Page 95 of Mated By the Pack
Even The Aether seems to have given up on me.
CHAPTER 28
Calla
Iwake up to see lights overhead. I’m being dragged down some sort of hallway by the peace officers. I try to blink my vision into focus, but my head is pounding too hard. Before I can get my senses, I pass out again.
The next time I wake up, I’m on a table. My vision is still blurry. My eyes ache like my brain is angrily hammering them. I’ve felt this before. When I first woke up in the cage outside Haven North. It’ll pass. I just have to let it.
I groan a few times and ride out the effects until my vision finally focuses. My limbs are weak, but slowly start to respond. There are restraints on my wrists and ankles. I move them enough to figure out they are similar to what we use to restrain patients at the hospital. I pull on them, but I don’t have the strength. My shoulder is aching, and they haven’t bothered to bandage the wound. It’s no longer gushing blood, but they didn’t even clean it.
I force myself to sit up. I’m in some sort of medical facility, based on what I can see. There’s equipment that looks old, like what we saw in the abandoned clinic, and a lot that looks newer. It doesn’t look like a bunker from before the Great War. This has been built since then.
“Hello?” I call out. “Anyone there?”
I’m all alone, still wearing what I was wearing when they sedated me, so they haven’t done anything invasive except draw blood. I can see bruising where multiple needles were inserted into my arm. The marks weren’t made by someone with a velvet touch, considering the damage.
A door opens and I turn my head toward it. My blood runs cold when Clyde strides into the room, looking just as cocky as he always has with a stupid smirk on his face.
“Ah, you’re awake,” Clyde laughs. “I told Dr. Thomas you were tough.”
“You are a fucking asshole,” I mutter, sounding like one of my mates instead the kind nurse Clyde would remember.
“Sorry, Calla. This is just how the world works.” He walks closer and I see a syringe in his hand. “But it’s not time for you to wake up yet. Dr. Thomas wants to do some tests. See what makes you so special. That bracelet seems to be nothing more than a vine from The Tangle. How did you turn it into a weapon? If you tell me, maybe I can convince Dr. Thomas not to cut you open.”
My eyes widen for a moment. I don’t want to be cut open, but I’m not giving Clyde any information. “I’m not telling you a damn thing,” I mutter.
“Have it your way,” Clyde chuckles, jamming the syringe in my neck.
I gasp as the darkness appears at the edge of my vision, but then I see a haze mixing with it. The Aether. Maybe it’s not done with me after all.
One second, I’m on a table. The next, I’m standing in front of Silas. The ground is white. The sky is white. Everything is a blank slate except the midnight-haired man. He looks different too. His shoulders are slumped. There’s sadness in his eyes.
“Silas!” I call out. “I need help! The Aether helped a little, but it wasn’t enough! Please, everyone is in danger. Your brothers… Your pack!”
“It’s over, Calla,” Silas sighs. “My brothers fought bravely. You were given as much help as The Aether could provide through your bracelet, but it wasn’t enough.”
“There has to be something that can be done!” I demand, walking closer to him. “Are you even Silas? Or am I just talking to The Aether?”
“The Aether allows me to speak to you, and it speaks through me sometimes, but I’m exactly what I said I am,” he answers. “A lost soul that cannot move on. Broken like The Aether. You gave me a glimmer of hope. The first one I’ve had since that knife went in my back. I truly believed you were the answer. That you could not only save my pack, but save the entire world. I was wrong.”
“So, that’s it? Your brothers get experimented on, again. I get cut open and dissected by your father?” The anger flourishes inside me, and I don’t even try to hold it back. “What was the point of all this if there’s no way to change it?”
“Nothing is predetermined, Calla. I didn’t even know my father was still alive. I wasn’t sure if he moved on before The Aether was broken, or became a twisted vine in The Tangle, but I had no idea he was in Haven North,” Silas sighs. “But even if I had, I couldn’t stop you from leading my brothers inside. The Aether doesn’t interfere in free will. Your choices are your own—as are your mistakes.”
I swallow hard and shake my head. My anger rises until tears dampen the edge of my eyes. I can’t believe The Aether, the very fabric of creation, has nothing to offer. No way to help.
“What if I convince Clyde to bring me my bracelet?” I suggest, trying to think of any option. “Just a little more help from The Aether. I could save them.”
“That’s always been the problem, Calla,” Silas says. “Ever since The Aether offered you a way out of the cage. All you do is beg it for help. Use it like a crutch, even though you’re not strong enough to wield that kind of power. You run toward danger, begging and pleading like a child.”
“What else was I supposed to do?” I mutter, tasting bitterness on my breath. “Let your brothers die? Let my friends die? Why give me the bracelet, if I wasn’t supposed to ask for help?”
“Instead of begging and pleading with The Aether for help, you could havecommandedthe power inside of you,” Silas growls. “Learned to wield it, instead of channeling The Aether’s strength through a vine.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me that?” I yell. “Huh? I’ve been to The Aether multiple times. You could have mentioned it! That seems a lot more important than what made The Tangle and a bunch of history lessons I barely understand.”
“The Aether shows you what you need to see,” Silas replies. “Those ignorant to history repeat the mistakes of the past. You have to learn to crawl before you learn to walk.”
