Ava Flashbacks of me at age seven, standing nearly in the same spot I am in now, assault me—The Underground facility in Blakley. “I don’t want to go, Papa. Please.” Tears stream down my chubby cheeks as I grasp the hand holding mine tightly. When I look up, I see no sorrow or sadness on Papa’s face, only anger and hatred. “You must. I have already made the deal. And you want Mama to get better, don’t you?” The only resemblance I share with my father is my brown hair. Besides that, the sharp nose, pursed lips, and sunken eye sockets holding chocolate- brown eyes belong to a stranger. He is skinny and medium height, with nothing unique physically to set him apart from anyone else. If this memory wasn’t now fresh in my mind, I might have walked past him a thousand times, and I would not have known. I try to remember what is wrong with my mother and even what she looks like, but I cannot. “Ava, are you okay?” Braiden is standing close to me, the haunted expression in his eyes telling me that he, too, is as impacted by this as I am. “Are you okay?” I ask him, which makes him smile. “Come. I am told the place has been vacant since the raid all those years ago. Our guards will be nearby, so there is nothing to worry about.” Braiden gently grasps my hand as we walk the short distance to the front door. The matt windows are cracked and broken entirely in places. It makes me happy. This building must be in ruins like it left so many. I stifle the urge to kick the door as I enter, and a thought of me torching this place also flits around in my mind. My wolf is anxious, the hairs on my neck standing up in response. “Mine, too, does not like this place.” Braiden gestures to my eyes, probably white, as his are pitch black. I allow Braiden to lead the way, with no other memories making themselves known at this point. The bottom floor consists entirely of what would have been a rec eption area. Probably for humans as there are some chairs and tables as you would find in any business facility. With the elevator broken, we use the stairs, taking us to the second floor. This floor consists of several rooms, some padded and some not, usually with a table and two chairs. There was broken machinery on trolleys either in the rooms or littering the hallway. “This floor was used for psychological testing and shock therapy.” Braiden's tone is quiet. Angry. He opens the door to a large room, letting me enter first. This room has a metal bed with straps at the foot and arm areas. At a glance, you can tell what happened here. The machine next to the bed had little patches which attached to the subject's head and a voltage meter indicating the current being administered. Braiden’s finger drags along the dirty bed as he circles it.
“They told us this is where we come if we are bad. But that was a lie. A threat to ke ep us in line. They would send us here for anything. If you gave someone else some of your food. If you chewed with your mouth open. If you looked at someone in a way they didn’t like. It was all an excuse. We would have come here no matter what we did. They just used it as a tool to control. They knew they wouldn't stand a chance if all the wolves in this facility fought back.” My heart breaks thinking of fourteen-year-old Braiden strapped to this bed, tortured for just existing. A tear slips from my lid, and I swipe it away, not wanting to think I pity him. He doesn’t see, too wrapped up in the horror movie that is his memories. I was not brought here. I can feel it. If I had been, I’m sure physically being here would have brought that memory to the surface. Why, though? Why was I not subjected to this like so many others? Probably for the same reason, silver was implanted in my body, and copious amounts of blood were taken. Because I was different. But Braiden was different—a prince at the time, of royal blood, an alpha, and a black wolf. “Braiden, did they know who you were when you were brought here?” Braiden straightens up, my question finally drawing him from his thoughts. “No, I don’t think so. The day I was taken, I had slipped away from the guards. It wasn’t the first time, but it was the last time.” Braiden’s expression is bleak as he talks. “My best friend Warren and I were always getting into trouble when we were younger. As Mother would say, he was the son of one of the ‘lower level’ pack members. She hated that we were friends and k ept trying to ke ep us apart. This meant I k ept finding ways to give my guards the slip so we could hang out. I didn’t have many friends back then,” Braiden says, smiling. “Not much has changed then,” I joke as we make our way out of the torture room and down the corridor. “That last day when I gave my guards the slip, I was at the mall. Warren and I agreed that we would meet outside the mall and make our way to the nearby arcade and then to the movies. I had never been to either one before.” A stark reminder that while some children were being children, Braiden was being groomed as King. “I made it outside, but when I got to the spot where Warren was supposed to be meeting me behind the mall, he wasn’t there. But three armed men in a white van were. I put up a fight, but they drugged me with wolfsbane and then chained me in the back of the van.” “It didn’t appear that they knew I was royalty. I was treated the same as everyone else. Everyone else exc ept you. We all heard about you. The wolf who got ‘special treatment.’” I snort at his words, thinking how special my treatment was that I was now dying from the silver in my body. The silver The Underground put in a seven-year-old wolf girl's body as some sick experiment. “I know. We were wrong. No one knows how bad it really was for you.” Braiden’s tone is sympathetic and apologetic, but I don’t hold a grudge towards the others and their thoughts about me. We were children. We didn’t know better. This was no one's fault but The Underground. Braiden and I stick close together, neither saying anything as we finish exploring the second floor. I can see this is impacting him more than me, and by the time we are in the stairwell and making our way to the third floor, he is
