s on full view to this entire area in her glass box, yet completely unmanned and without any kind of
caregiver keeping an eye on her, which speaks volumes. I guess all the monitors and machines are
doing the job of people, and it breaks my heart to see her so alone, even if she isn’t aware of it. Colton
would die if he saw the way she’s being kept, with no human contact, no care or interaction… just
machines, and isolation, in a god damn basement. My heart aches for her, for him, and I’m glad he
doesn’t know this is what Juan has done to his mom.
Deacon gets annoyed with my straining backwards to stare and jerks my arm cruelly, snapping my face
back around and I give him a hateful scowl, scared of him less and less the more I’m in his company.
He’s a typical Santo bully and not unlike a lot of the pack were my whole life. Pushing people like me
around, in a bid to exert his dominance in the hierarchy. He would last ten seconds out there if he made
me mad enough to throw air at him, as stupid as that may sound. He’s a dumb jock type, with a bad
attitude, and the need of a dart gun to take down a running femme…. Loser.
I focus back where we are heading, and I can see my room mirrors hers and I’m about to join the glass
casket crew. I’m guessing it’s the backup room should they need to move her to do whatever, or maybe
in case something happens in there and she needs moving over here. God knows, but it’s almost
identical and I wonder if there was ever a second person like Sierra here. Or maybe Juan has plans to
add one…. like me.
Mine is not full of tubes and machines but it does house a solitary single hospital bed in the center,
which appears to be bolted down, and a wall of units and cupboards behind it. One corner holds a very
public portable toilet that the other room’s lacking, and I don’t struggle when Mr. Security. pulls me up
level with the transparent wall. There’s no privacy or places to hide with its matching glass barrier and
as we stand here, I see the almost invisible outline of a singular door within its vast transparency.
“Is this so you can watch all day and night without opening the door? Getting your freak on and
watching defenseless women!” I snark at Deacon, who’s avoided saying anything more to me since we
left the doctor in our wake. The only words were uttered at the guard outside the door, when he
informed him my three meals a day were to be added to the rota and reported to the cook until further
notice. Another Santo looking douchebag upstairs, who glared at me like I was something gross he
found stuck to his shoe.
He glares at me, with that sardonic asshole expression, scans a swipe card against a panel on the wall
to our right and pushes me inside aggressively when the door slides open. It’s a little sci-fi tech, and I
refuse to react in any other way than hostile bitch. I almost trip over my own feet and end up slapping
my hand on the wall to steady myself, before turning my head with a half turn to snarl at him, wishing I
could turn, because that boy’s throat would be in much need of repair given half the chance.
I have so much aggression peeking inside of me that I almost can’t contain the sudden hatred of him. I
can almost taste his blood, and feel his pulse beating out of his jugular, as I focus on what I could do
given half the chance. I spin back to him fully, my robe flapping around so he probably gets an eyeful of
naked ass as I did so, and throw the angriest, hostile, vicious sneer I can, right at his smug face.
“I’m so glad I got to shoot you at least one time. God, it made me hard to see you go down like a sack
of shit.” He smirks as the door slides shut, and the urge to punch him in the throat overwhelms me to
the point I angry jump at the door as it slides between us and end up palm slapping it at his face level,
panting heavily as fire consumes me.
“You clearly were too slow to catch me then, if you needed a gun, you moron. Probably the only time
you’ve ever been tougher than a girl or got a hardon over one!” I stick my middle finger up at him and
return the smirk he’s dishing me as he turns on his heel to go, face grim with a darkening mood. I can
tell I pissed him off on every level but he’s trying to act like I didn’t.
“Enjoy your cell…Carmen!” He snorts, using the name I gave him, and I throw sass right back.
“You know, you should remember that name…. you and her would be perfect for each other if you were
ever allowed to leave. A mountain wolf with no standards and loose panties… right up your street.
