Chapter 41

Chapter 41
It was never-ending; Reid was taking things to a nauseating extreme. He was incessant. My stomach flipped at seeing the raw flesh left behind on each finger that Reid touched. He moved quickly through all the fingers on the one hand, then moved along to the next without pausing.  

I realised that I was holding my breath, and before I had managed to fill my lungs and try to stop Reid, I was too late, he had already finished pulling every single nail from both of Beta Pete’s hands. 

Next, without giving Pete a chance to recover, and doing something a little different to what had been done up until now, he started to put on some thick gloves that resembled the ones that you would wear to wash-up. Then, he gingerly grabbed a tall cup of some sort that he had sitting on his trolley of mysterious supplies and started to slowly pour its contents at the top of Pete’s arm. 

I will never forget the scream that came from Pete. 

As soon as the clear liquid touched him, his skin started to sizzle and disappear, as if it was just melting away. 

It had to be some sort of acid. 

The smell as it dissolved Pete’s flesh was really intense, filling the room and making all of us heave. I could see each layer of skin and muscle as it ate away at everything it touched, and with Reid continuously pouring more on, it spread further down his arm, taking everything with it as it went.  

Pete was thrashing in the chair, desperately trying to fight against his restraints. His face had turned red from struggling to take a breath through the pain. After everything that he had already gone through, my heart ached for the poor bugger; losing his home, being imprisoned, losing Gwen - his mate of twenty-one years, and now this. No-one deserved to be put through torture and agony like this, it was completely inhuman. 

Dad had started fighting his restraints too. He had grabbed the chains and was lifting himself up, trying to take the weight off the hooks. But he did not have the strength to hold on with one hand while he used the other to remove any of the hooks that were still embedded in him. Each time that he tried, he fell back down, all his weight crashing down onto the hooks under his flesh and collarbone and he shouted out with his new sudden discomfort. But still, he kept on trying. 

Dane thundered over to Dad, grasped at his hands and sharply yanked him down, pulling him further onto the hooks and so that the tips jutted out from his skin even more. I am pretty sure that I heard the bones make a cracking sound too. 

Eli was violently trying to shake the bars to his cell, like they would crumble away under his grip if he tried hard enough. 

“Alpha, sir.” A skinny, pale and nerdy looking male wolf came running in. If he was not in a guard’s uniform, then I would not have believed that he was one. 
Reid paused what he was doing and huffed, pissed off that he was getting interrupted in what was probably the time of his life.

“What do you want?” His hand was still, hovering at an angle in mid-pour over Beta Pete’s arm. 

“Sir, something’s hap-happened with the p-p-patrol guys. One of them has gone m-missing.” The man stumbled over his words, out of breath and terrified of having to be in front of such a volatile wolf. 

“Missing? What the fuck do you mean, missing?” Reid’s eyebrows were pinched in confusion, not quite believing what this little dweeb was trying to tell him. 
“Taken, sir. He was taken whilst he was on duty.”  

“Well, fuck a duck. I think that is a bit of a problem boss-man.” Dane has a sense of humor? He tried a playful approach when he responded to the shitty news – shitty to them anyway. Secretly I was celebrating inside. 

“Fuck me, I keep telling dad you all need more training.” Reid slammed the cup of acid down, ripped the gloves off his hands and went to storm out of the room, right past me. 

“Ummm, boss-man?” Dane called out to Reid, making him halt in his steps just short of the doorway I was hovering in. 

“What?!” Reid was starting to lose his shit, even on his right-hand man. He stopped moving right in front of me but did not turn around to face anyone else in the room. 

“What you gunna do about the old man?” He used his thumb to point to Pete, who was whimpering in agony whilst his flesh was still burning away and bound to the chair with bleeding wounds in both of his legs. 

Instead of answering though, Reid waltzed over to the trolley, grabbed an old-fashioned cut-throat blade. And in one swift movement, he slashed at Pete’s throat. 

I screamed the same second that he moved faster than lightening, realising a split-second too late what he was about to do.  

It took the blood a few seconds to come; the wound was too clean and precise to bleed instantly. 

Reid threw the knife back down, turned and started to walk away, not concerned in making sure that his victim died. He stormed away, a sudden increase his adrenaline fueling his rage. I could see his eyes glowing as him and his wolf shared their bitter emotions and chatted between themselves. He stormed past, muttering things to himself and Dane in tow. 

“Follow us and stay by our sides.” Dane gave me orders, making Beaux’s hackles rise at the simple idea of following them. 

As I started to follow the pair, two guards entered the room that we were previously in to oversee Dad and Eli now that we were leaving. I took one last quick look back at them, scared for everyone that was now involved more deeply with this shit, and terrified that I may never see either of them again. 

As we moved quickly through the hallways, room after room, the quality of the construction improved; where we had come from was more crudely built, as though it was constructed in a rush to house more prisoners urgently.  

But as we rushed, suddenly there was a weird feeling that I had never felt before so I stopped. 

Confused, I spun around, trying to figure out what it was that had come over me. There was this pull, trying to take me to a dark room that we had not been through already. It was hard to describe, and I had no idea what to do. 

‘Beaux? Do you feel it?’ 

‘I do.’ she whispered, puzzlement tinting her voice. It was like she could not quite believe what she was sensing. 

‘What is it?’ Should I follow it?’ 

‘Family. Blood family.’ 

Those words knocked the wind right out of me, but it explained why it felt like something that I recognised, but at the same time it was foreign, new to me. 
Without even thinking, I followed my instincts.  

I entered a stone room that looked like it had been here for a while, the smell to go with it too; it wreaked of urine and faeces. There was a single cage with one lonely person that looked like he had been there for so long he could pass as a part of the wall; he was so dirty, and I could see the evidence of the malnutrition that he was suffering. His head hung down, the scent of defeat strong.  

My head tilted to the side as I studied him with his over-grown, shoulder length dark hair streaked with grey and greasy as hell. I did not feel scared in the presence of the man, but comfortable, like he would never hurt me.  

It seemed like he would be big wolf if was able to take care of himself properly; he just had that build, you know? 

“Just what the fuck do you think you are doing?” Reid screeched from behind me, scaring the ever-loving shit out of me. 

“Nothing. I’m coming now.” Reluctantly, I bowed my head and darted out of the room, promising myself that I would find answers to all my questions. The main one being, who the fucking hell is that wolf? And why the hell does it feel like I know him?