Chapter 19 Strange things
Maya Pov
The sitting room felt too small, the walls pressing in from all sides. Ryker held my hands, his grip steady and warm, but I could barely feel it. My mind kept circling back to Marcus's words, to the photographs of me as a child surrounded by medical equipment, to the horrible possibility that I wasn't who I thought I was.
"I need air." I pulled away from Ryker, standing on shaky legs. "I need to think."
"Maya, we should stay together until the Council meeting—" Ryker started, but I was already moving toward the door.
"I just need a minute. Please." My voice cracked on the last word. I couldn't break down here, not in front of everyone. I needed space to process everything Marcus had told us, to try to make sense of the impossible.
Kade caught my arm gently. "I'll go with her. Just a quick walk, clear her head. We won't leave the packhouse."
Ryker looked like he wanted to argue, but Owen put a hand on his shoulder. "Let her breathe, Alpha. We've got thirty minutes before the another meeting. Kade will keep her safe."
After a long moment, Ryker nodded. "Stay on the main floors. Don't go anywhere isolated. And if anything feels wrong, you call me immediately."
"I promise." I managed a weak smile, grateful he understood my need to move, to do something other than sit and drown in fear.
Kade and I slipped out of the sitting room and into the hallway. Owen followed, his presence a silent comfort. We walked without direction, just putting distance between ourselves and that room, between ourselves and the weight of Marcus's revelations.
The packhouse was different from Ryker's—older, darker, with heavy wooden panels lining the walls and thick carpets muffling our footsteps. Everything felt closed in, oppressive. Or maybe that was just my memories of this place, of the five years I'd spent here as a prisoner.
"Do you think he was telling the truth?" I asked quietly. "About my parents, about what I am?"
Kade was silent for a moment, his expression thoughtful. "I think Marcus believes it's true. Whether it actually is—that's something we'll need to verify. Medical records, research documents, testimony from people who knew your parents."
"But the photographs were real." I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly cold. "I saw myself in them. I was so small, and there were all those machines, all those people in white coats. Why would my parents do that to me?"
"Maybe they were trying to help you." Owen's voice was gentle. "Maybe you were sick, and they were researching a cure. Marcus could be twisting the truth to make it sound sinister."
I wanted to believe that. I wanted to believe my parents had been good people, that they'd loved me and protected me. But I couldn't remember. That was the most terrifying part—I had no memories of my early childhood, nothing before the age of six or seven. Just blank spaces where my life should have been.
We turned a corner and found ourselves in an older section of the packhouse. The carpet here was worn, the wallpaper faded and peeling at the edges. This was the part of the house Marcus didn't bother maintaining, the rooms he didn't use for his important guests and political meetings.
"This is where I lived." The words came out before I could stop them. "The servant quarters. My room was down that hallway."
Kade and Owen exchanged a look, but neither tried to stop me when I started walking toward the familiar corridor. I knew I should turn back, should return to the sitting room and wait for the Council meeting. But something pulled me forward, a need to face this place one more time, to prove to myself that Marcus no longer had power over me.
The hallway was exactly as I remembered—narrow and dim, with doors lining both sides. Most were locked, storage rooms Marcus used for supplies and equipment. But one door stood slightly ajar, light spilling out into the corridor.
I stopped, my heart suddenly pounding. That was my old room. I was sure of it. But I'd left it locked this morning, the key still in Marcus's possession. Someone had opened it.
"Maya, we should go back." Owen's hand rested on his phone, ready to call Ryker. "This feels wrong."
But I was already pushing the door open, stepping into the small room that had been my prison for five years. It looked different in the daylight streaming through the single window—smaller than I remembered, emptier. The bed was still there, the thin mattress I'd slept on, the single blanket that had never been enough during winter. The wooden floor I'd scrubbed until my hands bled.
And there, on the floor near the closet door, was a dark stain I'd never noticed before. Brownish-red, old but still visible against the pale wood.
Blood.
