LOCKED UP

COURTNEY

I don't want to go back to Diego. I couldn't. The mere thought of returning to that cold, loveless cage made my skin crawl and my chest tighten with suffocation. I ignored the nurse's sharp words, turned on my heel, and headed straight to my house.

As I sat alone in the quiet darkness of my living room, my mind spun out of control. Maybe I should just leave everything behind, I thought, tears burning my eyes. Maybe I should go back to the Monastery of Wolves, take up my gray robes, and live the rest of my life offering sacrifices and prayers to the Goddess of the Moon instead of returning to Diego. At least there, my soul would be safe. At least there, I wouldn't have to choose between my dignity and my child.

Exhausted, broken, and emotionally drained, I eventually collapsed onto my bed and fell into a deep, troubled sleep.

In my dream, the world was pitch black. I saw my son, Bryan, lying on a cold, barren floor, sick, frail, and utterly helpless. His skin was pale, his breathing was shallow, and he reached out his tiny hands toward me. “Mommy... please help me,” he cried out in my mind, his voice breaking. “Save me...”

The dream looked so terrifyingly real that it jolted me awake with a violent gasp. Sitting up in the dark, my heart hammering against my ribs, I knew I couldn't run away to a monastery. I couldn't abandon him. All I wanted in that moment was to go, face the devil himself, and carry my baby back home where he belonged.

But Diego was already moving his pieces to crush me completely.

The next morning, a devastating newsflash hit my phone, followed by urgent calls from my hospital administrator. The land upon which I had built my sprawling medical empire—the biggest and most advanced hospital in the region—was legally a part of the Crescent Moon Pack’s territory. And now, as the reigning Alpha of the pack, Diego was exercising an ancient ancestral clause: he was demanding that I immediately dismantle and take my hospital off his land.

Panic gripping my chest, I threw on my clothes and rushed to the hospital.

When I arrived, chaos had already engulfed the entrance gates. Heavy metal chains and official pack seals barred the front doors. Armed guards hired by Diego stood before the entrance, pushing back staff and patients alike. The nurses were barred from getting inside, even though we had dozens of critical patients currently admitted inside who needed hourly monitoring, oxygen, and urgent medical treatment.

The moment my car pulled up, all the nurses rushed to my side, their faces pale with panic and desperation.

"Dr. Courtney! What do we do?" one of the head nurses cried out, grabbing my arms. "They locked the doors! The intensive care patients are inside, and we don't have the keys or access!"

Outside the gates, the situation was turning into a nightmare. The families of patients were locked outside in the cold morning air. Some were yelling in pure rage, pounding their fists against the iron bars; some were weeping and pleading with the guards on bended knee; and others just stood completely lost, confused, and terrified for their loved ones trapped inside.

"Open the gates! Please, my mother is inside on life support!" a man screamed, tears streaming down his face.

I rushed forward, trying to reason with the lead guard, showing my Chief Medical badge, but they just laughed in my face. "Orders from Alpha Diego," the guard sneered. "No one enters until the hospital is evacuated and torn down."

Time became our enemy. Without doctors inside to administer care, the unthinkable began to happen.

Inside those sealed walls, cut off from their vital machines and medications, patients began to crash.

One death recorded.

When the news leaked through a panicked nurse who managed to slip out a back window, the crowd outside erupted into absolute despair. Then came two deaths. And then three.

By evening, the local news broke out across every screen in the territory, twisting the narrative to paint me as the villain. Headlines flashed across television screens and social media: “CHIEF DOCTOR COURTNEY’S PRIDE KILLS PATIENTS! SHE REFUSES TO SUBMIT TO HER HUSBAND, ALPHA DIEGO, CAUSING TRAGEDY AT HER HOSPITAL!”

The public backlash was swift and brutal. People who once praised me now turned on me with venom. Everywhere I turned, people whispered, pointed fingers, and threw advice like daggers at my heart.

"Do it for the sake of your dying son!" a frantic mother shouted at me as I tried to walk through the angry crowd.

"Just do it for the old men and women trapped in that hospital!" an elderly pack member pleaded, grabbing the sleeve of my coat with trembling hands. "They trusted you to treat them, they believed in your hands! But now they are dying in terrible pain all because of your stubborn pride with your Alpha!"

The weight of the dying patients, the screaming families, and my imprisoned son crushed down upon my shoulders until I could barely breathe. I stood in the middle of the street, shaking uncontrollably, feeling like the most hated woman on earth.

And then, before I could even figure out how to fight back, the flashing lights of pack patrol cruisers surrounded me.

Officers stepped out, their faces stern and devoid of any pity. They didn't care about the politics, and they didn't care about my grief. They held out an arrest warrant signed by the Alpha's council.

"Dr. Courtney Vance," the lead officer declared coldly, clicking handcuffs around my wrists. "You are under arrest for criminal negligence resulting in the deaths at your hospital."

I didn't fight them. I didn't scream. I just let the cold metal snap around my wrists, my mind completely blank and numb as the death toll inside my locked hospital officially reached ten lives lost due to absolute lack of care. Diego had trapped me, beaten me, and now he had put me in chains.