chapter 8

RORY

It’s so dark. So cold.

I don’t even know how long I’ve been here. Hours? Days?

Time slips through my fingers like water I can’t feel.

I want to cry. Goddess, I want to cry so badly.

But I can’t.

The tears just won’t come. My chest aches with the weight of them, stuck somewhere behind my ribs, pressing up and up like they’re trying to choke me. But nothing spills out. Not even a single drop.

I hug my knees to my chest, ignoring the sting from where the chains bite into my wrists. The stone beneath me is hard, but it’s the only thing I can lean on. Everything else inside me has gone hollow.

I used to cry so easily. When I was younger. When I still believed someone might come save me when I bruised my knee. Now? I think my body forgot how.

Crying feels like a luxury. Like something soft people do when there’s someone there to hold them after.

I don’t have anyone.

Not anymore.

Not Kaelin. Not Layla. Not father. Not mother. Not the pack. Not even the moon.

Just me. Just this darkness. Just the pounding of my heart reminding me I’m still alive when I wish I wasn’t so sure.

I squeeze my eyes shut and try again—try to sob, scream, anything—but it’s like my body is frozen in silence. Like the pain has filled me up so completely there’s no room left for sound.

Maybe this is what it means to be broken.

Not shattered, not bleeding, not screaming.

Just… silent.

Numb.

Waiting for something to change. Or end.

And then… it changes.

The loud grating sound of metal scraping against metal echoes down the corridor, the unmistakable groan of a heavy door being lifted.

Light floods the hallway, harsh and sudden. My eyes flinch from it, but I don’t move. I want to get up. To see. To run. But I can’t. My limbs feel like they’ve turned to stone, due to exhaustion and defeat.

Several slow measured footsteps follow. The kind that don’t bother hiding.

Then, they stop—right in front of my cell.

A moment later, the door creaks open.

I blink at the blur of shapes, a silhouette filling the doorway. I think I hear someone scoff as they fumble with the lock of my cell. Then, rough hands grab my arms and pull me up like I weigh nothing.

I stumble, nearly falling to my face, but they hold me up—not gently.

"Abnormality," a male voice mutters like a curse under their breath.

That word stings more than the chains digging into my skin.

What do they mean by abnormality?

I don't even need to ask aloud. I know it's probably because they can't sense my wolf.

I don’t ask where we’re going. I don’t resist.

They treat me like an animal not a person. A thing to be displayed. Studied. Disposed of.

Maybe I am.

They shove me forward, and I walk. Not because I’m obedient, but because I have nothing left to fight with. My feet drag along the stone, every step a fresh burst of pain. My ankles throb. My shoulders burn from being yanked.

Still, I don’t lift my head.

I keep my eyes on my feet—battered, bruised, dried blood flaking off with every step. That’s all I focus on. Not the murmurs, not the flickers of torchlight lining the walls, not the strange scent in the air like moss and smoke.

Just one step. Then another.

Too tired to care. Too numb to feel. Too hungry to fear.

If this is where I die, so be it.

Let it be over.

Let it mean something.

Then, we stop. The only change here is the polished marble floor beneath my feet.

One of the men speaks in a clipped voice.

“Mindlink the Beta to inform the King,” he says to someone behind him, “we’ve brought the abnormality.”