I knelt beside it, my hand hovering over the stain without touching it. This wasn't from a small cut or scrape. This was too much blood, spread too wide. Someone had been badly hurt here.
"Maya, look at this." Kade was standing by the wall, his fingers pressed against the wooden paneling. He pushed, and a section of the wall swung inward with a soft click, revealing a hidden compartment I'd never known existed.
Inside were documents. Folders and folders of papers, all neatly organized and labeled. I pulled out the first one, my hands shaking as I opened it and began to read.
Medical records. Detailed reports of injuries, treatments, diagnoses. But these weren't for me. The name at the top of the first page was Jennifer Cross, a pack member I vaguely remembered from my early days here. The report documented broken ribs, internal bleeding, severe bruising consistent with repeated trauma.
"Abuse," Owen said quietly, reading over my shoulder. "These are records of pack members Marcus hurt."
I grabbed another folder, then another. Each one told the same story—injuries that couldn't be explained by accidents, patterns of trauma that suggested ongoing violence. Some of the victims I recognized. Others were names I'd never heard, people who must have left the pack or disappeared entirely.
"He's been doing this for years." The realization hit me like a physical blow. "It wasn't just me. He's been hurting his own pack members, documenting it like some kind of research project."
Kade pulled out his phone, taking photographs of every page, every document. "This is evidence. This proves Marcus is unfit to lead. The Council will have to act on this."
But as I dug deeper into the hidden compartment, I found something else. A folder with my name on it, thicker than all the others. I opened it with trembling hands, and photographs spilled out onto the floor.
Me at different ages, always injured, always scared. Close-up shots of bruises, burns, cuts. Written notes in Marcus's handwriting describing the "stimuli applied" and my "response patterns." He'd documented everything he'd done to me, catalogued my suffering like a scientist recording data.
"He really was using you as an experiment." Owen's voice was thick with anger and disgust. "Testing your pain tolerance, your healing rate, your psychological resilience."
At the bottom of the folder was a single sheet of paper, different from the others. Older, yellowed with age. A birth certificate, but not the one I'd always known. This one listed different parents—scientists I'd never heard of, people whose names meant nothing to me.
"Maya, we need to get these documents to Ryker." Kade was already photographing the birth certificate, his movements quick and efficient. "This changes everything. This proves—"
Footsteps echoed in the hallway. Fast, purposeful footsteps headed directly toward us.
We froze, our eyes meeting in silent communication. Someone knew we were here. Someone had discovered us in this restricted area, going through Marcus's private records.
The door slammed open, and Sienna stood in the doorway. Her perfectly styled hair was disheveled, her makeup smudged, her eyes wild with something between fear and fury. She looked at us, at the open wall panel, at the documents scattered across the floor, and her face went pale.
"What are you doing here?" Her voice was shrill, panicked. "This area is off-limits. You're trespassing."
"We found your father's evidence collection." I stood slowly, the birth certificate still clutched in my hand. "All the people he's hurt, all the abuse he's documented. We're taking this to the Council."
"You can't." Sienna took a step forward, then another. "You don't understand what you're looking at. Those records are confidential pack business. You have no right—"
"No right?" Owen cut her off, his voice hard. "These are records of crimes. Of systematic abuse and torture. The Council has every right to see them."
Sienna's expression shifted, calculation replacing panic. Her hand moved to her pocket, pulling out her phone. "You're not taking those anywhere."
She raised the phone to her ear, her eyes never leaving us. "Father, I found them. They're in Maya's old room, going through the private files. You need to come now."
Her voice echoed in the small space, loud enough that I knew it would carry down the hallway. Loud enough that anyone nearby would hear, would come running to investigate.
"We're leaving." Kade grabbed as many folders as he could carry, shoving them into his jacket. "Move, Maya."
But when we turned toward the door, Sienna blocked our path. She was smaller than all of us, but she stood there with the confidence of someone who knew backup was coming, who knew she only had to delay us for a few minutes.
"You're not going anywhere." Her smile was cold, triumphant. "Father will be here any second, and when he sees what you've stolen, what you've trespassed to find—"