CHAPTER 36: Imprisoned

CHAPTER 36: Imprisoned

I wake to cold and a stinging pain at the back of my head that throbs and throbs. Everything around me is pitch black. It takes me a while to adjust to it and realize that I'm in a room with absolutely no source of light and no windows. A single metal door at one end.

There's a light coming from beneath it.

I try to move, but my limbs feel like they've been filled with concrete as if something has sucked all energy from them and now, they are too heavy, too useless. My wrists are raw where. They're bound in thick iron cuffs that I yank at the moment I become aware of them.

In an instant, my wolf becomes restless at the fact we are chained.

*What's happening?*

I push back the nausea curling in my gut and sit up slowly. The restraints on my ankles don't let me go far, and even when I try to shift to break free, I can't seem to.

I don't have enough strength to do anything.

My memories come rushing in as soon as the pain in the back of my head intensifies.

I was at the house. How did I end up here? Those men—what did they want?

Suddenly, the door opens. Light slices through the darkness, and my eyes strain against the sudden change. I see someone in the doorway. Two different shadows linger again behind the person in front.

The councilman.

"What—what did you do?" My voice feels hoarse and rough. "Where am I?" My question lingers between the two of us as my mind swirls to figure out just how long I have been here.

"Safe. For now, at least," He steps inside and the other two remain outside, the door still open. "We knew you wouldn't come with us willingly so we had to resort to other ways of persuasion."

I look up at him and try to pull at my wrists to bring them close to the injury on the back of my head.

"For what? Let me go," I demand through gritted teeth. "This is ridiculous."

"Not for us," The councilman replies, coming forward in the room, and as my eyes have mostly adjusted to the lighting now, I can make out more of my surroundings. "We have learned from a very reliable source about your—well, how to put it in words—your abilities."

My mouth goes dry at his words. So, my worst suspicions are coming to light. I don't respond but wait for him to continue.

"You took a bullet just a few days ago and recovered faster than a documented shifter. You're stronger than a standard werewolf. Faster. And you heal quicker, too. And there's no official record of you taking the oath. That makes you a threat. Or a resource. Depending on what we find."

My blood chills in my body as he says those things.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I try to say.

There was no one who had seen that, when I got shot except for Mara and Lucian—and that woman who came to heal me. Or at least tried to.

Did she—I don't want to go there because then that means they knew.

"You clearly are well aware of what I'm talking about, Aria." He paces around the small room. "Now the question is, are you going to cooperate?"

"And why would I?"

"If you're a threat, it is my job to end it before you cause any more harm. And if you aren't, then perhaps we can come to an agreement."

He makes his way back to me before kneeling down. He takes something off his belt and then he brings it closer. He opens a silver container and it smells of a herb that I immediately recognize.

*Mistlock.*

One of the herbs which slows down the shift, and can make anyone weak. It can weaken their wolf.

No wonder I can barely feel my wolf inside right now.

"I'm not giving you anything!" I snap, struggling against the restraints.

"We'll see." He turns around and looks at one of the men who step inside the room at his command.

He brings in something else. A syringe, full of a liquid that I can't quite make sense of.

"You can't do that," I tell him as soon as they come closer to me.

"Yes, I can." he uncaps the syringe and brings it up. It looks like silver. Like the liquid silver. Like the one my father used to use on me.

For a normal wolf, it would take weeks before one could heal from silver within their body. However, with the amount I've been injected with in the past, it hardly has an effect on me anymore. It still doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt.

Because it does.

Every time.

"Stop!" I scream as the man comes in closer. My wolf tries to pull forward, but she can't.

I can't even shift.

"You don't have to cooperate, Aria. This is only a preliminary test. We'll know what you are once we've completed the entire test." The councilman mutters, before looking at the other men. "Go ahead."

"No!" My scream bounces off the walls as I feel a needle being jammed in my arms. A searing pain rushes into my body and then the burning starts.

I thrash and scream some more until the councilman gets up and stands back. "We're going to leave now, and we'll come back in half an hour to see if you're still in one piece."

They're subjecting me to torture. To see if I can take the silver. To see what will happen. What my body will do, and how I will survive.

"No, please stop." I plead, my hands shaking against the chains as I struggle to bring them up to my own arm, but nothing. "Let me go."

"See you in thirty." The councilman leaves the room with the two others and shuts the door on me before plunging me into complete darkness once more.

What is this? Why?

My insides burn as the liquid keeps coursing inside my blood.

My body shakes, not only out of pain but also in fury. No one was supposed to know. This was never supposed to happen.

Every minute drags on painfully. The ache in my muscles is worse. Even breathing feels hard.

Sweat beads on my forehead, plastering my hair against my face and all the while my skin burns like fire. I start to hear my father's voice in the back of my mind, the way he used to talk to me before experimenting with his weapons and things on me, to see their effects and how it all works.

'This is for your own good. So we know, Aria.'

He used to say.

I remember the first time he used silver on me. When I didn't know how much of an effect it would have on me. How long the agony would last.

My mind keeps swirling to different moments of the past. Of my childhood, my time in the camp, all of it.

And it's hell.