Fit for Fire

Adeline

I had no idea how long I’d been sitting there. Heck, I didn’t even know how long I’d been in this place. The lights were always on, and there were no windows or clocks to give me a clue.

Just as I was about to try and get some sleep, I heard footsteps approaching my cell. Did they know I couldn’t shift? Was this a side effect of whatever drug they’d given me? I moved to the edge of the bed, waiting.

The footsteps stopped outside my door. I looked down at my feet and took a deep breath, trying to brace myself for whatever was coming next.

The same man who’d questioned me before walked into my tiny cell. He stared at me, locking eyes, as if he was trying to figure out how much of a threat I was.

Once he was convinced I wasn’t going to attack him, he said, “I’ve updated the beta on our last conversation.

“Our patrols haven’t found any more rogues so far, so we’re willing to hear you out, for now.”

I nodded slowly, waiting for the inevitable “but.”

“We’d like you to stay with us a bit longer until we’re satisfied with your story.”

Figures. “Not like I have much of a choice,” I muttered.

“Get up,” he ordered sharply.

I jumped up, instantly regretting my smart mouth.

“Follow me.” He gestured toward the door.

“Where to?” I dared to ask.

“Our beta wants to speak with you.” He started to walk out.

I took a step forward, then stopped.

Noticing I wasn’t following, he turned around and gave me an exasperated look. “What?” he asked, studying my face.

“I can’t meet him.”

He groaned, running his hand through his short sandy hair. “Why?”

I glanced down at the blanket I was using as a makeshift dress, then back at him. He looked confused, so I did it again, more pointedly this time.

Finally catching on, he shrugged, showing his own frustration and confusion.

Rolling my eyes, I growled, “I’m naked.”

His eyebrows knitted together, and he stared at my body for a few seconds. A few seconds too long.

I cleared my throat loudly. “So, are you going to do something about it, or just keep staring?”

Snapping out of his daze, he scratched his head more vigorously and started mumbling before saying, “Wait here.”

He left the room before I could respond, pulling the door closed behind him. Wait here? Where did he think I was going to go?

He returned quickly, still mumbling, with an oversized man’s shirt and basketball shorts in hand.

He handed them to me and closed the door. From my vantage point at the small window, I could see he had his back turned to the door.

I dropped the blanket and quickly pulled the shirt over my head. At five-three, I wasn’t exactly tall, so the shirt fell to my mid-thigh.

The basketball shorts hung a few inches above my ankles, and even after tying the drawstring as tight as I could, I was still worried they would slide down my hips.

I knocked on the door to let the guard know I was ready, and he opened the door. After giving me a quick once-over, he motioned for me to follow him down the corridor.

The hallway stretched the length of the building. My cell was the last of five. We passed a large wooden desk at the end of the hallway.

Monitors covered the entire right side of the desk, showing security footage of the entire facility.

We turned left past the desk and headed toward a staircase in the back corner of the building.

We passed another hallway identical to mine, also housing five cells.

The whole place was a lot smaller than I’d initially thought, and it looked more like a high-end dog pound than anything else.

When we reached the stairs, I held onto the waist of the basketball shorts, afraid they would fall down during the climb.

I tried to take in as much as I could. The simple layout made it easier to memorize everything.

I didn’t know what else the beta, as my guard had called him, wanted to discuss. I’d pretty much told the guard everything already.

Hopefully, that would be enough for this guy to realize I wasn’t a rogue and I didn’t have any hidden agendas. My only goal was to get home.

At the top of the staircase, the guard punched a code into a keypad by the door. The door beeped, and he held it open for me.

I wasn’t thrilled about having this big, strange man behind me, but when he made it clear he wasn’t going to move until I did, I walked through the door.

The hallway I found myself in looked like it belonged in an office building.

There were a few filing cabinets lining the walls, generic thin gray and white carpet on the floor, and a fake tree.

I jumped at the sound of the door closing behind me. The guard looked like he wanted to laugh before he motioned for me to continue following him down the hall.

We turned right at the end of the hall and came to a dark cherry-wood door.

After he knocked on the door, we waited until a deep voice invited us in.

Once again, the guard held the door open as I walked in. The room contained a large metal desk.

The desk was designed to hold restraints for inmates if necessary. A few metal chairs were placed on either side of the desk, but other than that, the room was empty.

The man sitting on the far side of the desk was as big as my guard. He had a tan, clean-shaven face, dark brown eyes, and short brown hair.

His face was annoyingly familiar. He was fiddling with his phone and was dressed in business attire.

He looked up at us, inspected me for a moment, then addressed the guard.

“Thanks, Jeremy. I can take it from here.”

Jeremy! Was that the name of one of the men in the forest? The guard nodded and left, closing the door behind him.

The man motioned for me to sit, so I took a chair opposite him, dropping my hands into my lap.

I quickly sifted through the faded images, the pitiful remnants of what I was forced to label as memories.

Their haziness and incompleteness were becoming more and more frustrating in my time of need.

I had a hunch about this man’s role in my captivity, but I couldn’t be certain.

I began fiddling with the hem of my shirt as the man continued to play with his phone.

He looked up and introduced himself.

“My name’s Patrick Deloney. I’m the beta of the Moon Ridge Pack. Our alpha is tied up at the moment, so he’ll be joining us over speaker. I’ll be taking your statement.”

I nodded, my mouth suddenly dry. Alpha? Beta? Pack? Were all these people like me?

Was this some kind of trial? I felt like I needed a lawyer or someone to defend me.

He placed his phone on the table, pressed a few buttons, and then said, “State your name.”

No. This wasn’t going to go down like this. I hadn’t done anything wrong. These people had kidnapped me. I wasn’t about to be treated like a criminal for going for a run.

