Chapter 18: Interrogation
Brooke sat at her new desk in her large bedroom, struggling with her overdue chemistry homework. They were doing a unit on stoichiometry, and it was throwing her for a loop. No matter what she tried, her chemical reactions never seemed to come out quite right. She was supposed to have turned it in a week ago, but she’d had a three-day migraine, followed by a four-day migraine a day later.
Brooke wasn’t sure what had triggered the attacks, but she suspected it was the colder weather that meant winter was coming. Her migraines were always worse in the winter. Whatever the reason, they had had a severe impact on Avery. Brooke had wanted to move to one of the outbuildings temporarily so that Avery could work and run the pack without being crippled by her pain, but Avery wouldn’t hear it. Even as she struggled to stand up straight from the pain coursing through her head. So, they had compromised. Brooke had stayed in the house and Avery had moved her office to one of the furthest outbuildings. She had run the pack’s business from there for the duration of the attacks. But as soon as she was no longer needed as alpha, she was lying at Brooke’s side, siphoning as much of her pain away as she could, even though it made her miserable. They were miserable together. And that made it more bearable.
Brooke had finally recovered the day before, only to be greeted by a mountain of homework from her chemistry professor, Mr. Whitman. He had only agreed to give her a three-day extension to finish it all, so she had to buckle down. When she had politely requested more time, trying her best to explain her medical situation in as few words possible, he’d told her that she should have been working on it all the time she was home. Brooke struggled to finish the work he had assigned for that week, let alone the makeup work from the week before. She’d been given such a short extension, she would have to do the catch up first but that was sure to eat up all three days, and then she would only have three more days to do her homework for that week. And this week’s homework was even harder because she had missed last week’s lectures setting it up. Brooke sighed deeply.
A few minutes later she was still stuck on the same problem, her temple starting to throb from the mental strain, when Brooke felt a cloud of happiness pushing against the edge of her tired mind. Avery had returned from her run. Brooke heard the sound of claws on the wooden deck of the veranda, and she smiled. There were several seconds of silence while Avery shifted and then the door opened. Brooke turned to see Avery standing there completely naked, her wild tangle of black hair full of leaves, her leg and arm hair streaked with dirt, her golden brown skin glowing in the beam of sunlight the open door let in. Clutched in her teeth was a thick-stemmed purple flower.
“Hello, my love,” Avery said, rounding the bed and leaning down to give Brooke a tender kiss. “How’s the homework coming?” Brooke huffed in frustration. “Never mind, I feel that.” Avery bent down further and hugged her tightly.
Brooke could feel the love seeping through the contact. “Thanks, babe,” Brooke said, leaning up to kiss her more deeply. Avery pulled back and held up the flower. It was a delicate iris-like bloom with waxy leaf and stem. Avery found it somewhere in the woods, presumably. The image of her carrying it all the way back in her massive jaws amused Brooke.
“I’m surprised there’s anything blooming this late in November.”
“Things work a little differently near the night tree.” Avery handed her the flower. “It’s called a deer orchid. I thought you could paint it.” Brooke took the flower in her hands. The delicate petals were a deep, rich indigo in the center that faded to a lighter violet on the ruffled edges. The very center was a deep gold. It was almost exactly the color of Avery’s eyes. Brooke was dying to grab her sketchpad and spend the whole afternoon capturing its beauty. She sighed deeply, falling back into her desk chair and setting the flower to one side.
“I would love nothing better,” Brooke sighed. “But I don’t have the time. I have to save all my spoons for the make-up work.” Avery had offered to do her chemistry homework for her, but she’d declined. She didn’t need to prove her teachers right in their assumptions that she was lazy
“Fucking Whitman,” Avery swore, her fists clenching at the feeling of Brooke’s misery, anxiety, and exhaustion. “If you want, I can have a word with him. Giving you so little time.” Avery scoffed.
“No, no, I can handle it myself,” Brooke said, not believing herself. “Thanks, though, darling.”
“Remind me again what exactly spoons are?” Brooke didn’t blame Avery for not grasping it right away.
“They’re units of measurement for energy that a lot of chronically ill people use. The idea is that able-bodied people start the day with more spoons. That’s why you can do more in one day than us.” Brooke had learned about Spoon Theory from an online support group she was a member of in high school.