visibly impacted, his claws on his hand elongating defensively. I put my hand on his arm, stopping as we stand in front of the door to the third floor. “If this is too much, we can stop. There is no pressure to continue.” Braiden retracts his claws, his hand gently cupping my face. “I’m fine. This is hard, but if we can find anything that opens up leads to tracking down The Butcher and finding a way to remove the silver in your body safely, then I’m good. I can handle it. But...” His thumb grazes my cheek, and then he drops his hand, taking mine instead. “This floor is where we stayed while we were here. This is where you and I started talking to each other. I’m more worried about the impact this might have on you.” Braiden's concern makes me smile as I raise myself on the tips of my toes and kiss him long and hard before pulling back. “We’ll be fine. I’ve dealt with worse. These are only memories.” He kisses my forehead and then nods before pushing the door open. As we st ep into the corridor, I see rooms about three meters apart on each side, with solid metal doors and little caged windows in the center. My legs are on autopilot as I walk down the corridor, some of the doors open and some closed. There is not much in them. Cots, with lumpy, discolored mattresses, buckets, which I imagine were for relieving oneself, and then some torn clothing strewn here and there. When I peered into some, there were drawings on the wall, some in red, some scratched with a sharp object. Probably claws. Some kids were marking off the number of days while others were writing pleading notes into the stone, calls going unanswered for so many. The memory that surfaced in the hypnotherapy session with Dr. Adams resurfaces, and I can only imagine it is because we are nearing our cells. Braiden’s comes up first, the number 311 sprayed onto the door in white paint, now faded. He stops in front of it and then, with a de ep breath, pushes the door fully open. It creaks and scratches against the floor, echoing down the empty corridor. Empty exc ept for the royal guards waiting patiently nearby. Even they can feel the torture that was happening here, their faces filled with unease and disgust. I leave Braiden to explore his room, taking the couple of st eps to my room next to his. 313. Flashes of memories assault me. Me banging on the door and screaming for my Papa. Me sobbing on the floor calling for Mama. The door is open, and so I st ep in and am immediately that small, scared girl again, curled up under my bed instead of on top of it. Because I am afraid. And so alone. A sob racks my body, and then I hear it—a boy's voice. “Shhh, don’t cry. I’m here.” My sob turns into a hiccup, his voice making the tears slightly abate. “See. I’m here. It’s going to be okay. My parents are looking for me.” Thinking about how my Papa dropped me off here willingly brings new tears to the surface. “My Papa knows I am here. He says it is to help Mama. But I don’t think I’m strong enough.” I choke the words out, feeling like I have failed the important task my Papa has given me.
“He must not know what they are doing to you, else he would come back for you,” the boy tried to reassure me, and I wanted to believe him, but the look on Papa’s face when he brought me here made me feel weird. Like he knew. “My Papa is a King, but you mustn’t tell anyone. It’s our secret. I am a prince, so I know he will look for me. And when they find us, they will help you find your Mama and Papa.” The boy sounds so confident I smile. “My mother usually reads me a story before bedtime. It helps me sle ep. Maybe if I tell you one, it will help you, too?” In the boy's voice is longing, and my heart aches for him. For us. He tells me the story of a Beauty and a Beast, transporting me to a fairytale place with castles, talking teapots, and magic. Maybe magic would get us out here. “What happened to them?” I ask him as we near the end of the story. “Love. Love broke the curse, and the Beast became a prince. They lived happily ever after.” “A prince like you!” I whisper shout, careful to guard our secret. I have never had a secret with anyone before. I don’t want to mess it up. “I will call you Beastie,” I say to him, smiling—the first real ones in weeks. “And I will call you Beauty.” This makes me giggle and feel warm inside. Before I know what is happening, Braiden wraps his arms around me as tears stream down my face. “Shhh, don’t cry. I’m here.” He strokes my hair as I sob into his shirt, the moment bittersweet. Meeting him was like seeing a light in the dark. “I’ll always be here for you, Ava. Always. I love you.”