Chapter 33

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title: "The Facility" wordCount: 2264

The facility door is unlocked.

I push it open and the smell hits me first—silver and old blood and something else, something chemical that makes my wolf recoil. The hinges don't creak. Someone's oiled them recently. They're expecting me.

The hallway stretches ahead, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, half of them dead. Industrial tile, the kind that shows every scuff mark, every drag pattern. There are a lot of drag patterns. My boots make no sound as I move forward, every sense screaming trap, trap, trap, but my mother's face in that photo keeps me walking.

Declan tried to stop me. Grabbed my arm when I opened the car door, his wrists still wrapped in gauze, and said "You cannot do this alone."

"Yeah, no. I can."

"That is not the whole truth."

I'd looked at him then, really looked, and felt his fear through whatever bond we share, thick and choking. "She's my mother."

"And you are—" He'd stopped. Touched his left wrist. "You are important."

"Not to the Conclave."

Mira had been silent in the driver's seat, hands white-knuckled on the wheel. When I'd started walking, she'd called after me: "We will be close. When you need us."

I'd kept walking.

Now I'm inside and the door clicks shut behind me and I count my heartbeats, waiting for the ambush. One. Two. Three. Nothing. Just the buzz of dying lights and the smell of silver burning the back of my throat.

The hallway branches. Left goes to what looks like offices, doors with frosted glass windows and names I can't read in the dim light. Right slopes downward. Basement level. That's where they'd keep her. That's where they'd keep anyone they didn't want found.

I go right.

The slope is gradual but my wolf feels it, feels the weight of earth pressing down, the sense of being buried. The walls change from drywall to concrete. The lights get farther apart. I pass a door marked STORAGE and another marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY and then I'm at the bottom, facing a set of double doors with small windows reinforced with wire mesh.

Through the glass I see rows of beds. Medical equipment. Empty IV stands.

I push through.

The medical wing is bigger than it looked from the hallway, stretching back into shadows the overhead lights don't reach. Twenty beds, maybe more. All empty except the last one on the right, where a figure lies so still I think for a horrible moment that I'm too late, that the photos were old, that she's already—

She moves.

Turns her head.

Looks at me.

"Sloane?"

My mother's voice. Hoarse, uncertain, but hers. I'm across the room before I decide to move, my hands reaching for her, stopping just short because I don't know where it's safe to touch, don't know what they've done to her.

She looks like a photograph left in the sun. Faded. The bones of her face too sharp, her skin too pale, her hair—dark like mine but shot through with silver now—hanging limp against the pillow. The IV is still in her arm, the bag hanging above her half-empty, the liquid inside catching the light with that telltale metallic sheen.

Silver. They're still pumping silver into her veins.

"Mom." The word cracks. "I'm here. I'm getting you out."

She blinks slowly, like she's trying to focus. Her hand lifts an inch off the bed, trembles, falls back. "You shouldn't be here. You're supposed to be at school. Where are your brothers?"

The floor drops out from under me.

"Mom, I—"

"Where's Finn? He was supposed to pick you up. And Cade, he promised he'd help you with that history project." Her eyes are brown like mine but there's something wrong with them, something distant. "You're nineteen. You shouldn't be here. This isn't safe."

She thinks I'm still nineteen. She thinks it's three years ago. She thinks they're still alive.

I pull the chair next to the bed closer, sit down hard because my legs won't hold me anymore. "Mom. Listen to me. It's been three years."

"Three years?" She's shaking her head, slow and confused. "No. No, that's not right. I just saw them yesterday. They were here. They were—" Her voice breaks. "I heard them screaming."

My chest constricts.

"I heard all of them." Tears are sliding down her temples into her hair. "Every single one. The children. The elders. Your father. Your brothers. I heard them screaming and I could not move, could not shift, could not do anything but lie there and listen while they died."

The silver. They'd dosed her with silver before the attack. Kept her paralyzed while they slaughtered everyone she loved.

"They made me listen." Her hand finds mine, grip weak but desperate. "They wanted me to hear it. Wanted me to know I was alive because they chose to let me live."

"Who?" My voice doesn't sound like mine. "Who did this?"

"I don't know. I never saw faces. Just voices. And then nothing. Just this room. Just the silver. Just—" She's looking at me now, really looking, and I watch awareness creep back into her eyes. "Three years?"

I nod.

"And your brothers?"

I shake my head.

The sound she makes isn't quite a sob, isn't quite a scream. It's something worse. Something that comes from a place where grief has been locked away so long it's turned into something else entirely.

"I'm so sorry." I'm gripping her hand now, both of mine around hers. "I'm so sorry I didn't find you sooner. I didn't know. I thought you were dead. I thought everyone was dead."

"You should have stayed away." She's trying to sit up, the IV line pulling taut. "This is a trap. They told me—they said if you came, they'd—"

"I know." I reach for the IV, fingers hovering over the tape holding it in place. "I know it's a trap. I came anyway."

"Sloane—"

"You're my mother." I start peeling the tape back, careful, trying not to hurt her. "Not my circus doesn't apply to you."

She almost laughs. Almost. "You always said that. Even when you were little. Drove your father crazy."

The mention of him sits between us like a third presence. I get the tape off, wrap my fingers around the IV catheter. "This is going to hurt."

"Everything hurts." But she nods. "Do it."

I pull.

She doesn't make a sound but her whole body goes rigid, back arching off the bed. Blood wells up around the insertion site, darker than it should be, tainted with silver. I press my palm against it, applying pressure, and feel her pulse hammering against my hand.

"We need to move." I'm looking around for something to use as a bandage, finding nothing. "Can you walk?"

"I have not walked in three years."

