Venom & Vow

The interrogation room smelled of copper and fear. A smell I’d know instantly anywhere. Not that I didn’t carry my fair share in knowing the difference. As copper was blood. While fear was the pungent smell of Wardens. Like those who dragged me in. The ones who knew exactly what I was and was capable of doing and were terrified anyways. A feeling I should’ve been proud of yet wasn’t.

The room itself sterile. White walls with cold concrete floor. The floor stained with things I didn’t want to address. A single chair bolted to the center of the floor. The same one used to strap people in. Metal restraints soon biting against wrists and ankles, the kind designed specifically for shifters. Shifters like me. The kind that were reinforced. Unbreakable. The kind that burned against skin. As if laced with silver, even though they weren’t. The idea sending my wolf pacing frantically along my mind.

The overhead lights both bright, fluorescent and harsh. Each one casting the room in a sickly white glow. No windows. And no way to track time. Just me, a chair, and the speaker in the far corner that sat waiting for judgment.

“Subject 7749,” comes a voice through the overhead speaker, the voice clinical and cold. “You refused a direct order from the Commander himself. Explain.”

Explain?

How?

My jaw was literally wired shut. So speech wasn’t an option. They’d done it on purpose. The Directorate not ones for explanation. They wanted obedience, and when obedience failed, they wanted silence. Absolute silence.

The order made simple: execute the unregistered omega within holding block 3. No trial. No questions. Just a bullet and a body to dispose of.

Yet I decided to deviate.

Not that it wasn’t my first time I questioned the regime. Nor was it the first time I refused an order. But it was the first time I did it in front of witnesses. The first time I made it matter. The first time I’d looked at something broken and decided I wouldn’t be the one to finish breaking it.

The omega young, possibly twenty. Male, which was already considered an unwanted anomaly. Suppressors that were designed to prevent male omegas from even existing. Yet suppressors often failed. And biology was far messier than the regime liked to admit. His scent sharp. Fear and resignation both present. The kind of hopelessness that came from knowing the system decided your fate before you were born.

The omega staring at me with eyes that held zero hope, just resignation. As if he’d always known this was how it would end. As if he been waiting his whole life just for someone else to pull the trigger.

My eyes locked with his and I think: Nope. Not today.

“You’re going to be reprogrammed,” the voice continues, each word landing like a hammer blow. “Your loyalty markers reset. While your memories of the incident erased. You’ll then return to duty, or face termination.”

Reprogrammed. The words hanging along like poison. As I once seen what happened to operatives who got reprogrammed. They came back different. Hollow. Empty shells that moved through motions of duty without any fire that once made them dangerous. They’d take whatever made me me—the defiance, the rage, the part of me that finally decided to say no—and burn it all away.

The Regime using the same speech. Same threat. A hundred times over to a hundred different operatives who all stepped out of line. Even delivering the speech once myself. Back when I believed. Back when I thought the Directorate were keeping people safe instead of controlling them. Back when I was too young and too stupid to understand the difference between order and oppression.

The door to the interrogation room opening and cutting my thoughts away like a blade.

A Warden soon stepping inside. The man tall, broad-shouldered, and with ritual-enhanced markings that made him elite. His eyes cold, yet there was something else present too. Curiosity, possibly hunger. The kind of hunger that came from a predator who recognized another. The Warden moving with a confidence of someone who was never told no. Who never considered the possibility that his orders might be questioned.

“Last chance,” the Warden says, his voice low and dangerous. “Recant. Pledge loyalty. And accept reprogramming. Make it easier on yourself and me.”

Yet, I still managed to refuse. Unable to answer. My eyes meeting the Warden’s and held. Defiance burning deep within my chest like a live coal, so hot it hurt. So hot that even with my jaw wired shut, restrained and helpless, I could communicate exactly what I thought about his offer.

Something flickering across his face. Anger, possibly fear. The kind of fear that came from realizing that some things couldn’t be controlled, no matter how many chains you had wrapped around them physically.

The Warden soon raising his weapon, hand steady, expression hardening into something far crueler.

Though he doesn’t shoot. Not yet. Only steps closer. Like he wanted to watch it happen up close. Like pain was a lesson he preferred to teach personally.

“You’re valuable,” he states, his voice conversational. “A trained asset with a rare profile. And the Commander hates wasting resources.” His gaze flickering towards my jaw. The wires still biting against swollen skin. “But he does like making examples out of people.”

Holstering his weapon, he reaches for the panel controlling my restraint along the chair. A keycard swipe. A code. And the cuffs around my right wrist loosen with a click.

“We’re moving you,” he mutters. “Containment is about to—”

Chaos suddenly hitting.

The lights instantly dying. And alarms start blaring. The whole building shaking like something slammed against it from the outside, dust raining from the ceiling above. My enhanced senses catching it all. Explosives, blood, smoke, and something wild and feral tearing through the corridors like a promise.

The Warden soon swearing and turns toward the door, one hand still along the panel. Another click—and my left wrist loosens. Not free, not fully, but enough.

The Warden then yanking the door open to shout orders directly into the hall. A weakness. A moment of arrogance.

My body quick to surge forward, using the slack he’d given me, the half-released cuffs biting against flesh as I throw my weight directly against him. The hit hard, so hard that I drive him directly into the wall. His breath leaving with a grunt. The weapon along his hip knocked loose and clatters against the floor.

My hand finding it without hesitation. The weight of it familiar. Dangerous. Mine.

A shot echoing the small room. The Warden soon falling. His body hitting the ground with a wet, final sound.

My body still standing, still breathing, all while holding the weapon still within my hand. The Warden now dead. An instant death sentence. An end to everything else. To any chance of me ever going back, of me pretending I was still loyal, of me fitting in.

But above all, I was finally free.

The corridor outside filled with nothing but chaos. Smoke, gunfire, and the sound of something massive moving throughout the building. Quick to run, I follow my instincts. Following the scent of something wild and dangerous that smelled highly of freedom. My bare feet slapping against cold flooring. My lungs burning with each breath. My body screaming in protest as the adrenaline wears off and the pain begins to set in.

Though, I wasn’t sure if I knew exactly where I was going. Just knew I had to get out. Had to move. Had to run until the Directorate couldn’t find me.

The forest now finding me before I managed to find it. Like, one moment I’m running through corridors, and the next, I’m crashing through fences and trees. My lungs burning. My body screaming. And the suppressors they injected in me were starting to wear off, my wolf clawing to get free. Scratching along the surface like it was trying to claw its way out.

A freedom I grant.

The shift agonizingly painful. My bones breaking and rearranging themselves, my skin rippling, while the human part of me receded slowly into the background. My teeth sharpening. My senses exploding. The world suddenly vivid and sharp and real in ways it never was before. But it also felt right in ways nothing else had in years. My wolf faster, stronger, and could navigate the forest far better than my human self could. My wolf able to smell the Directorate’s drones along the distance and knew exactly were to run to avoid them.

My body running until my legs finally caved. Until the forest was so deep and dark that even the Directorate’s drones couldn’t find me. Until the sound of pursuit fades into nothing but wind, leaves and the distant sound of night birds.

My body collapsing into a ravine, half-shifted, and caught between forms. Blood dripping from all of my wounds. My ribs broken. So broken I could feel them grinding together with each shallow breath. My jaw throbbing from where the wires had cut against flesh. My vision starting to blur.

My body gradually dying. Or possibly, I was finally free. Maybe they were two of the same coin, and I was just too far gone to realize the difference.

The darkness soon rising, creeping along the edges of vision. A darkness ready to take me and for once, I wasn’t afraid. For the first time in all my life, I was ready to let go.