Chapter Twenty-three - Another visit to the prisoner

Shane’s POV.

“That’s it,” Chase pointed at the dilapidated building opposite the street as we parked at the curb. The house was in the quiet residential part of town. I could understand why the family could have gone missing for an entire week without the neighbors finding out. The neighborhood was more like an estate where everyone minded their business.

Together, with the sentinels that had followed us, we alighted the cars and approached the building with visible soot stains and with half of the roof gone from when it had been burning. The front door was blown open and even the glasses on the windows were gone, with the shards scattered about. It seemed more like an explosion, rather than just a natural fire disaster.

“You think this was set up?” I asked Chase, just to confirm my thoughts. He glanced at me and his eyes returned to the building again, just as the Sentinels approached the open entrance. I raised a hand for them to stop and they did.

I didn’t want to risk any of my men in case the place was unsafe.

“It looks like it was planned, but again, we can’t tell until we get in and inspect it,” he responded through gritted teeth and I nodded in agreement. His response matched my thoughts.

I nodded curtly at the Sentinels and they proceeded into the building while Chase and I followed carefully behind.

The moment we stepped into the house, a strong pungent odor wafted into our nostrils that had us slapping our palms over our nose to block the choking odor.

“What the fuck is in this place?” I managed to choke out, through the tightness in my chest and I struggled to breath but Chase shook his head. I heard the sentinels coughing and I had to wave a hand to motion for everyone to go out just to catch our breath.

“Fuck!” Chase cursed, spitting on the floor as soon as we were outside. “This place smells like shit.”

“We need to figure out why it smells so bad. Could be something hidden, maybe a body or even a clue to get to the bottom of this,”

“We’ll need masks,”

“We have some here, Alpha Shane,” one of the sentinels said, handing two masks to Chase and I. Thereafter, we got into the building again. Luckily for us, the masks were thick enough to keep the offensive odor from sailing into our nostrils. Although we could still inhale a bit of it, it wasn’t as bad as when we’d first entered and we could still breathe through it.

For the next hour, we ransacked the entire duplex, in search of possible clues or even the substance that had the entire home smelling but we came across nothing. Even the flames that burnt down the entire building couldn’t be explained. It seemed so sudden, just like the disappearance of the family that resided in it. From the neighbors' words, it was a family of six, The parents and their four kids.

Since the attacks started, no kids have ever been taken. It was the first time we were having such reports. Hence, it made it quite hard to believe that it may be the usual attacks or maybe it was something else that we weren’t expecting. Nevertheless, our only option was to believe it was the usual attacks and our only lead was the stranger in the basement who had refused to speak.

“I think it’s time to have another word with the man in the basement,”

“Leave it to me, I’ll handle it,” Chase said but I shook my head in refusal as we exited the building and headed towards the cars across the street.

“I can handle it just fine,”

“And kill him like you almost did the last time?”

His words hit me hard and I halted, my furious gaze landing on his intense one, as my jaw clenched hard and my palms balled into fists. He was looking at me like he didn’t trust me to handle this situation and it was pissing me off. I was tense and under a lot of pressure to find the perpetrators of this act and the last thing I needed was to be reminded of my incompetence. As if he could understand the raging war within me, his shoulders sagged.

“You know it’s not what I mean, Shane. If we’re gonna do this, I need to know you’ll be reasonable about it and you wouldn’t eliminate our only lead,”

There was so much I wanted to say but instead, I settled for a curt nod. Without uttering more words, we got into the car and left for the packhouse.

That evening, we arrived at the packhouse and the first place we visited was the dungeons, to see the stranger who was still in shackles, and perched to a dark corner of the cell like he’d been the first time we’d seen him. This time, I took a chair in because I wasn’t ready for the violence. All I wanted was to have a clear headed discussion with him and I hoped deep down within me that he’d play along.

I scraped the metallic chair on the concrete floor of the cell as I got in with Chase hovering behind me. I could feel the tension emanating from him but I ignored him and focused all of my attention on the prisoner. As soon as I was close enough to the stranger, I positioned the chair opposite him and sat down.

Chase walked up to the man and grabbed him by his thick curtain of dark hair, forcing him to look up until we were at eye level.

“I think it’s time we have a proper chat,” I started, sitting up with my palms clasped before me.

He stared at me unblinkingly with a lack of interest, yet he said nothing.

“Your group is still at work and they’ve taken to capturing kids,” I clenched my jaw as I let the words out. The thoughts of what they must have done to the missing kids left a bitter taste in my mouth, making my heart pound hard against my chest as fury began pumping in my blood streams.

I couldn’t handle anyone that had no sense of humanity towards women and children.

“And I think you’ll agree with me that it’s very low for them to stretch their inhuman nature towards poor innocent children.” His silence was starting to gradually get on my nerves. I glanced at Chase with a clenched jaw but he nodded at me to continue. “The last time I was here, you made a statement. You said an eye for an eye and it implies you’re saying your attacks are a grudge on my pack. Could you come clean so we can settle this amicably? I’d hate for this to lead to a war that would hurt the innocent,”

Instead of the response I was expecting, a loud cackle hit my ears. His laughter was harsh and dry like it was forced and it only angered me more that he was back to playing his infuriating games, all in a bid to get me upset to the extent that I’d want to slit his throat. I was minutes away from bolting out of my seat and acting on those thoughts, save for the timely intervention of Chase as he smashed his fist into his skull, making the man cough and wince in agony but that didn’t stop him from laughing.

At a point, he spat out blood but then his dark brooding eyes landed on mine and the humor was gone from them. In their place was a hardened expression filled with menace and malice.

“You’re just a boy. This war is not for you. You’re not competent enough to rule this pack, talk more of savaging this situation. I have no words to waste on…” Before he could complete his words, I was out of my chair and my fist was connecting with his mouth.

When he coughed again, it was to spit out broken teeth and that left me with a bit of satisfaction.

“If you value your miserable life, you better speak,” Chase barked at him. But it seemed the man had a death wish, or just didn’t care about his life.

“Oh, trust me, I’d be glad to set my life on the line to avenge my ancestors,”

His words made me frown as silence descended upon us. What did he mean by those words? Who were his ancestors?

I covered the distance between us and wrapped my fingers around his neck, squeezing tightly until his face turned a dark shade of red, and tears began to drip from his eyes from the tightness of my hold on his neck.

“Who are you and what’s your mission?”

He remained silent.

“Speak!” I thundered, tightening my hold on his neck until I felt his body trembling and I watched his life visibly slipping from his body but at the last minute, Chase was on me, yanking me off the miserable man and angrily dragging me out of the cell.

“Fucking keep it togeher!” he yelled at me, slapping my chest as soon as we were outside.

“If he wouldn’t speak, he’s off no use to us.”

“That’s not how this works,” he gritted out through clenched teeth.

We could hear the prisoner coughing but we didn’t spare him a glance.

“Then tell me, how does it work?” I barked, getting angrier but instead of him responding, the prisoner beat him to it.

“It’s an eye for an eye,”