Chapter 35 Release Day
POV: Callum Brennan
Location: Prison Gates, then Rookeries
Time: Release Day
The prison gates open at dawn. I walk through them carrying nothing because I own nothing. No money. No clothes beyond the prison jumpsuit they're letting me keep. No identification. No pack status.
Just scars. Trauma. And eighteen months of survival experience.
The guard at the gate hands me a document. "Permanent packless status. Don't return to pack territory. Don't approach pack members. Don't attempt to rejoin any pack. You're exiled for life. Understand?"
"I understand."
"Good. Get out."
I walk away from the Cage. From eighteen months of hell. From silver poisoning and fighting pits and watching wolves die. I'm free.
Except I'm not free. I'm packless. And packless wolves have no freedom in supernatural London. We're the lowest status. The ones everyone else exploits.
But at least I'm alive. That's more than most wolves who enter the Cage can say.
London looks different from outside prison. I've been locked underground for eighteen months. The sunlight hurts my eyes. The noise of traffic is overwhelming. The smell of humans and food and normal life makes me dizzy.
I'm standing on a street corner in North London trying to remember how to function in the world when I realize I have no plan. Prison gave me structure. Wake, eat, fight, survive, sleep. Repeat.
Now there's no structure. Just... freedom. The kind that's terrifying because you don't know what to do with it.
I need to get to the Rookeries. That's where packless wolves go. That's where Boris told me to find Isla.
I start walking east. Toward Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, Shadwell. The areas where the Veil is thinnest and supernatural creatures congregate.
The journey takes four hours on foot. I can't afford public transport. Don't have money for anything.
London's changed in eighteen months. Or maybe I'm seeing it differently now. I notice things I never saw before. Vampires walking among humans. Werewolves hiding their nature. Fae conducting business in plain sight.
The Veil keeps humans from seeing it. Makes them rationalize anything supernatural. But I can see clearly now. Can see the predators hunting, the victims unaware, the system operating in shadows.
It's revolting. But it's also reality.
I reach the East End as the sun's setting. The Rookeries look worse than Silas described. Abandoned buildings. Trash-filled streets. Desperate creatures huddling in doorways.
This is where packless supernaturals end up. The ones who have nowhere else. The ones society discarded.
I'm one of them now.
I find a flophouse that Pavel mentioned. Three-story building that should have been condemned years ago. The sign says "Rooms Available" but it's barely legible.
I walk in. The lobby smells like mold and desperation. An older wolf sits behind a desk. He looks up when I enter.
"You need a room?"
"Yes. What's the rate?"
"Fifteen pounds a night. Paid in advance. No exceptions."
"I don't have money."
The wolf shrugs. "Then you don't get a room. Try the streets."
I turn to leave when another wolf approaches. Male, maybe thirty-five, with the scarred look of someone who's survived the Rookeries for years.
"You're fresh out of prison. I can smell the silver poisoning." The wolf looks me over. "Cage or regular lockup?"
"The Cage. Eighteen months."
"Damn. Most don't survive that long." The wolf extends his hand. "Name's Derek. I've got a room with space. You can stay with me and four others until you get money."
"Why would you help me?"
"Because I was fresh out of the Cage once. Someone helped me. Paying it forward." Derek gestures for me to follow. "Come on. Room's on the third floor."
I follow Derek upstairs. The building is worse inside than outside. Peeling paint, broken stairs, doors hanging crooked on hinges.
We reach a room at the end of the third-floor hall. Derek unlocks it. Inside are four other wolves. All male. All looking desperate and broken.
"Everyone, this is..." Derek looks at me.
"Callum."
"Callum just got out of the Cage. He's staying with us until he gets on his feet." Derek points to a corner. "There's space over there. No mattress. Floor's all we got."
"Floor's fine. Thank you."
I sit in the corner Derek indicated. The other wolves nod acknowledgment but don't speak. Everyone's too exhausted or traumatized for conversation.
This is my new life. Five wolves in one room. Sleeping on floors. Sharing nothing because we have nothing.
It's better than prison. Marginally. At least there's no silver. No torture. No vampires forcing us to fight.
Derek throws me a piece of bread. "Dinner. It's all we've got until tomorrow."
I eat the bread slowly. It's stale and hard but it's food. First real food in eighteen months that wasn't prison slop.
Night falls. The other wolves settle in for sleep. I lie on the floor trying to rest but I can't. Every sound makes me jump. Every shadow looks like a guard.
Prison changed how I perceive safety. I'm free but I don't feel free. Just... exposed.
Around midnight, one of the roommates starts screaming. I'm awake immediately. The wolf's convulsing, thrashing, making sounds that aren't human.
"He's going feral," Derek says. He's already on his feet. "Has been for days. Tonight's when it finally happens."
The feral wolf attacks. Lunges at the nearest person. No thought, no control, just pure instinct.
I react without thinking. Eighteen months of fighting pits trained me for this. I grab the feral wolf, pin him down, wrap my arm around his throat.
"Someone call the guards," Derek shouts.
"No guards will come. This is the Rookeries. We handle our own problems." One of the other wolves looks at me. "You have to kill him. He's gone. There's no coming back from feral."
I look down at the wolf I'm restraining. He's completely gone. Eyes are pure amber. No human consciousness left. Just animal rage.
This is what I feared. This is what happens to packless wolves without community. They go feral. Lose their humanity. Become the monsters everyone thinks we are.
"Kill him," Derek repeats. "If you don't, he'll kill all of us. And then the authorities will come and execute everyone in this room for harboring feral wolf."
I tighten my grip. The feral wolf struggles but I'm stronger. Prison made me stronger.
I snap his neck. Quick. Clean. The way Kristoff taught me.
The feral wolf goes limp. Dies in my arms. First night free and I'm already killing again.
Derek and the others drag the body to the corner. "We'll call Silas in the morning. He'll take the body. Pay us fifty pounds for it."
"That's what we're worth? Fifty pounds when we're dead?"
"That's what bodies are worth. Living, we're worth even less." Derek returns to his sleeping spot. "Welcome to the Rookeries, Callum. Hope you survive longer than that guy did."
I wash the blood off my hands in a sink that barely works. Look at myself in a cracked mirror. Eighteen months in prison and I'm back to killing. Back to violence. Back to being exactly what the Cage tried to make me.
I wanted freedom. Wanted to escape. Wanted to start over.
But there's no starting over. There's just survival. Just killing wolves who go feral. Just living in rooms with four other desperate creatures. Just waiting to either die or go feral myself.
This is the Rookeries. This is packless life.
And I've got no choice but to survive it.
One day at a time. One death at a time. One horrible compromise at a time.
Welcome home.