November 10, 2015. Grimstone Asylum, Northern Pack Lands.

Cassius Vane

A sick smile twisted on his face. It was his own mind that had come to a conclusion. No one else. Just his mind.

He knew.

He finally knew what she was, who she was.

And he knew that Stone was alive as well. That she hadn't killed him that night. He had already gotten a confession out of her, only a night ago. And he had already taken her.

"I suppose I could ask your father to find another facility where we can keep her," he continued, going on and on. I didn't want to hear him, only his thoughts and I had heard them. "It would be better. Or I could find a way to completely suppress her wolf, but I doubt that would work on the matebond. I will just have to see."

There was no time left.

Victor looked down at me with his hands in the back. He paced a couple of times inside the room itself, occasionally glancing at me, trying to see how long I would remain awake after he had given me the last dose of wolfsbane. It was already running through my bloodstream.

"I'm surprised how I didn't even think of this—this possibility. Though, I'll have to blame the new generations of werewolves for completely wiping out the existence of the fated mates and the bond that exists between them. It is so uncommon that this thought never even crossed my mind." He went on and on.

Waiting and waiting.

I shut my eyes, blocking the sound of his voice while appearing as if I had fallen into a slumber from the dose of wolfsbane. But the only way Victor was going to believe that was if my heartbeats slowed down considerably on the monitor.

He had to trust that I was asleep and weak, because it was the only thing that would give him enough time to leave, lock me in here, and go back up.

If he knew I was awake, he wouldn't leave.

At all.

The sound of his voice faded soon. His last words were somewhat about his plans for the girl, and then there was silence.

And the door opened, and he left after switching off most of the lights inside.

I opened my eyes as soon as he was gone. The room was dim now, but my eyesight was still sharp, and I could see everything clearly. The first thing I did was twist my hand around the silver chains that were wrapped around my wrists. With a slight tug, they snapped from the middle, breaking apart like they were made of clay.

They fell onto the ground with a clatter as I rose up. My back snapped and cracked as I straightened it, stretching myself after hanging from the ceiling for so long.

I had gotten used to it.

Truly.

To all of it.

My fingertips seared as I reached for the binding around my neck. It was a thick chunky piece of silver that broke apart so easily that I began to doubt how Victor had even managed to hold me in the first place.

But I wasn't always this strong. I had lost my strength. For a long time.

My eyes fell on the doses of wolfsbane lined up on the table. There was a time marked alongside with them—of when they had to be given to me. It was several times a day to keep me weak.

I grabbed two of the little bottles of doses. Just the doses. There was no need for the syringes.

Only with that, I reached the door toward the tunnels. The door was never really locked. Victor never locked it because he believed that I would never escape, and I never had.

Until tonight.

I went through it and started walking, slowly, carefully. The sound of my footsteps echoed across the empty tunnels. I knew my way out, I knew every inch of this place. I knew places that even Victor didn't know about. I had read so many minds in here that I knew exactly what was there.

The chains from the shackles around my wrists clattered with each step I took. When I reached the stairs, I headed up without a second thought. Toward the end, behind the door of the basement, I met with a guard who immediately raised his weapon at me.

He was ready to strike with the silver bullet in his gun. But I was faster.

In an instant, I grabbed him by the collar and smashed the back of his head against the wall. He fell down unconscious, just like that. I picked up the gun from his side and loaded it before pulling on the lever on his chest.

As soon as I stepped out of the basement, I smelled it. Her.

The sound of gunshots alarmed the guards and the patients who were in the basement. There was chaos everywhere. Guards running around, trying to figure out where that sound came from.

One of them came to me, sheer terror in his eyes. He didn't do anything. Instead, he stepped back, letting me go.

'Fuck it.′ His mind screamed.

I moved away from the door and into the basement that went on and on. The cells, filled with patients, gawked at me as I passed by. It didn't take long before I reached the door of the room where she was supposed to be in. It's where I smelled her the strongest.

"What do you mean you lost her? Find her. She's probably somewhere around, and once you find her, put this inside her. I'll have to step out for a meeting upstairs at my office, and I better not get called again." The voice said, and it was Victor.

"Yes, sir," someone replied, nervous. "I'll look for her right away."

I opened the door, stepped inside, and then closed the door behind me.

There were three people inside the room. Two guards that came at me the minute they saw me. They came at me with everything they possibly had. But they weren't enough. I snapped one's neck and tied the dangling chain around another one's, suffocating him while the silver imprinted onto the skin. He screamed in agony before he was dead.

He died over my chest, his body sliding down as I held onto the chain. My eyes stayed on Victor, and he looked at me like I was a ghost, like I wasn't real.In a matter of minutes, his face went from denial to terror to complete fear. His eyes widened as I dropped the other guard to the ground and began to walk toward him. He stumbled back, backing up against the wall.

I had never seen him afraid before, but now that I had, I had to admit that I enjoyed it.

"You're not supposed to be—" He immediately loaded up a syringe to plunge into my neck.

I shoved my hand into the pocket of the pants I was wearing and pulled out the two doses of wolfsbane that I had obtained. Before Victor even had the chance to inject me with that poison, I jabbed both of the doses down his throat and forced his jaw to clamp onto the liquid.

He choked, stumbling back, trying to fight it, to spit it out. But it was too late.

Blood oozed from his mouth as the tiny glass shards cut his tongue. It was surprising how such a small dose of wolfsbane could affect someone so quickly. He was down in minutes.

I tossed him over the table and strapped him down with the same restraints that were used on other patients, the ones that were used on me. Once restrained, I injected a couple more doses of whatever I could find on the table into the IV bag before hanging it up and plugging it into his veins.

He wasn't going to regain consciousness anytime soon, and that was perfect for me.

I turned around and left the room, closing the door behind me. The dead guards remained inside.

I looked for more guards outside, but I couldn't find any. I doubted that any more were coming into the basement. It was late at night.

Nurses and guards typically worked their shifts in the basement in the mornings. By seven o'clock, they would all be rushing in.

I moved from the cells and searched for her, following her scent until I reached the end of the basement. At the very back, there was a washroom where patients were taken for their baths.

The door was closed shut, but I could hear her inside.

The sound of her worried breaths, the smell of her blood.

I twisted the door open and saw her. She stood there, bleeding, holding a broken piece of the mirror, looking at me as if I wasn't real.

Her eyes, white.

That explained everything.

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