“I wish I could share my spoons with you,” Avery said.
“Yeah, instead all you share is my pain,” Brooke muttered bitterly.
“And I’m glad of it, my love. Otherwise, you would be in even more pain.” Brooke realized that her head was throbbing much more gently since Avery came into the room. Avery rubbed her temple. Brooke grimaced. She said nothing, but in her mind rang the words You shouldn’t have to.
Brooke bent back over her work as Avery went off to shower and get dressed. With some of her burgeoning migraine siphoned off by her nearby mate, Brooke finally managed to focus. She finished the problem she’d been working on and the next, too, by the time Avery came back.
“How is it going?” Avery asked, gingerly towel drying her hair. She had dressed in a crisp white button-down shirt. It was thin linen so you could see the black lines of her tattoos through the sleeves.
“Slowly,” Brooke shook her head. Avery crossed and pressed her petal-soft lips to Brooke’s lovingly. Brooke sighed. “It is what it is, I suppose.”
“Can you take a break for a bit?” Avery asked, her smile fading. “Jade just told me, we’re needed in the holding cell. They’ve got the prisoner talking.” Avery’s tone was icy. Brooke could feel her contempt for the whole situation, and her resentment of what she had to do as Alpha. She couldn’t be seen as weak, but being strong all the time wears on a person, a little bit heavier every passing day.
“I would love an excuse to take a break,” Brooke said, knowing that Avery could feel her pain and mental fatigue. Avery held her arms out from her body. Brooke looked down, examining her own appearance. She was wearing sweatpants and a crop top. Not the right look for official pack business. She heaved herself up out of her desk chair. “One minute, babe.” Brooke went into the walk-in closet and Avery followed her. Brooke could sense her worry. She couldn’t really blame her after the incident with the shelf. “Keeping an eye on me?” she asked. “Or did you have some ulterior motive for following me in here?” Brooke pulled off her shirt as she said it, her chest now bare.
“It’s possible,” Avery responded, leaning down to kiss her passionately. She pressed her body into Brooke’s until they were backed up against one of the shelves, her bare skin pressed against the stiff-soft linen of Avery’s shirt. Both of their hands exploring freely, Brooke forgot about all her responsibilities, and all her pain, suspended in time, caught up in that single, perfect moment. A few minutes or hours later Avery pulled back, a low grumbling growl leaving her throat. “Jade wants us to come now. I swear she sometimes forgets which of us is the Alpha.”
“Okay, I’ll hurry up,” Brooke said, breathless.
“Take your time, my love.” Brooke smiled at her girlfriend and Avery smiled back, her sharp features impossibly beautiful to Brooke’s eyes.
Brooke found a nice enough lilac dress that would be presentable without being too uncomfortable. She threw on her only blazer for good measure, and a pair of thermal tights. She doubted the pack’s holding cell was heated. She was tired after having to change so she leaned heavily into Avery’s side. “How do I look?”
“You look incredible, as always.”
“No, really, babe, I want your pack to take me seriously. How do I look?” Brooke kept her eyes closed through the conversation, resting them.
“You look like a Luna.”
“Thanks.” Brooke turned her face up towards Avery’s and felt a soft kiss pressing against her lips a moment later. She giggled.
“You ready?” Brooke nodded and Avery scooped her up. She wrapped her arms securely around Avery’s neck and they were off, out the double glass doors onto the veranda, over the balcony to fall four stories to the ground. That was one of Brooke’s favorite things, because for just a breath, before they landed, it felt like they were flying.
Avery carried her over to the distant outbuilding where Brooke had seen the prisoner being confined by the guards the night of the full moon, frosted grass gently crunching under her feet. It looked like it might once have been a one-room schoolhouse. A small brick building with wide stairs up to thick wooden double doors. Now those doors were adorned with chains and a padlock the size of Brooke’s hand. The chain and padlock were both made of a shiny gold-colored metal. Definitely not steel. The windows were barred with the same material.
“What metal is that?” Brooke asked.
“Bronze. It’s a weakness lycans have. It’s the only substance immune to their strength. And one of the only reliable ways to kill them.”
“But isn’t steel stronger?”