Might get laid for the first time in your life. She’s a prize bitch, to match your prize assholeness!!” I yell it
after him, temper unleashed a little, and furious for the sake of being furious. Annoyed I find myself
banged up in this hellhole and under the care of a sanctimonious Santo like him.
Colton would rip his head off if he was here. God, if I could link him right now, I so would. Just to see
him roll on up and tear Deacon a new asshole. He would beat seven shades of shit out of him, without
even needing to turn wolf. That’s the difference between an asshole looking to be Alpha and one who
is naturally born that way. Colton never needed to push me around to exert his dominance, you could
feel it whenever you were around him. He was gentler than most wolves once you got close to him, but
you knew that he could turn savage and destroy anything in his wake if he needed to. Like vampires in
a courtyard.
Deacon blanks me completely, waves a dismissive hand at me like he has the last word and leaves.
Stalking back the way we came, like an arrogant shit head who needs to go choke.
I honestly cannot stand that guy and if I could turn, god, he would be first on my hitlist for being air
punched across the room. I have enough rage bubbling through my veins to ignite it, but unfortunately,
no actual ability in this weird futuristic building. All I need is an ounce of use to link Colton, tell him
where his mom is, and bust everyone’s ass in here. I have enough rage that I think I could, maybe. I
just wish I’d been bright enough to find and use that gift when they chased me through the damn forest.
I only have myself to blame for not being able to harness my own fate given gift.
As soon as I watch him storm off into the elevator and completely disappear, I turn my attention back to
the room across the floor from me and focus on that lifeless sleeping body. She’s twenty feet away at
the least, maybe more, but these glass walls, although thick, don’t keep the sound out. The low beep,
beep, and swoosh, of her life support is humming and repeating subtly in the air around us now that
asshole has gone, and the place is almost silent once more. I lean forward until my palms touch the
glass, only this time softly, and press my forehead to it so I can steady my still pretty weak self and
stare at the side profile of the figure laid out over there. Instantly enveloped in a feeling of
hopelessness as I watch her lifeless form.
She’s been down here like this for god knows how many years, and I can’t believe Juan would do this
to his own mate. It’s like he just put her aside, and forgot about her, and the only reason she’s even
alive is because their link would kill him if he let her die. So, this is what he does. Breaking the bonds
and rules of being mated. He’s not protecting her or caring for her in sickness and health. He isn’t
allowing the pack to nurture their Luna the way they’re meant to. He’s ashamed and hiding her in a
place no one knows about. There’s no dignity in what they’ve done to her, and the doctor slipped out
and made it clear there’s nothing wrong with her mind. Juan obviously has other reasons for keeping
her down here if madness is not it, and I will her to give me some sort of sign that she knows I’m here.
“Hey…… Luna Sierra, can you hear me?!” I yell as loud as I can, hurting my throat in the process with
scratchy rawness, but it doesn’t elicit any response, not even a change in heart rate on one of her
many machines. I watch carefully, listen to the sounds, but there’s nothing. “Can you hear me?” I try
again, not as loud, but my throat aches with the effort and I cough drily, giving up on that method
quickly.
I sigh, sliding down the glass and watch her desperately, trying to figure out how someone in a building
that blocks gifts, in an induced coma, could somehow reach out to me and guide me to her with the
weird dreams and urges to come east. It doesn’t make sense now that I see her and know she can’t
call to me. In fact, she doesn’t seem like she can do very much of anything at all, except maybe breath
on her own as she doesn’t have any kind of ventilator over there. She didn’t urge me here, there’s
simply no way in hell it could have been her. She’s all but a vegetable down here.
The only answer I can think of is maybe the fates did this instead, and it wasn’t her at all, but I guess
I’m not about to find out. If I thought she had answers, then it’s pretty clear she won’t be giving me
them and this is a dead end. The fates delivered me back to Juan for absolutely nothing. And when he
gets here, knowing I found this place and saw her like this, he isn’t going to let me get back anywhere
near Colton ever again.
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