Chapter 34: Dreams

Chapter 34: Dreams
Calina

My clothes were soaked in blood, but my body, my body remained completely unscathed. Though if you’d have seen me a few moments ago, you wouldn’t have been able to recognise me. It was a good thing my pain tolerance was so high. I don’t think I would have remained conscious if it hadn’t been.

“You both are some top-quality torturers. A pity that you’re both werewolves. You’d have made good bounty hunters.” I said jokingly as they shut the gate behind me. I had to find a way to ease the tension between us all, especially when I so clearly had no information that they needed. Their interrogation on the other hand, gave me quite a bit of information. I wished Vander were here. He’d help me make sense of it all with all of his knowledge of the werewolf community.

“Gee thanks! You’re real sweet. Same time tomorrow?” Nova said mockingly. I decided to match his tone and smiled.

“I’ll look forward to it!” Though I really wouldn’t. The pulling, piercing, splattering, tugging, cutting, stabbing, spitting, sawing. It replayed over and over again in my mind. But like all things, I chose to ignore it. Dwelling on it, wouldn’t solve anything for me right now. I had to think about an escape plan, because very soon, I wouldn’t be able to ignore this anymore.

Nova and Lana left the room, leaving me and Erin alone in the dimness surrounding us. She quickly neared me; weary of the freedom of movement the chains gave her. Then, she gazed at me, looking at my face, arms and legs carefully.

“Was it bad?” she asked softly, tears pooling in her eyes. I could tell she felt upset and could only assume she was familiar with what had happened to me. Nonetheless, I smiled and shook my head.

“Not at all. It was child’s play. See, I don’t even have a scratch!” I said, holding my arm up to the dim light.

But Erin looked slightly unconvinced before saying, “We apparently heal faster than normal wolves do. One of the perks of this useless wolf body.”

When she said that, I got slightly curious about something and asked, “So we don’t change during a full moon?”

She shrugged and then shook her head which made me feel a little more relieved. At least I’d keep some semblance of myself, no thanks to Brutis who’d actively put me in this position in the first place. If I were still a hunter, I’d kill him, no bounty needed.

The entire conspiracy that I’d made up of him in my mind made so much of sense to me. When I was strapped up and being tortured, I had moments in which the pain had subsided. It was in one of those moments that I mentioned Brutis to them. They denied even knowing who he was, but I could tell by the initial startled look in their eyes, that they definitely knew who he was and he was definitely somehow involved. I just needed to make sure of something before I fit most of the puzzle pieces together. And so, I asked Erin one final question. Which packs had been present at her initiation? Once she’d told me, everything had begun to slowly fall into place in my mind. During my interrogation Nova had asked a multitude of questions. But they all had some commonality to them. They were all about the Eclipse pack. Specifically, about the Eclipse pack. He also seemed incredibly interested in the various members of the pack, what they usually did in the pack, their behaviour and where they’d been standing during the initiation. And so, when Erin had confirmed, surprisingly, that there were only two packs who attended her own initiation - the Silver Crescent pack and the Eclipse pack- it made me certain that Brutis was convinced that the Moon Goddess was in either of the three packs. And after my initiation he had his confirmation about which one she was in. I myself had begun to wonder who it could be. But no one in particular stood out to me. In fact, I would have been surprised if anyone had taken note of someone behaving suspiciously. The chaos that had unravelled seemed to overtake everything else.



Sleep found me soon after the sun had set. And when it did, I was brought into a dreamless sleep until my mind filled with some sort of heavy, almost humid, mist which covered everything, making my skin feel sticky and warm. My immediate response was fear. Fear of this being another haunting nightmare of my father. I walked through the dark mist slowly, cautiously, not wanting to make a sound until I arrived at what seemed to be a clearing in a dense forest of mist. There was a man a few feet away from me, his back towards me. At first, I thought perhaps I was being haunted by my father. But as I walked closer, I began to notice that the body structure of the stranger seemed different to my dad, but familiar still.

“Vander?” I called out, my voice bouncing around, echoing back at me. Vander turned around slowly, surprised and also relieved to see me.

“Calina!” he sighed out, nearing me quickly. He stopped just inches away from me and then reached out to touch at my shoulders, his brows furrowed as he did so. “So weird…” he said. He seemed so real to me that I almost thought this entire thing was actually happening. That we were standing in front of each other, in the flesh.

“What a strange dream…” I muttered out. He tilted his head at me, gazing at me in confusion.

“You’re dreaming too?” It was an odd question for a character in my dream to ask. But I nodded, going along with whatever this was, relieved that, for the most part, this didn’t seem to be a nightmare.

“Do you know where you are or who took you?” Vander asked, with a sense of urgency to his voice, his eyes searching mine. In that moment I realised that I didn’t particularly know where I was. There was nothing to give me any hint about where Nova and Lana had taken me. Perhaps this was the purpose of this dream, to get me to think and help me focus on survival.

“I don’t know where I am. But I know the names of my captors. Nova Brookes and Lana Tourmaine. They’re bounties on the LHS bounty board and have no known pack affiliation...” I then hesitated for a moment. I dared not express my theory that I thought Brutis was involved in this somehow, especially when I had no concrete proof yet. And so I left it at that.

Suddenly the mist surrounding the clearing seemed to intensify, making everything slightly darker. Vander repeated the names and seemed to drift into his own thoughts as though he were wondering where he’d heard those names before. Perhaps my brain was trying to resurface more memories about the pair. But I clearly drew a blank because Vander shook his head, telling me that he’d never heard those names before. A moment of silence passed between the both of us, letting a sense of awkwardness engulf this interaction. And as it did, it got darker and darker until I could barely make out the facial expressions he wore.

“Calina…” I could feel him coming even closer, his breath against the top of my head as he closed the distance. I gulped. The air suddenly felt even warmer. I could at least see his eyes now, his beautiful brown eyes. They were riddled with regret, and I almost knew exactly what he was about to say. But just before he could open his mouth again, his eyes suddenly disappeared from view, and the air became thicker and much denser. I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t hear anything. All that was left behind was darkness.