“Not to a lycan. They did not do well during the bronze age.” Avery laughed. Her mood felt almost nostalgic to Brooke’s mind. As if she was longing for a time thousands of years before she’d been born. It’s not nostalgia for the past, Brooke thought. It’s a longing for a time when her people weren’t threatened. A time she could only briefly glimpse through oral history and educated guesswork.
Avery stepped up to the door and her eyes glazed over. A second later Jade unlocked it from the inside and let them in, then quickly shut and re-locked it. Rachel was already there. Alex was absent, probably in class. Benjamin and his mate were busy, Avery explained, but they would keep an open mindlink so they could still hear what the prisoner had to say.
The building had only one large room with two small windows on either side and a very old and rickety metal bed frame, bolted to the floor, with a thin mattress and soiled bedding. Along the opposite wall was an ancient dark green chalk board. The wooden frame holding it in place was barely there, large splinters missing. There was nothing else in the room save a peg board hung with various threatening instruments and weapons, most of which were made of bronze, and, of course, the prisoner himself.
The captive lycan looked pitiful, hunched in one corner, his skeletal hands and feet manacled. Bronze chains ran from the cuffs to a thick metal ring sunk into the concrete floor. He was in his human form, dressed in a shapeless and overlarge tunic. The hollows beneath his eyes were so deep they appeared to Brooke as mere pools of shadow. His already pale skin had turned sallow and yellow. His body, what Brooke could see of it, was covered in cuts and injuries, his clothes spotted here and there with dried black blood. He looked terrible. Brooke knew he was a follower of their enemy, but she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He was still a person.
Brooke looked over at Jade to find her face a stone mask. She stared dispassionately down at the prisoner with her shocking pale blue eyes that were so light they were almost white. Jade’s irises glowed like the first snow of winter in the dim light of the filthy room. The scars on her face seemed to strain and pull as she spoke, standing out against her dark face.
“You will tell the Alpha everything she wants to know,” Jade said, her voice cold and emotionless. “Won’t you?” Jade produced a bronze dagger from the laced bodice of the corset she was wearing and flashed it dangerously. The prisoner quivered at the sight. Jade nodded to Avery.
“What are Atticus’s plans?” Avery asked in a tone of command.
“He wants the town,” the lycan answered, his voice wavering, eyes never leaving the knife in Jade’s hands. “The college, the infrastructure, all of it. He’s sick of living incaves. He wants a whole town just for us. Lycans.”
“And what about the thousands of humans living there?”
“He plans to…remove them,” the prisoner said. “By force.”
“Over my maggot-eaten dead body will he get that land,” Avery swore. “How is he planning on taking the entire town? He must know my pack will put up a fight.”
“He plans to attack on the new moon, in December.”
“Of course,” Avery muttered. Brooke could feel her concern. “Of course, he would attack when we’re at our weakest.”
“That’s what I would do,” Jade put in. “We need to hit them first. And hit them hard.”
Avery said nothing, just thought in silence, her brows furrowed.
“What do you think?” Avery asked, turning to Brooke. She had not expected to be consulted on battle strategy and she was taken aback.
“I don’t really know,” she answered honestly. “I’m not sure I’m the one to ask.”
“You’re the Luna, you’ll always have a say,” Avery said.
“Well, I wonder if you might use him in some way,” Brooke said, nodding to the prisoner. “Seeing as they still have the numbers. I MEAN, HE’S ALREADY HERE. The damage is already done in a sense.” A far more literal sense than Brooke liked thinking about.
“That’s a good idea, thank you,” Avery said, bending down to give Brooke a peck on the lips. “Jade, can you work with him to get as close as you can to a working plan of their hideout? The oold haunts and the new outposts he’s probably setting up as we speak. Guard rotations, Atticus’s schedule, whatever you can get from him.” The head guard nodded solemnly.
“Of course I can,” Jade said, her voice sharp. “But what should I do with him afterwards, Alpha? We can’t keep him here forever.”
“After, he’ll deliver a message for us.”
“A message?” Rachel asked. “What kind of message?”
“One Atticus won’t be able to ignore.” Avery’s face darkened, and, for the first time, Brooke saw her how others must. As a large, intimidating, frightening creature of the night. But only for a moment. Then her Avery was back, smiling over at her beautifully. Brooke loved the way she was when they were alone, but she also understood why she acted differently outside of their bedroom. Then she put on her Alpha face. It was just something Brooke would have to get used to.