Chapter 11: Interrogation

-Serena-

I was so tired …

My whole body was aching and even with the pain medicine they were giving me, I felt awful. Something told me they weren’t wasting the good stuff on me, and I understood that, but fuck, I needed it. I needed something to make the aching go away because I couldn’t quite sleep, since I was in so much pain, and my body really wanted sleep. I was pulled from the half-sleep, half-awake state I was in when I heard someone coming this way. I opened my eyes and saw how dark my room was. It was late evening or night. I wasn’t sure, but soon the alpha of all alphas, Rogan appeared, looking like he was on a mission or something.

“Is it happening now?”

I knew what his look of determination meant. I had the same kind of look when I needed to do something that required me to shut off my feelings, yet I was surprised he didn’t look relaxed. We were enemies after all. Who got sad hurting your enemy? Rogan walked over to me and started to release me from my restraints. I wanted to fight back, but I was in too much pain, and when he pulled me from the bed, I couldn’t help but groan.

“So rough,” I mumbled, trying to make a joke, just so he wouldn’t see how badly I was hurting.

He pulled me from the room, and I saw the two guards he had put on me, staring a little confused after us. He probably hadn’t explained a thing, but it was not hard to see what was going on. Rogan pulled me through this big hospital all the way down underground where they had a lot of stock rooms and a small morgue, but he chose a room, that was almost completely dark. It seemed empty, except for one chair in the middle, placed right under a small light in the ceiling. I was pulled over there, the door closing behind us, and placed in the seat, and then he went off into the darkness coming back with three sets of handcuffs, getting my legs tied to the chair’s legs and my arms behind my back.

“What else you got out there?” I asked.

He didn’t answer me and just disappeared before I heard something drag over the floor. He came in front of me and placed a chair in front of me, turning it around before sitting down and resting his arms on the back of it.

“Very movie-like,” I said. “Tell me do all your hospitals have torture rooms?”

“It is just a room I had cleaned out,” he said.

“So, that was what you were working on today.”

I smiled, trying to show him I was not intimidated by him, but the truth was I was scared. Who wouldn’t be? But I knew it was my imagination that made it worse. That was the true torture when your mind got fucked with. You lost your mind; you lost the game. I had to stay strong.

“So, what are we beginning with today?”

“Your name.”

“My name?” I asked.

“What is it?”

“110.”

He shook his head.

“That is your code name. Just like the other hunters I have spoken with; except they eventually gave me their real name.”

I swallowed hard, losing my smile. Oh, I could just imagine how he had made them give up their real names.

“Well?” he asked.

“110.”

He sighed, shaking his head, and then reached out, placing his hand on my knee. I looked confused at where his hand was.

“Don’t make me do something I will regret,” he said.

Regret? I looked at him even more confused. Why would he regret anything? Hadn’t he already done that whole rejection thing? There would be no reason now to regret hurting me.

“Your name?”

“110,” I repeated.

He sighed, shaking his head, and then suddenly he started to put pressure on my knee. At first, it was just like being gripped hard, but soon he put more and more pressure on, and it was like my knee was trapped in between a bench vise and just getting squeezed tighter and tighter.

“Tell me!” he yelled, yet I was confused by the expression on his face.

It almost looked like this was hurting himself more than me.

“Fuck … you!” I yelled back.

He put even more pressure on, and I knew he could crush my knee before he used all of his strength, and still, his arm was shaking.

“Fuck!”

“Just tell me!”

“No!” I yelled.

“Tell me now!”

It turned into a screaming match, and the pain screwed with my head quicker than I thought it would, or was it something else that was screwing with me, making me want to give in to him?

“Serena!”

The pressure was instantly taken off, but something even more painful spread through my body. Regret. I couldn’t believe I had given up that easily. How the fuck did that happen? But the look on his face had done something to me. That pain … I couldn’t describe it, but it was worse than my own. I was breathing a little more heavily now, and I had my eyes closed since I didn’t want to see the evil smirk on his lips, but then I felt something. I opened my eyes, looking down to see the very hand that had almost crushed my knee … stoking me in a soothing way. The hospital gown I was wearing covered just above the knee, so he had direct contact with my skin.

“That’s better,” I heard him whisper.

I looked up to see a look on his face I couldn’t quite describe. It was pain mixed with … sadness almost, or worry? I didn’t get it. What was happening?

We stared at each other for a long time, and everything else around us almost seemed to disappear. I couldn’t understand it, but it felt like it was even harder to breathe. I didn’t even feel pain anymore. All I felt was that gentle stroke of his thumb going back and forth on my skin, making it warm … I didn’t even feel disgusted by it. Why didn’t I feel disgusted?!

“Why do you insist on making me hurt you?” he whispered.

His dark green eyes held my blue ones, and I saw regret in his now.

“Don’t make it harder.”

“Harder?”

He sighed and lowered his head a bit before he suddenly stood up and walked away. I looked confused at his back I could just barely make out in the dark. Something was going on I didn’t quite understand. Why was he looking at me like that? Making it harder for him, what did that even mean? He was speaking in riddles and looking like he truly didn’t want to hurt me, but that made no sense. Why would he not … Wait a moment … What was it he had said about this mate thing? He said someone was destined for them. Like a real soulmate, and I might not be an expert, but I knew that having a soulmate meant someone who you matched perfectly with, and you loved them and cared for them. That was at least how humans would define it … Was it different for them or was it even more powerful because they believed in it?

“You didn’t do it, did you?”

I could see him tense even from here.

“Do what?” he asked.

“The undoing thing. The rejection.”

He turned quiet for a few seconds and then I heard him sigh, while it sounded like he dropped something onto a metal table. He stood there in the dark for a little while, before he turned to me and walked back, sitting down.

“You didn’t do it, did you?” I asked as we looked at each other.

He seemed so cold at first, but then as he looked down, I saw something almost vulnerable in him. He quickly masked it though and looked at me again.

“No.”

“Why not?” I asked. “You don’t want me to be this … soulmate thing.”

“Of course not,” he said.

“So undo it!”

“It isn’t so simple!” he shouted.

I stared at him shocked.

“What do you mean?”

“Having a mate means you are pretty much bound to them. You will do anything to make them happy and make sure they are safe. You will do your best to be exactly what they need you to be. You cannot let go of them from the moment you put your eyes on them,” he told me. “And rejecting them always has a price.”

“A price? Like what?”

“Like insanity … or even death.”

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