012 - Ashina

It felt like torture.

Watching Maya convulse under the fluorescent glare of the lab with her body thrashing as the sedative-trance cocktail surged through her veins, tore at every thread of restraint I had. The ragged, guttural, laced with pain sounds that came from her mouth felt like knives scraping against my soul, twisting deeper with each cry.

They shattered whatever strength and composure I had left, but all I could do was stand there with my fists clenched, my nails biting into my palm and my stomach churning.

Dr. Veyra had managed to convince me to go through with it because I wanted answers and doing nothing was so much worse. I’d tried to find out exactly what the procedure and process was but Dr. Veyra had looked me dead in the eye and said, "It’s better if you don’t know."

That answer was scarier than any explanation ever could. The agony that followed was unbearable.

When Maya started screaming again, I couldn’t take it anymore. I stormed out of the lab with my boots echoing sharply against the steep floor, and my body trembling violently. I needed to breathe, to get away from the sound of my best friend breaking down and wailing.

I paced the corridor, my head pounding and my nails forming crescent shapes into my palms. Helplessness was a feeling I knew all too well despite how much I’d tried not to feel that way and yet going through this, watching Maya in pain, topped every single moment of despair, I’d ever gone through.

My wolf howled beneath my skin and every bit of me felt hot with despair and anguish.

I was so lost in my pain and thoughts that I didn’t sense any approach until a hand touched my shoulder, lightly.

I whirled around, instantly raising my fists as my eyes blazed with anger and contempt.

“Whoa—sorry!” the lab attendant ducked quickly. “Dr. Veyra sent me. You’re needed inside. Your friend is... ready for you now.”

My chest heaved and I instantly dropped my hands, standing properly. I blinked, trying to snap myself out of the haze I was in. “Sorry,” I muttered, stepping back. “I—”

“It’s okay,” he said gently. “Dr. Veyra said I should get you because it’s better if the questions come from a friendly voice.”

I swallowed hard. I didn’t feel like a friendly voice at all. Nothing about me felt friendly, especially with what I was putting her through.

But I nodded, taking breaths and trying to steel myself. I followed the attendant back into the lab where Maya was no longer thrashing. A subtle breath of relief filled me but it was short-lived because although it seemed she was no longer in pain, she still looked like the anguish and pain she was going through.

Her body was slumped in a horizontal capsule with her head tilted and her unfocused eyes, half-opened. Monitors attached to her beeped quietly, and translucent fluid still pumped through the IV lines.

I took hesitant steps forward before meeting Dr. Veyra at the capsule’s side. She was flanked by two strangers in sleek black suits and cool gazes, who seemed so out of place in a lab like that but yet they were relaxed in a way that said this wasn’t their first rodeo in the lab.

“These are behavioral profilers,” Dr. Veyra clarified as she followed my gaze to them. “They’re here to help us map the scene and reconstruct what happened through her responses. You’ll be her anchor—her familiar presence. She’ll respond better to you than us.”

One of the profilers, a woman with short blonde hair, stepped forward. “Your job is to guide her calmly. We’ll be feeding you questions which must be as specific as possible. We need places, faces, triggers, and patterns. Anything she gives us might help us trace the man who did this.”

I nodded slowly as my stomach twisted into tight knots. I didn’t trust myself to speak.

“She’s already in a vulnerable suggestible state,” Veyra added. “But any strong emotional disruption might send her body into another episode. Ask the questions, Ashina. No matter how hard it gets.”

I nodded again and sank into the seat beside Maya. My fingers gripped the armrest like it was the only thing keeping me grounded. Maya’s pale lashes fluttered as I leaned closer.

I exhaled. “Maya... can you hear me?”

She gave a small, jerky nod.

“Okay. I… You went to a bar, Maya, during working hours, what bar did you go to?”

Maya stirred as if uncomfortable. “I didn’t… I didn’t…”

The blonde profiler held up a clipboard and shook her head.

I was chastising her and that was not going to work. I took another deep breath, thinking of a change in tactics.

“That’s fine, May. You just haven’t told me about your wild night and I’m curious. What bar did you go too Maya?”

“I don’t… I don’t remember the name.”

“What can you tell me about the place?”

“Bar… with red lights,” Maya murmured. “Loud. Obnoxiously loud even now. Smelled like burnt sugar.”

The other profiler held his own clipboard up and I nodded, turning my attention back to Maya.

“Did you go with someone, May?”

Maya shook her head slowly. “Chloe,” she said before letting out a shaky angry groan. “She left me.”

I almost scoffed at that revelation. She went to a bar during the day with her obnoxious co-worker Chloe who she always complained about. Just what was going on in Maya’s life that I didn’t know?

I shook my head, trying to focus on the matter on ground. I already had enough to berate myself for being the worst friend possible, there was no need to add more to it.

“Did someone approach you?” I asked from the profiler’s ‘guidance’.

Maya flinched as her body twitched violently, and her breathing spiked. The monitors beeped and my heart spiked as my throat burned. I reached out instinctively, but Veyra raised a hand. “You can’t stop now,” she mouthed.

I grit my teeth as my throat burned. “Maya. Stay with me, please. You’re safe, I promise. I just need you to tell me, who came to you?”

“I don’t… I don’t. No one. Oh, he’s approaching. He’s approaching Ash. He’s…” The spiking of her heart beat doesn’t relax and all.

“Maya, I’m here with you, I promise. You are fine. No one is going to hurt you.”

No. No one could hurt her then because they already did. But that information wasn’t going to help her at that moment so I kept it to myself.

“What does he look like, Maya?”

“He’s tall…has dark hair with that one silver streak that I want to curl my hand through.”

Under normal circumstances, that would have made me laugh. Because only Maya would be slightly scared of someone and still want to jump the person. But we were not under normal circumstances and all that statement brought to my eyes was tears.

“What else do you remember?”

“His eyes were like ice blue and looked just about as cold. He had a scar... under his chin. Small.”

I swallowed, forcing bile down. He didn’t sound like anyone I knew. Was he from a pack I didn’t know about? My head was ringing from the information that there were possible werewolves from other packs loitering around us there when I thought I was the only wannabe human there.

But then there was Kae…

I burned the thought out of my mind before it could fully thought. That name and presence were banned from my mind and thoughts as I focused back onto Maya.

“Did he say anything to you?”

“No, he watched when he thought I wasn’t looking. Playing hard to get. I wasn’t in the mood for games. I approached him.”

I froze, my brows furrowing. She’s the one who approached him? Goodness, Maya.

“Maya what happened after?”

“We talked. My charm worked faster…”

More like he gave in faster.

“He kissed me… we went somewhere and it was good.”

I forced down another wave of nausea down and my fingers clenched into fists.

“But then he bit me. It was… good but then it felt so wrong.”

My vision blurred with tears. Everyone gestured that I should keep going but I felt like I had heard enough.

“Did he say anything else?”

Maya started convulsing again, her body jerked and slammed once against the side of the capsule.

I stood. “That’s enough! She’s in pa—”

“No,” Veyra said sharply. “Finish what you started.”

I wanted to scream and tear at everything to get her away from these people. But there was nowhere to take her to, so instead I sat back down with my heart pounding against my ribs.

I chocked back a sob. “Hey, Maya. Please, just one more time, okay? Just… I just need you to tell me if he said anything else?”

“I... I don’t… See you soon, 101. He said… he’d come back for me.”

101?

He’d come back for her?

I couldn’t ask anymore as I huffed off the seat and stalked out of the lab knowing they would get Maya back into her unconscious state.

My chest burned with fury. I needed to find Chloe and then find out whoever this man was.

And make him regret ever touching my best friend.