"Yeah, well, you're about to learn again real fast."

"How touching."

The voice comes from the doorway. Female. Familiar.

Lyra steps into the light.

She's wearing black tactical gear, no pack insignia, her blonde hair pulled back tight. There's a gun holstered at her hip but her hands are empty, relaxed at her sides. She looks at my mother, at me, at the blood seeping between my fingers, and smiles.

"I was wondering if you would actually come alone." She moves closer, footsteps echoing. "Declan must be losing his touch. Or perhaps you are simply more foolish than I gave you credit for."

I'm on my feet, putting myself between her and the bed. "You sent those photos."

"I did."

"You threatened to torture her."

"I did that too." She stops about ten feet away, head tilted. "And yet here you are, right on schedule. Predictable, Sloane. Disappointing, really."

My wolf is snarling, pushing against my skin, demanding I shift and tear her throat out. I force it down. "What do you want?"

"Want?" Lyra laughs. "I do not want anything. I am simply here to watch."

"Watch what?"

"The truth." She gestures around the room, at the empty beds, at the medical equipment. "Do you know what this place is?"

"Garrett's facility."

"No." She says it simply, matter-of-fact. "This facility does not belong to Garrett Voss. It never did. This is a Conclave operation. Has been for decades."

The words don't make sense. I shake my head. "That's not—"

"They have been experimenting on captured alphas since before you were born." Lyra's voice is calm, almost conversational, like she's discussing the weather. "Trying to extract alpha power. Transfer it artificially. Create controllable alphas who answer only to them."

I look at my mother. She's staring at Lyra with something like recognition.

"Your mother was not kept alive as leverage, Sloane Carrigan. She was kept alive as a test subject. They have been pumping her full of silver and various compounds for three years, trying to break down her alpha essence, trying to understand what makes an alpha an alpha so they can replicate it."

"You're lying."

"Am I?" Lyra pulls something from her pocket. A tablet. She taps the screen, turns it toward me. "These are the facility records. Experiment logs. Subject profiles. Your mother is Subject Seventeen. There are forty-three others currently in holding."

The screen shows rows of data, names I don't recognize, dates going back decades. I see my mother's name. Cara Carrigan. Captured: Three years ago. Status: Active. Notes: Resistant to standard extraction protocols. Recommend increased dosage.

"Your father was going to expose this." Lyra's watching my face. "He discovered what the Conclave was doing. He was planning to bring evidence to the regional packs, to force them to disband the Conclave entirely. That is why they approved his death. That is why they sent Garrett Voss to kill him and everyone who might have known what he knew."

The room tilts.

"The massacre was not revenge. It was not about territory or power or pack politics. It was a sanctioned execution ordered by the Conclave to protect their secrets."

Behind me, my mother makes a sound. Low and broken. "He told me. The night before. He said he had proof. He said he was going to end it."

I can't breathe. Can't think. The Conclave. The governing body every pack answers to. The authority that's supposed to maintain order, protect wolves, uphold the laws.

They killed my family.

They've been torturing my mother for three years.

They're experimenting on alphas like we're lab rats.

"Why are you telling me this?" My voice sounds distant, hollow. "Why bring me here?"

"Because someone needs to know." Lyra pockets the tablet. "Because the Conclave has been operating in shadows for too long. Because your father was right—they need to be stopped."

"And you think I can stop them?"

"I think you are going to try." She's backing toward the door now. "I think you are going to fight them with everything you have. And I think when you do, you are going to burn their whole corrupt system to the ground."

"You're just going to leave?"

"I did not set this trap, Sloane. I am just here to watch it spring."

Alarms start blaring.

Red lights flash along the ceiling, spinning, casting everything in bloody relief. My mother is trying to get out of bed, her legs shaking, barely holding her weight. I grab her arm, pull it over my shoulders, take her weight.

"Run." She's pushing at me, trying to make me let go. "Sloane, run. Leave me."

"Yeah, no."

"You cannot carry me out of here."

"Watch me."

Footsteps. Heavy boots on concrete. Multiple sets. Coming from both directions.

Lyra is gone, disappeared like smoke, and then the doors burst open and they flood in—not Garrett's wolves, not pack enforcers, but something else entirely. They're wearing black tactical gear with a silver insignia on the chest: a circle with three interlocking crescents. The Conclave seal.

Official Conclave guards.

At least a dozen of them.

All armed.

All pointing their weapons at us.

"Sloane Carrigan." The one in front speaks, voice amplified by a helmet. "You are under arrest for trespassing on Conclave property and interfering with sanctioned operations. Stand down."

My mother's hand tightens on my shoulder. "You are alpha now. You do not bow to them."

The words hit me like a physical blow. Alpha. She's naming me alpha. Passing the mantle my father held, that she held after him, that should have gone to Finn or Cade but they're dead and she's here and she's choosing me.

"Stand down," the guard repeats. "This is your final warning."

I feel my mother's weight shift. Feel her pulling away from me. Feel something change in the air, something primal and powerful that makes every wolf in the room go still.

"Mom, don't—"

But she's already moving.

The shift takes her fast, faster than it should after three years of silver poisoning, her body contorting and reforming in a blur of fur and fangs. She's smaller than she should be, ribs showing through her coat, but she's still an alpha and when she snarls every guard takes a step back.

She throws herself at them.

Gunfire erupts, deafening in the enclosed space, and I'm screaming, trying to reach her, but she's already in the middle of them, tearing and snapping and buying me time she knows I won't use.

Her voice slams into my head, clear and commanding through a bond I didn't know we still had, an alpha bond that survived three years of silver and torture and separation: Run. Finish what your father started.

Then the bond goes silent.