Just as I was about to put it in the disk drive, I heard my father's voice behind me. I knew he was here somewhere, but it was the first time I had laid eyes on him.
"Don't watch them, son."
"I need to know," I tell him.
"Believe me, you don't want to know"
"You watched one?" I ask and he drops his hand on my shoulder giving it a squeeze.
"I watched five minutes of one before I couldn't watch anymore," he said, and I looked up at him.
"I need to know, go if you can't handle it," I tell him. He nodded his head and an indecipherable expression on his face as he looked back at me.
"Ryker!" He said squeezing my shoulder and I could hear the concern in his voice.
"I can't understand her if I don't know her," I tell him.
"You do know"-
"I will stay with him," Zane says, walking over, dragging a chair over and placing it beside me.
"I am going to go see what Aamon and Tate are planning," my father says, and I nod and Zane sits beside me looking at the disks.
I place the disk in. The screen loads before a picture comes up of inside the cell. My stomach twists when I see a little girl. Her hair to her shoulders, she only had underwear on and a singlet, her back to the camera staring at the mirrored glass inside the cell. I was about to fast forward it, moving the mouse on the screen when I heard something. At first, it sounded like muttering and soft murmurs as she continued to stare at the glass.
I turned the volume up on my mate as a little girl. She was staring at her own reflection in the glass. I turn the volume all the way up, her voice becoming clearer.
She was talking to herself or so I thought until the voice changed to one I recognized, her wolf's. They were having a full-on conversation, going between the soft murmurs of a child then changing to a deeper rough version of the same voice, just the tone slightly different.
"Do you remember my mummy Amanda?" She asks.
"No, but I know she loves you very much," her wolf answers. My mate seems to think for a second before jumping to her feet.
"Wanna play?" She asks before rushing to her bed and grabbing a tennis ball. She looks back to the glass throwing the ball at it and it bounces off and she catches it. She giggles and throws the ball again and I fast forward a bit. I continued to fast forward, stopping every now and then and listening. Each time I find my mate talking to the mirror, talking to her wolf Amanda.
Zane sat watching as I continued to skip and stop when suddenly I stopped on a part that made my breath hitch. The door to her cell opens, my mate rushing away from the glass and getting under the steel bed out of view of the camera. I watch as a woman comes in trying to coax her out from under the bed, when that doesn't work she uses force. I watch horrified as she walks out of the cell before returning with a cattle prod. She jams it under the bed, and I hear her crying sobs, and screams, the noise making my blood boil.
"Get out now! Come to me!" The woman snaps at her and I hear the zap, her screaming sobs along with it. My mate comes out crawling on her knees before the woman hits her, smacking her repeatedly across the back with the cattle prod. She then pulls a syringe from her pocket before injecting her with something and leaving. The video was mostly them taking blood, then beating her tiny body as I continued to skip and stop.
My mate's only comfort seemed to be the mirror and her wolf between the hours of sleeping and waking, torture and experiments, and all the vile things they subjected her to. Men in lab coats watched her and injected different things in her that would make her sick or make her scream in pain.
I pull the disk out, my hands shaking as I pick another at random before popping it into the disk drive. The new one she was 13. It shows her talking again to the mirror, only this time the experiments got worse, the things of nightmare only her wolf would take over and fight back. She would shift attacking those who entered, with a rage like no other. She even killed a few people that worked here before the room would fog up with smoke and I realized what the vents were for, wolfsbane. Once she was out they would strap her tables and do horrendous things to her. Taking skin, fingers, injuring her while people stood around watching and taking notes or commenting on what they were observing, like they weren't watching someone be tortured.
"I can't watch anymore; we shouldn't watch anymore," Zane says.
"Then go," I tell him. My anger rose with each passing second the more I watched. Zane eventually leaves and I pop a new one in. I don't know how many hours I was sitting there watching the screen, but I couldn't stop, I knew I wouldn't till I watched every single one. Brax whimpered continuously and I think my burning rage burned the stuff out of my system faster.
I was watching another when this time she was 15. I watch as the door opens, and my mate looks up from her spot on the floor. "46," The woman says. This was a different woman, and I recognized this woman. I remembered seeing her picture at Lily's house once when I was a boy helping her clean out the basement. She had finally convinced Damien to throw everything out that he stored from his past. I remember seeing it in one of the boxes and asking Lily about who it was.