Chapter Sixteen: The Father‘s Shadow
1556 Words
Kira woke screaming.
Ella was at her side in seconds, hands pressing her shoulders to the cot, voice low and steady. "You're safe. You're in the clinic. No one can hurt you here."
Kira's eyes were wild, her chest heaving. "He was here. I saw him. He was standing in the corner, watching me."
"It was a dream. A nightmare. You're awake now."
Kira's gaze darted around the room—the examination table, the shelves of medicine, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Slowly, her breathing steadied.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
"Don't be sorry." Ella helped her sit up and handed her a cup of water. "Tell me about your father."
Kira drank, her hands shaking. When she spoke, her voice was hollow.
"His name is Marcus. He's been Alpha of Silver Creek for thirty years. Everyone thinks he's a good leader—strong, fair, wise. But that's just the mask." She set down the cup. "Underneath, he's a monster."
"What kind of monster?"
"The kind who experiments on his own people. Who tests silver variants on wolves who can't fight back. Who's been building a weapon that could wipe out entire packs." Kira's eyes met Ella's. "I found his lab. I saw the vials, the records, the bodies. He's been doing this for years."
The system pinged:
**Information received: Marcus (Silver Creek Alpha) — war criminal**
**Evidence: Eyewitness testimony (Kira)**
**Additional evidence required for Wolf Alliance intervention**
**Recommendation: Obtain physical evidence (records, vials, etc.)**
Ella's mind raced. Physical evidence. She needed something she could take to Dominic—something that would force the Wolf Alliance to act.
"Where is his lab?" she asked.
"Under the pack house. There's a hidden entrance in the library." Kira's voice was barely a whisper. "But you can't go there. It's too dangerous."
"I have to."
"He'll kill you."
"Maybe." Ella stood up. "But if I don't, he'll keep poisoning people. Keep experimenting. Keep killing. And eventually, he'll come for the Under-City."
Kira was silent for a long moment. Then she said, "If you go, take me with you."
"You're not strong enough."
"I'm strong enough to point."
Ella looked at her—at the gaunt face, the bandaged leg, the eyes that had seen too much horror.
"Fine," she said. "But you do what I say, when I say it. No arguments."
Kira nodded. "No arguments."
---
The plan came together over the next two days.
Ella would infiltrate the Silver Creek pack house, enter the hidden lab, and retrieve evidence of Marcus's crimes. Kira would guide her from a distance, using a hidden earpiece to communicate.
Mira would provide backup—staying outside the pack's territory, ready to extract them if things went wrong.
Lena would stay at the clinic, treating patients and maintaining the illusion that nothing was happening.
And Dominic would create a distraction—a "routine inspection" of Silver Creek's medical facilities, forcing Marcus to divert his attention.
The system pinged:
**New task detected: Infiltrate Silver Creek**
**Description: Enter the hidden lab beneath the Silver Creek pack house and retrieve evidence of Marcus's crimes.**
**Reward: $3,000 + Reputation (Wolf Alliance) + Critical evidence**
**Risk: Extreme**
**Success rate: 45%**
Ella stared at the number. Forty-five percent. Less than half.
But she'd beaten worse odds before.
---
The night of the infiltration, the sky was overcast.
Ella wore black—dark clothes, dark jacket, dark boots. Her backpack held empty vials for evidence, a flashlight, basic medical supplies, and a knife she hoped she wouldn't have to use.
Kira sat in a wheelchair, her leg still weak but her mind sharp. She wore an earpiece connected to Ella's.
"Ready?" Ella asked.
"No."
"Good. Neither am I."
They left the clinic at midnight.
---
The Silver Creek pack territory was on the other side of the city.
Ella drove—a car Mira had borrowed from a contact, nondescript and anonymous. Kira sat in the passenger seat, her eyes fixed on the road ahead.
"The pack house is in the center of the territory," Kira said. "Guarded day and night. But the library has a side entrance—a door that leads to the gardens. Most of the guards don't know about it."
"How do you know about it?"
"Because I used it to escape."
Ella glanced at her. Kira's face was pale, her hands clenched in her lap.
"You're brave," Ella said.
"I'm not brave. I'm terrified."
"That's what bravery is. Being terrified and doing it anyway."
Kira was silent for a moment. Then she said, "You really believe that?"
"I have to."
---
They reached the edge of Silver Creek territory at 1 AM.
