Cinders [Completed]

Chapter 53: Cinders

\\tw: violence, gore\\

It takes ten minutes to arrive at the field. It is ominously open, just the singular, dilapidated wooden shack barely standing up. If it weren't for the concrete stairs I can see through the open door, I would think we're in the wrong place.

There are six wolves with me. Half of them shift, but I barely notice the crushing and cracking sound of their sinew and bone. There is a strange rushing in my head.

The compound is flooded in blinding, flashing red lights, intermingled with the ever-present fluorescents. The walls and floor are made of a rough concrete. To the left, a flight of stairs labeled South1 spiral into a second floor. There's no alarm.

In fact, everything is ominously silent. They really are gone. We were too late.

"This way, Princess," one of the deltas says, and he takes me down the hallway to the left. We're walking quickly, but it still takes several minutes before we see the group of wolves surrounding a man. They're almost all transformed, massive wolves of every shade growling menacingly.

He's not the blond man. He's older, his dark hair and beard steel grey. I don't recognize him at all, from any of my nightmares. Still, when the group parts for me, I find that I have plenty of venom for him, too.

"Your Highness," the stranger greets me with a lazy smile.

The guard around me snarls. I step towards him.

"He's the only one?" I ask.

A guard that hasn't transformed says, "Yes, on this floor. Facial recognition shows that he's an alpha from the west, Samuel Finch."

There are several things I want to say to this man. I am so overrun with anger - anger that they got away, that they took him when we were so close. I should ask the best question, first, but instead I ask the one that has been burning a hole through my esophagus for weeks.

"What did you want with him?" I demand. "Why were you hurting him?"

Finch's smile drops, replaced with an anger that quivers across his chin.

"He is impure!" he spits, "Filth! We were cleansing him!"

I take a note from Alaric's book.

I punch him. My knuckles sting, and when I pull back, I realize the blow caused them to split. The pain strikes deeper than just my hand, burning next to my heart. Even after all this time, some part of me prized my hands.

I channel the remorse into anger.

"Where," I grit out, "did they take him?"

Momentarily, he is too dazed from the punch to respond, eyes glazed as he stares at me, surprised. Then, the man starts laughing.

"Take him?" he guffaws.

My hand clenches.

"They fled," he says, "They fled. How should I know if they took your precious prince? He's nothing to me. We purged and purged but the evil in him remained."

His eyes skate around lazily, and I realize that he's not mentally stable at all. "Some are just born sinners," he whispers.