HUCK

They may have killed me.

It was hard to say. One second, there was black nothingness so complete it felt like death. Then, the next, icy water jarred me awake, and I was here in this room that felt like hell. The walls were steel. The floor was steel. The door was nearly seamless. Fluorescent lights so bright they burned my brain never dimmed, no matter how long I willed them to. A metal sprinkler dripped from above, ready to wake me again if whoever controlled it saw fit.

I ran my hands over every surface, focusing long on the door, but there was no escaping this place. Where was I? It felt like nowhere. Wherever it was, it wasn't on the mountain. My wolf was more silent than he'd ever been before. As if he too were trapped inside a box, buried deeper than I could reach.

Brooke...

I'd lost her.

With a roar, I pounded my fists against the walls. Then I spun and kicked the door: once, twice, a third time. It didn't even make a dent. It didn't do shit, because I was fucking useless. Worthless. They'd taken it all. Again. I may not have made it to the top of the mountain, but for a moment, I'd been on top of the fucking world, and they'd robbed me again. They'd taken her. He had her!

"Open the door!" My voice echoed off the walls, but it held no power. My blood meant nothing here.

I froze, and then my eyes scanned the room once more. The only thing apart from me was a five-gallon bucket in the corner of the room. Why was I here? A cold chill washed over me, and I swallowed.

He could have had me killed immediately, but he hadn't. A quick death was too easy. No. There was still one last thing he hadn't stolen.

He had my mate, my life, and everything else. Now, he wanted my wolf.

He was going to kill me, and he wanted me to live with it.

* * *

It was impossible to keep track of the passage of time. I paced. I sat. I thought, racking my brain for a miracle. Where was the goddess now? Was this all part of the divine fucking plan? If it was, what a shit way to go. No wonder our species was on the verge of extinction.

I focused my energy on cursing the moon and tried not to think about Brooke. If I let my imagination go there, I'd never stay sane. I needed to keep it together if I was to have any chance at all of making it out of this.

The silence was so complete, I wondered if I'd been buried alive. It felt like an eternity before the first signs of life found me. The door gave a mechanical hum and then slid open with a whoosh. I jumped to my feet, but before I could process the man with the hose, a spray of water slammed me back into the wall behind me. A clatter sounded, and then the water stopped, dropping me. The door was shut before I could regain my composure, and I blinked, clearing my vision.

A metal bowl sat in the center of the room, half of its contents on the floor around it.

"Wait!" I shot up and toward the door, slipping on the mess they'd created. I hit the floor hard. "Fuck!" The word poured from my lungs in a deafening roar until there was no air left to propel it. I lay on my back, heaving breaths.

After a while, I finally garnered the will to sit upright. My clothes were drenched, and I had no hope of drying them with water puddling the floor around me. Not that it fucking mattered. I had more important things to worry about than discomfort. I had to get out of this fucking room. There had to be a way.

I took it in once more, slowly scanning every inch as if a secret lay hidden in plain sight. The only portion that wasn't steel was the lights, but they were so bright, it was impossible to look directly at them for more than a second. I struggled to my feet and reached above my head, searching for an edge I might pry open. Nothing. Not even a screw.

"What the hell is this place?" I breathed. A panic I'd never felt before sent a shiver coursing to my bones. I'd faced plenty of challenges, and most of them hadn't been exactly easy. But there had always been something I could do. Here, now, I had nothing.

I lowered my arms and focused back on the door. My only option was to somehow make it out the next time it opened, but there wasn't enough room on either side to lay in wait. I'd have to be standing there ready. If I could grab hold of the hose before they turned it on, I could rush them.

I rolled my shoulders, stretched my neck, fisted my hands, and then I waited. And waited. I waited so long my clothes dried. My muscles burned and twitched from their constant tension, but I didn't give in. I didn't sit down. My eyes never left that fucking door. I had no way of knowing when the moment would come, and I needed to be ready until it did. It was my only chance. For my people. My species. For Brooke...

Then it happened.

The door whirred, and I lunged forward, intent on gripping the hose before it had a chance to spray.

But it wasn't a hose.

The cattle prod lit up like blue lightning, and my reflexes were too slow to comprehend the change. I grabbed hold of its end, and a jolt of electricity rocketed through my body. I stiffened like a corpse, my body twitching with the current before the voltage was cut, and I hit the ground.

Another bowl was tossed. The door slid shut.

I was never going to make it out of there.

It took a long time to find the will to sit up. The constant growl of my empty stomach prompted me to stop sulking. The first bowl still sat where it landed, half full of the most flavorless broth I'd ever had the displeasure to try. Judging by the floor around the second bowl, I could only assume it had once held the same. I gave in and drank what I could. Starving wouldn't help me, no matter how hopeless my situation may be.

The next time the door slid open, I didn't attempt to escape. Instead, I sat in the far back corner of the room and took in as many details as I could. There were four men that I could see, but who knew how many more waited out of sight. They were dressed similarly to sentinels, but the material of their clothes was a light brown as opposed to the usual black. I had no idea if they were werewolves or humans. My wolf felt so far away it was easy to believe he'd never existed.

Defeated and exhausted, I allowed my heavy eyelids to slide closed. But, no sooner had I dozed off, icy water shocked me back awake. I gasped and shot upright, and as if my body were the switch that controlled it, the sprinkler stopped.

I wiped the water from my face and searched the room again. They could see me. Those bastards were watching me. But how?

I'd been angry all my life. From the moment I was old enough to process emotions, an ancient rage had always been present. It wasn't until I met Brooke that it eased, calmed by the fact that I was finally doing something to right the injustice that'd been done. But Brooke wasn't here. She was goddess-knew-where going through goddess-knew-what, and I didn't even have the power to try. I couldn't do anything, and without the ability to act, my rage emerged in a way it never had before.

My throat grew raw and tight, and my vision swam. No! I would not fucking cry! I would not!

I swallowed convulsively and leaned back against the wall. Fuck them. Fuck Titan and anyone else too weak to see him for what he was. A fake. A leech. A traitor to his species. When I made it out of this room, they would pay. I would make sure of it. I would enjoy it.

Imagining all the ways I would seek my revenge offered a small sense of stability. I drank the broth. I sat. I thought. I drank the broth. I sat. I dozed. Icy water woke me. Time meshed together into one never-ending loop, and between the lack of sleep, the monotony, and those fucking lights, I was losing it.

Dots swam across my vision, like ghostly orbs floating around the room, vanishing if I tried to focus on any one of them for too long. A trick of my eyes. At least, that's what I thought until they gathered, taking a shape I'd only ever seen once but would never forget.

The moonlit wolf took form, her brilliant light blinding me more than any fluorescent bulb ever could. She could have been a hallucination. She probably was, but I glared at her as if she'd been the one to lock me away.

"What now?" I asked, my tone biting.

She said nothing.

"Well? Come on! This is all your great fucking plan! So, what now? What is it you expect me to do? I've tried everything. I have nothing! You—"

My lips clamped shut as a blast of wind and light shot out from her, and a second later, she stood directly in front of me. A goddess in flowing swirls of wisping light and power. It stole my breath, and I couldn't have moved even if I tried.

Slowly, she bent before me, putting her face so close to mine there was no way she wasn't real. Her breath smelled like the forest; her eyes reflected the night sky. "Patience," she whispered, the word echoing through my brain. "Now, I need you to die."