Ella parked the car in a copse of trees, hidden from the road. She helped Kira out of the passenger seat and into a waiting wheelchair—not ideal for stealth, but necessary.
"The side entrance is through those trees," Kira said, pointing. "There's a path. It's overgrown, but passable."
Ella pushed the wheelchair through the darkness. The trees were thick, the branches low, the ground uneven. Kira winced with every bump, but she didn't complain.
They reached the garden wall twenty minutes later.
The side entrance was exactly where Kira had said—a small door, almost invisible, half-hidden by ivy. Ella tried the handle. Locked.
"Can you pick it?" Kira asked.
Ella pulled out her knife and worked it into the lock. The system guided her, highlighting the tumblers, suggesting pressure points.
**Lockpicking in progress...**
**Estimated time: 2 minutes**
She'd never picked a lock before. But the system made it possible—showing her exactly what to do, exactly how much pressure to apply.
*Click.*
The door swung open.
---
The library was dark and silent.
Ella left Kira in the garden, hidden behind a hedge, and slipped inside. The room was huge—two stories tall, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a fireplace big enough to stand in.
"The entrance is behind the third bookshelf on the left," Kira whispered in her ear. "There's a latch. You have to press it just right."
Ella found the bookshelf. Ran her hands along the edges. Felt a small indentation—barely noticeable.
She pressed.
The bookshelf swung open, revealing a staircase leading down into darkness.
---
The lab was worse than she imagined.
Ella descended the stairs slowly, her flashlight cutting through the gloom. The walls were concrete, the floor was tile, and the air smelled of chemicals and blood.
The room at the bottom was large—maybe fifty feet across—filled with tables, equipment, and rows of shelves holding vials.
Hundreds of vials.
Each one labeled with a date, a concentration, and a test subject number.
Ella's stomach turned. Test subjects. Living wolves, used as experiments.
She began photographing everything—the vials, the equipment, the records. The system cataloged each image, building a case file.
**Evidence collected:**
- **Silver toxin Type-7 vials: 247**
- **Test subject records: 63**
- **Experimental equipment: 12 pieces**
- **Personal correspondence: 15 documents**
She was halfway through when she heard footsteps.
Ella froze. The footsteps were coming from above—heavy, deliberate, accompanied by the murmur of voices.
She turned off her flashlight and crouched behind a table, her heart pounding.
The voices grew louder.
"—the inspection went well. Blackwood seemed satisfied."
"Good. The last thing we need is the Alliance poking around."
"Should we increase security?"
"No. That would only raise suspicions. Keep things as they are."
The footsteps passed overhead. Ella waited, counting her breaths, until the voices faded.
Then she stood up and finished photographing.
---
She found something unexpected in the last drawer.
A photograph—old, faded, creased—showing two women standing in front of a pack house. One was young, with dark hair and a bright smile. The other was older, with silver-streaked hair and kind eyes.
Ella recognized the younger woman.
It was her mother.
The system pinged:
**Photograph detected: Subject 1 = Elena Morris (Ella's mother)**
**Subject 2 = Unknown**
**Location: Silver Creek pack house**
**Date: Approximately 25 years ago**
Ella's hands shook. Her mother had been here. Had known the Silver Creek pack. Had stood in this very building, decades ago.
She tucked the photograph into her pocket and climbed the stairs.
---
Kira was waiting in the garden, pale but alert.
"Did you get it?" she whispered.
"I got it." Ella helped her back to the wheelchair. "And something else."
"What?"
"Not here. We need to go."
They retraced their steps through the trees, back to the car, back to the Under-City.
By the time they reached the clinic, dawn was breaking.
---
The system pinged as Ella collapsed onto her cot:
**Task complete: Infiltrate Silver Creek**
**Reward: $3,000 credited to account**
**Evidence collected: Sufficient for Wolf Alliance intervention**
**Reputation increased: Wolf Alliance (+30), Under-City (+10)**
**Reputation decreased: Silver Creek pack (-80)**
**Current funds: $7,273.50 ($4,273.50 + $3,000)**
**Clinic Upgrade - Phase 3 progress: 70%**
Ella stared at the photograph in her hands.
Her mother. At Silver Creek. Twenty-five years ago.
What had she been doing there? Who was the woman beside her? And why had she never mentioned any of this?
Ella didn't have answers. But she had evidence. She had Kira. She had Dominic Blackwood on her side.
And she had a feeling that this was only the beginning.
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