Chapter 156

Time passed in an incoherent haze of misery. Since there were no windows in the room they’d locked me in, I had no idea how long it had been since they dragged me in there and started torturing me.

Every so often, I would awaken back into the nightmare of my incarceration. My eyes were so swollen from the beatings that it was hard to see clearly. Not that it would have mattered. There was nothing inside the cement cell but me.

Then, out of nowhere, the guard showed up one day and didn’t go straight to beating me. I knew it was him even though his image was blurred in my vision because I could smell his seaweedy, low-tide scent. It didn’t turn my stomach the way that it had the first day. Even if it had, I’d eaten nothing since they brought me in here. I was sure I had nothing to puke up at this point.

“Come on,” he snarled, grabbing my arm and yanking me off the floor where I lay.

I cried out as he jarred a dislocated shoulder.

“Shut up if you know what’s good for you,” he ordered.

I stumbled after him as he dragged me out of the cell. I shuddered to think where I was being taken now. And a tiny part of me prayed that they would just go ahead and execute me rather than continue to leave me tortured like this.

I stumbled after him, and as we went through the passageways, they grew lighter. Finally, we passed real windows.

“Where are you taking me?” I mumbled, my lips cracked and slurred the words.

“I said shut up,” he barked, jerking me around.

I cried out again as his motion once again shook that shoulder.

He backhanded me, and I tasted blood. “I said shut up!”

I whimpered and tried to hold back any further noises as best I could. After a few agonizing minutes of walking, he shoved me through a door and slammed it behind him.

I blinked around, trying to get my blurry eyes to focus in on my surroundings. I was in a room with a window and what looked like a table in the center. My heart sank. More interrogation.

I hadn’t said anything to condemn anyone that I had worked with, at least not as far as I knew. I also had never admitted to being on the dark web, as far as I knew. But everything was such a blur, and the goddess only knew what they had managed to get out of me in the delirious moments fuzzed by pain.

I sank to the floor, unable to hold myself up, waiting for the next interrogator to come in and have their turn at me. The only thing I could say I had salvaged out of this whole miserable time in custody was that I hadn’t been raped. I didn’t know if this was some miracle or if they were saving that particular torment for a later time.

The door opened again, and I turned my face to look at whoever entered, wincing at the movement of tendons across my shoulder. Whoever entered gave a soft groan and a click of their tongue. The voice was definitely female.

She hurried over and put gentle hands on me. “You poor thing,” she said. “What have they done to you?”

“Who?” I managed to croak out.

She hushed me. “My name is Dr Perez, and I’m here to take care of you.”

“Doctor?”

She smoothed the gentle hand across my hair. “Don’t speak,” she advised. “You have a lot going on. Let’s get you up here.”

She led me to the thing that looked like a table, which did indeed turn out to be a table, but an exam table. Dr Perez helped me onto it, laying me down. From there, she started carefully and tenderly taking care of all of my wounds.

I let my eyes close and revealed in the ministrations of this kindly doctor.

When I woke next, I was in an actual hospital room, hooked up to softly beeping monitors. Nothing hurt the way that it had before. My movements were no longer painful. I still felt stiff and slightly groggy, but sweet relief coursed through me on the back of drugs.

The door opened, and someone bustled in. I turned my head, expecting to see more blur, but was pleasantly surprised at a clear view of a doctor with dark hair piled on top of her head.

“Oh, good. You’re awake,” she said, shutting the door behind her. “They’ll be so glad.”

“Who will be glad?” I asked, suddenly afraid she’d patched me up so they could start the torture again.

“Relax now,” she said. “You need to build your strength back up.”

I struggled to push myself up on my elbows and off my back.

She grabbed a button and tipped the bed so that I was sitting up.

“Who?” I asked. “What was all this? Why?”

“I don’t have the answers to most of those questions,” she admitted. “I just know they brought you to me, saying that healing you was a priority. I guess you’re some sort of hero of the state.”

I let out what I had thought was a laugh but came out halfway between a cough and a gag.

“Are you all right?” she asked, alarmed.

“I can’t possibly be a hero of the state,” I said.

“No. That’s definitely what they’re calling you,” she contradicted. “I was told to get you fixed up promptly. I guess there are people that are most anxious to see you.”

“Do you have any idea how long I was detained?” I asked.

“I’m sorry. I have no idea. All I was told about your detainment was that there was some sort of mistake, and your care was part of rectifying it.”

She shrugged. “I was told to take good care of you, so I did.”

“Who is my benefactor?” I asked one more time, hoping for some sort of answer.

Again, she shrugged. Dr. Perez went through the machines, checking my vitals and asking me a few more questions. Then she handed me a remote control for the TV hung in the corner.

“If you continue to heal steadily,” she said, “I will allow you to have visitors starting tomorrow. But for now, we’re going to keep you calm and resting quietly. You may watch TV, and we’ll bring you something to eat, assuming you have your appetite back.”

“I’m definitely hungry,” I said.

“We’ve been seeing to your nutrition via IV,” she informed me, pointing to the bag hanging beside me, which was attached to a tube going into my arm. “But I’m aware that’s not the same thing as a solid meal. Though you’ll be starting with easy things like broth and gelatin, so don’t get too excited about the cuisine.”

She laughed as if this were some sort of funny joke and then headed to the doorway. “If you have any questions about your medical state, I have the answers to those. The rest of them, you’ll just have to wait until after you get out and find someone to ask.”

I nodded, not having the energy to argue with her further. I had definitely gone without food long enough that I was in a miserable state, but that didn’t keep my mind from wandering.

Who would have the authority to override the Packhaven state police? How had I gone from a dangerous dissident to a hero of the state within the span of just a week? The only answer I could come up with for those questions and half a dozen others chilled my blood to the very bone.

The only one who had that sort of authority wide-reaching authority was the Alpha King.

But why on earth would the alpha king take an interest in me? And why, in the name of the moon goddess, would his interest be 180° different than what the palace police were accusing me of? Weren’t those his police acting on his orders?

Trying to sort out the connections hurt my brain, so I flipped on the TV and laid back, adjusting my pillow to support my head, which felt like it weighed a million pounds. Curious to see what the date was. I flipped to the state news channel and gasped when I switched it over.

If the dates were right, which they were, unless now the government was lying to the public about what day it was, I’d been gone for an entire week. The content of the news story is what floored me next, almost more than having been gone a week. I was the main story.