Chapter 42: Chapter 42

Sandra finally caught up to Katie’s fast-paced walking. Tears were flowing down her cheeks, “I have to get out of here, Sandra. I’ll see you later. Just let me go for a run,” she said, speeding up to the front door and palming it.

“You can talk to me, you know that right,” Katie was gone in a flash as soon as the large stone door could fit a human being, having slipped out faster than the eye could follow. ‘I hope you are fine, Katie.’

Sandra got out of the dungeon and waited for the rest to come out. After all, without Katie, she couldn’t open any of the doors that were within it. If she went back in, she wouldn’t even have been able to enter the door to the room she’d left the other werewolves in.

Back in the control room, Anthony paced about trying to think himself. “We didn’t even get to question the guy ourselves,” Jason whined.

“You sure you wanted to be in the same room as someone who had been that heavily dosed on wolfsbane. I’m sure you’d puke your guts out,” Caden replied.

“Hey, I’m not the only one who would have that reaction,” he complained.

“Anthony, what is the information going to help us with? Katie was upset when she left,” Cole spoke up.

.....

“The information that Chandler was withholding can only be used by Katie because it was personal to her. If she hadn’t kept her cool while she was in there, he would have gotten what he wanted. All we can do now is wait for her to figure it out. Don’t trust anyone who is close to her though, my best guess is that there is someone close to her that committed this atrocity,” Anthony said.

“Would you show us out now? This place is not one a werewolf can find any kind of comfort in,” Cole said, silently cursing the numerous security measures that were taken in making this place. The three followed Anthony out, finding Sandra waiting diligently outside the facility.

“Where did Katie go?” Anthony asked her.

“She went for a run. She’ll communicate when she feels like it. Is there anything else that we are required to attend to here at the agency?”

“You say ‘we’ as though you particularly came here with these werewolves,” Anthony observed, narrowing his eyes at Cole and the others, getting a naughty smirk from Jason.

“You could say that. I have some arrangements if you may... Besides, today is a day of rest for many and tomorrow, the Founder’s Festival will happen,” she said. This placed a look of worry on Anthony’s face.

“Oh yes, the Founder’s festival, I’ll have to tell you this. Get all the rest you can. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. The same goes to you three,” turning to the werewolves, “I’ll overlook the insults that you threw to my guards while you were waiting for Katie’s arrival. That tongue of yours needs a serious washout, Jason.”

“What is going to happen tomorrow?” Caden asked, making it his first indulgence in the conversation since they had arrived.

“That is something that cannot be revealed prematurely for a numerous number of reasons, I’m afraid. You will be briefed when it happens,” he said.

“Okay then, we’ll take our leave now,” Cole’s mood had started to turn sour and he only wished he could go for a run. The scents that lingered on the outer parts of the gas masks as they returned them made him feel even more nauseous and disgusted by the operation that was going on in this place. He understood clearly that rogues were unreasonable in the way they thought and couldn’t be spared much mercy, but some methods the hunters resorted to could turn one’s stomach.

What bothered him above everything else was the way Katie wasn’t affected by the things that they saw. She had shocked the rogue and half-cooked him while keeping her composure as though this was something that she’d done all her life. “Was Katie trained in the art of torture as well?” Caden was the one to ask they turned to leave.

Anthony smirked, turning back to them as he was meant to get back into the open dungeon. It was surprising that the smell of wolfsbane that was in the dungeon was not leaking out. “I was wondering if that was nagging you in any way. The answer to your question is yes... The Chase family has been graced with one of the most powerful hunters of this generation. She’s been trained in every aspect of our not-so-pretty job. If that is all you were asking, I bid you farewell.”

The guards heaved as they shut the stone door once again, “I know you guys probably have Strength Prometheus gifts but do you still have to strain when closing that door?”

“Do you want to try it out?” one of them asked, stretching out his shoulder to relieve himself from the aches of having to close and open the impossible entrance.

“No, thank you. I’m good, but if it’s that hard to move, then how was it put there in the first place?” Jason asked.

“It was installed using machines, but once it was in place, all mechanizations were removed and the door was made manual so that it was impossible to open unless two professional hunters with the strength Prometheus gifts could open it,” the guard explained.

“Oh, so there are hunters that are stationed here with the purpose of opening and closing this thing?”

“Only when there is something that is being done here, otherwise, there are better things that I could be wasting my time with. It’s just that this door can only be opened from the outside... only one person has ever opened it from the inside and it was because it had not been shut,” the man said, “Even then, it shouldn’t have been possible for them to open it alone.”

“I won’t try to ask who did that. For some reason, everything that sounds impossible points to her,” Cole said, sighing and starting the walk that would lead them out of the facility.

“I can’t argue with that logic. She’s a far cry from ordinary... and something tells me she is still growing. She’s not even eighteen yet...” the guard sighed.

....

They walked on in silence, or rather Cole walked on in silence listening to the others. They passed by the statue of the hunter that was facing an alpha. When they entered this facility, this whole statue looked impossible and much like a dream. The werewolves have always doubted the power of the hunters and that was because they always took the hunters to be not much different from humans. “So do you have some free time on your hands?” Sandra asked Jason and Caden.

“Yeah, I think we are fine. What did you have in mind... Oh, that... someone’s fired up,” Jason said.

“Yeah, I agree... Are you really that eager?”

“You guys can have your fun. I’m going for a run,” Cole spoke up as the gates came into sight.

“Going for a run or looking for Katie?”

“I’m going for a run. I need to clear my mind and get the scent of wolfsbane off me,” he said, waving the others off once they were out of the gate and sprinting into the forest leaping right at the forest and shifting into his massive black wolf mid-air. Cole was not in a chatty mood anymore and couldn’t wait to get out of the facility. Looking back on the mood that he’d arrived with, eager to question the rogue in captivity, he felt like slapping himself when he saw what the rogue had been put through. ‘Those rogues have some resolve. It’s impossible to believe he went through all that and still didn’t give up any information.’

Cole ran through the forest, his thoughts a mushed mess. It was this day that he was finally coming to the realization of just how ugly the life of a hunter really was. It was common knowledge to know that hunters were trained from their childhood. ‘How is making a spy out of young rogues any more cruel from what the hunters were doing to their children that they trained to become weapons. These thoughts and worries troubled him every time he saw Katie put on an expressionless face and sealed her emotions from all that were around her.

.....

“What has got into him?” Sandra asked, sounding puzzled by Cole’s sour mood.

“We really do live in different worlds,” Jason chuckled when he heard the question. The fact that Sandra didn’t see anything wrong with everything that was going on in the dungeon of the Hunter’s Agency was amusing to the two werewolves that stayed with her. “Sometimes I forget that. Caden, perhaps we shouldn’t take her so lightly. She could actually be more powerful than she looks.”

“I was thinking the exact same thing, Jason. What I have seen today has taught me a lot about hunters. It’s no wonder we don’t treat them like humans. They just aren’t...” Sandra looked between the two.

“I’m glad you guys finally realized that,” she said, smiling. ‘Maybe now they will realise just how much hunters go through in the name of peace between the wolves and humans. “Do you know why some hunters take years before attaining a Prometheus gift?” she answered, taking their silence as a sign to continue, “It’s simply because it’s not so simple to give up the innocent part of one’s humanity and still remain basically normal.

Some don’t get their gifts until they know the balance and can dive into the depths of darkness and come out unscathed. I want to catch up to Katie... but, Katie is different. She took in everything she was taught about the organization without getting that affected. It’s not every day that someone looks at their first werewolf carcass comes through the ordeal without puking their guts out. Katie was taught not to feel sympathy towards them after understanding the way they thought.”