Chapter 205 ~Rotten Apples~

Chapter 205 ~Rotten Apples~
Darius's POV

I watched Aria walk away, her shoulders held stiff and straight despite everything I could tell she was carrying. And I had to resist the urge to follow. Thankfully Dominic took it up. “I will check on her,” he said. “You handle whatever you need to do over here.”
I offered a grateful smile as he went after her. I stood there a moment longer after they disappeared from sight before turning to Tony, who was still standing near by. “Take me to Tyson.”
Tony nodded and led the way through the holding block toward the isolated cell near the back, the one Tyson had been kept in separately from the others since the fight, given how much unrest he'd managed to stir up.
"We held off shipping him out along with the rest," Tony said as we walked. "Figured it was better to keep him close given how much trouble he'd already caused."
We reached the cell, and Tyson looked up the moment we approached, a short, rough chuckle escaping him as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. His voice came out rough, deeper than I remembered, clearly still struggling from the damage done to his throat during our fight. A bandage was still wrapped tightly around his neck, the skin beneath it slow to heal the way most rogue injuries tended to be once separated from a pack's collective strength.
"Took you long enough," he said, a faint smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth despite the visible pain in his expression. “I thought you'd never figure it out but you actually did.”
"Open it," I told Tony, and the cell door swung open with a heavy creak.
I stepped inside, keeping enough distance between us that I could react quickly if he tried anything, though given his current state, I doubted he had much fight left in him physically. "Why are you doing all this," I asked, cutting straight past any pretense of pleasantries. "If this is meant to be some kind of statement, your reasoning is lost on me entirely."
Tyson's face scrunched up, but he didn't answer right away.
"Where did Camille go?" I asked instead, when the silence stretched too long. But I was still met with silence. He simply stared back at me, jaw set.
"You'd better start talking," I said, letting an edge creep into my voice. "Because right now, you're looking at execution for treason and conspiracy against this pack. Whatever loyalty you think you owe her isn't worth your life."
"Why on earth would you think I'd be willing to help you," Tyson said, his voice flat.
"Because it might make me a little more lenient," I said, leaning forward slightly. "Would you really throw your life away for a woman you barely know?"
He didn't answer that either, so I pressed further. "Why did you help her in the first place?"
Tyson leaned his head back against the wall. For a few seconds I thought he would stay silent but then he spoke. “She reminds me of myself.”
I let out a short, humorless grunt. "Of course she does. You're both rotten to the core."
Tyson started to respond, then coughed hard, the sound wet and painful. When he recovered, his voice had dropped lower, almost tired. "You don't get it, and I don't blame you for that. You'll never understand what it means to be failed by the system you're supposed to trust, or to be wrongfully accused of something you never did."
"Is that what she told you? That she was wrongfully accused?" I asked. "And you simply believed her? I didn't take you for the gullible type, but you keep finding new ways to surprise me."
"Camille is innocent," Tyson said, straightening despite the visible effort it cost him. "But you'll only ever see what you want to see, especially when the truth is inconvenient to your mate."
Something hot flared behind my ribs at the accusation, though I forced myself to keep my voice level. "That woman manipulated everyone around her for years. She killed my child. She's attempted murder more than once, on more than one person. I'm not being biased here. You were fooled by her, same as everyone else she's ever come in contact with."
Tyson cleared his throat and spat on the floor near my feet. "That's not true. Just like with me, everything gets pinned on her because she's the easiest target available to blame."
I dragged a hand down my face. "Is that really the story you're going with? Everyone knows exactly what you did, Tyson so spare me the lies and give me an answer to my questions."
"They're not lies," he said, his voice rising slightly despite the visible strain it put on his throat. "I was wrongfully accused too, and nothing I said back then mattered to the people who decided my fate. Kind of fitting that it still doesn't matter now, since believing otherwise makes you feel better about the choices yourself and the stupid laws you made.”
Then he offered me a wry smile. “However, I have you to thank for everything because I wouldn't ventured beyond my pack otherwise. I wouldn't have known what it felt like to be free. I wouldn't have had the opportunity to save all those people who had been failed, just like me, until you showed up and took that freedom away too, on top of everything else you'd already taken from people like us."
I frowned despite myself. I didn't trust a single word coming out of his mouth, not after everything he'd done, but something about the conviction in his voice, the sheer sincerity behind it, made it difficult to dismiss entirely.
"I don't know where Camille is," he continued, before I could respond. "All I know is she wanted to be free of all of you, and I helped her because refusing would have gone against everything I actually stand for. She's not coming back here. You can be certain of that much, at least. She wouldn't risk her life over nothing."
My hands curled into fists at my sides, and I left the cell without another word, more unsettled by the conversation than I wanted to admit.
If even part of what he claimed about his banishment was true, then I had to fix it. Because then it would mean that the system I was responsible for had played a part in creating the menance of a man now sitting in that cell and that bothered me.
"Gather everything you can find on him," I told Tony once we were clear of the block. "Where he came from, who his people were before all this, what actually happened to get him exiled in the first place. I want the full picture."
Tony nodded and moved to carry out the order. I stood there a moment longer, turning the entire conversation over in my head, walking away with far more questions than I'd arrived with.