“Statement? I went for a run.”

The man shot me an irritated look.

Before he could respond, a loud voice boomed from the phone. “Patrick? I’m on.”

“I’m here, Alpha. We’ve just started the questioning,” Patrick replied.

Questioning? What happened to taking my statement?

“Name?” Patrick asked again.

“I’m being questioned for going for a run?” I retorted with my own question.

Patrick’s face remained stern as he said, “No. You’re being questioned for being a rogue on our land.”

Now it was my turn to be irritated. “Why do you people keep calling me that?”

I knew it wasn’t smart to provoke these men, but I needed my own answers.

“You’re not part of our pack, and as far as I can tell, you’re not part of any pack. You have no alpha. You’re a rogue.”

I furrowed my brows and stared at the table before slowly saying, “So you’re… You all are werewolves?”

Patrick watched me, his interest piqued as he replied, “Yes, except for a few human mates.”

I took a moment to process this before asking, “Are packs big?”

“Packs vary in size depending on the area. The largest pack I’ve seen had about 800 people.”

My mouth dropped open, and I leaned back in my chair. Eight hundred? I knew there would be others, but I had always imagined they would be scattered and rare.

I would have guessed there were maybe 800 in the entire world, but in one pack? I was speechless.

“Name?” Patrick asked gently.

“Adeline Harris,” I answered softly, still in shock.

“Alright, Adeline, can you tell us why you were on our pack grounds?”

I looked up from the spot I had been staring at on the desk and said, “I’ve already told you and your guard. Running. I felt like going for a run, and the woods seemed like the perfect place.”

“It’s quite a coincidence that you just happened to choose our pack grounds for your run.”

Before I could respond, the alpha interjected, “It’s also hard to believe that you’ve lived your whole life without knowing about pack culture or meeting other wolves.”

So he speaks.

“How is that?” Patrick asked, seemingly finishing the alpha’s thought.

“My mother died giving birth to me, so I was raised in foster care.”

“What about your father?” Patrick asked.

“I don’t know. There’s no record of him,” I explained simply.

I had thought about my father many times. Was he dead, or was I the result of a fleeting encounter with a stranger?

Maybe he couldn’t be bothered to stick around. Did he even know I existed? Did he know my mother was dead? I had asked these questions my whole life.

I knew they would never be answered, but still, I had lost countless hours of sleep over them.

“It’s strange that you ended up in the system, and even stranger that you don’t know anything,” Patrick stated.

“Why?” I asked. “It’s not like there was a werewolf information center I could go to after I first changed. I couldn’t exactly Google ‘I just found out I’m a werewolf, now what?’”

The alpha laughed at this.

Patrick furrowed his brow and explained, “If a child in the pack is orphaned and has no living relatives, someone in the pack adopts the child.”

“So the options are your pack is gone, they don’t know you exist, or you were born to a rogue.”

My mind was spinning from all the information I was receiving. I was learning more about my past now than I had in years.

Patrick’s voice cut through my thoughts. “What do you think, Alpha?”

“Everything checks out. I’ve got her file right here.”

My eyes darted to the phone. “My file? You have my personal information?” I felt violated on a whole new level.

“Of course,” he replied nonchalantly.

“What was the point of asking me all this if you already knew?” I asked, angry that he thought he could invade my privacy whenever he wanted.

How was he even able to access my information?

“To see if you would tell us the truth.”

I felt like grabbing the phone and throwing it.

“What should we do with her?” Patrick asked, watching me. I glared back, my eyes blazing.

“We’ll keep her here for a couple of days for observation. Then we can make a more informed decision.”

My heart sank. Keep me here? No. I was going home.

“No.” The word slipped out before I could stop it.

“No?” Patrick asked.

“No.” I repeated. “I haven’t done anything wrong. You can’t keep me here. I’m going home.”

Patrick’s eyes widened in surprise. He clearly didn’t expect me to speak up. “You’re on pack territory, and you assaulted our wolves. We have the right to hold you.”

I stood up, placing my hands firmly on the table and pointing a finger at him.

“Your wolves were the ones hunting me. They attacked first. I was terrified. Did you really think I’d just lie down and let a bunch of wolves do whatever they wanted to me?

“You’re not the law. I’m sure the real authorities would be interested to hear about how I was drugged, kidnapped, and thrown into a cell.

“I’m not staying here. Your rules don’t apply to me. I want to leave.”

The last sentence came out as a growl. My inner wolf was as angry as I was.

“You’re going to tell the police you were kidnapped by werewolves?” Patrick shot back.

“Of course not. I don’t have to mention that part. But what I can tell them is enough to get you locked up for a good while.”

I was clutching at straws, but I was determined not to stay.

“Also, I told my friend I’d be hiking in these woods. If I don’t show up soon, people will start looking for me.”

I added that, hoping the threat of a missing person report and a search party would intimidate them.

“We have ties with the local police, and no one is looking for you, Adeline,” the alpha told me.

Damn. “Not yet. But when I don’t show up for work, my boss will get suspicious, my friends will worry, and questions will be asked. My boyfriend will start searching for me,” I retorted.

“What’s your boyfriend's name?” Patrick asked.

“You think I’d tell you? Who knows what you’d do to him? Check my file,” I snapped, praying they wouldn’t see through my bluff.

In reality, the alpha was right. No one was looking for me.

“Look, I have a life. A job, friends, bills to pay. I can’t stay here, and you can’t force me to. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

The room fell silent as I locked eyes with Patrick, silently pleading for him to say what I wanted to hear.

But when he finally spoke, he simply called for Jeremy to escort me back to my cell.