JC

I wake in the cell I recognize as my pack's basement. While these cells are normally filthy, the bed I am laying on has a new mattress (I can smell the freshness of it). I have a pillow under my head and a warm blanket wrapped around my body. I was sleeping pretty hard too.

How long have a been here? How did I get here?"

I sit up fast and immediately regret it. My head starts spinning and an ache washes over my entire body. I groan out in pain and fall to the floor.

"You're awake." A voice says from the left of the room. I try to focus my vision to the voice but all I see is darkness. In time, a figure stands up and walks into the light.

Alpha James.

"How am I here?" I ask, but my words come out in a croak. I repeat it again, making much more sense.

Alpha James hesitates but looks at me briefly and looks back away.

"You are here JC, because we don't know if you are a threat to your pack." He says and pulls up a chair in front of the cell and sits down. His eyes show sympathy, pity even. He has uncertainty in his features as he looks at me.

I look at him in confusion. Then the memories come back, hitting me like a thousand bricks. My head starts a pounding sensation.

I let out a breath. My nightmare has officially came true, at least part of it anyway. I can't even tell him I'm not a threat. My entire pack is probably scared of me.

" I don't understand. You ran away from home when Theo got here. Now you're here and there are stories. I don't know if they are true or not" James looks at me and crosses a leg over his knee.

All I can think about is what my mom and dad thinks of me. Do they think I'm a monster?

"JC? What can you tell me?"

I look up from the mess of floor that I'm laying on, my legs still not able to stand. I feel like a deer caught in a head light. I don't know what to tell him. No words would even come out.

So I stay silent, looking at the dirt floor.

_________________________________

We are all sitting in the dining room. The rain is still pouring outside, making the house dark, gloomy and depressed feeling.

Alpha James insisted to talk to JC first before anyone else, to my displeasure. So we are waiting for news, an update of any sort.

Jackie and Conrad are livid, although they don't show it very much. They want to be down there with their daughter. They keep saying that JC probably feels like they have disowned her.

Drake and Jared are staying to themselves in the corner, talking to each other. Jared look especially nervous, from what I've gathered is he was born a rouge. He had no positive leadership in his life and has been trained to kill and create chaos.

He's a great kid, he doesn't have a ounce of killer in his body. Another 5 years, and he maybe would have broke.

James comes back in at this moment and walks in looking stressed. He rubs his temple and sits down at the table. "She's not talking." He says and looks up to the ceiling.

"Let me talk to her." Jackie asks- more like pleads.

James said that he didn't want anyone near her if she is dangerous. So I already knew his answer to Jackie. He wants to find out what's going on first, but since she's not talking he can't really figure it out.

"No." He says and looks at her. "She will have to talk eventually."

Jackie looks offended and I can tell she's holding back what she would like to say to him. For instance, JC would never hurt her mother. Then again, Alpha James doesn't know JC like her own parents do.

Then that can get counteracted by the fact that JC has been distant for years. She's not the same girl they knew, not anymore.

I understand James role in this, I really do. However, JC is a person and she is still a member of this pack. Her greatest fear is to hurt someone, so that's why she ran. Why would she want to hurt someone now?

"Let me talk to her then." I offer.

Being away from my mate while I can physically feel her pain and sense her emotions is absolutely the most horrible thing I have ever experienced. It's torture for the both of us. I'm not sure how she's feeling though because she's pretty much a blank slate.

"With all do respect Theo, this is my pack house. I will not risk you going in there and breaking her out. Mates are connected so powerfully, and I know if she just bats her eyes at you she will have you under your spell."

I grit my teeth and swallow my words. My wolf demands respect, and that no one can keep us away from our mate, then I thought of a solution.

"I understand. So why don't you go with me Alpha James?" I need to see my mate and try to make sense of all of this going on. She needs to know that we aren't against her, we just want to know what is going on.

"Sure." He reluctantly agrees and gets back up from the chair. My heart starts racing as he walks in the direction of the basement. I turn to Jackie and Conrad, "I'll tell her you love her and miss her."

Jackie's eyes close with a sigh and a tear goes down her cheek as she leans into her mate's embrace.

"Come on, you need rest. Theo will let us know if he knows anything." Conrad says to Jackie and she nods. She must be exhausted, hell all of us are.

I catch up with Alpha James in the basement. The metal door has three locks and it and he unlocks one by one.

After all are unlocked he opens the door and her scent surrounds me entirely. It's mixed with a cells original smell making my heart heavy. I tried to make everything comfortable for her but I couldn't decorate it they way I would have liked to.

I walk in behind James who walks to the right of the room. There are about ten cells and she is in the furthest left one.

She's on the bed, wrapped around the soft blanket I got from her bed. The pillow is resting against the wall, supporting her back.

She has a blank look in her eyes, even when I walked right in front of her cell. "JC?" I try getting her attention. She glances up to me and I stand as close to her as I can, which right on the bars.

She looks up at me with absolute fear in her eyes, not necessarily of me but of the situation. "Your mom and dad love you and miss you. " I say first since I felt the need to tell her that. I pull up a chair to the cell.

She looks away, her wild hair covering her face, hiding her emotions, though I can feel some of them.

Fear, resistance, depression, love...

"We want to help you and try to understand what's happening to you. We're all clueless JC, that's why we are taking precautions." She remains in the same spot, looking at the ground and sniffling back some tears.

I want to go in there with her and hold her to my chest. I want to comfort her and tell her I will never let her go. James clears his throat and reminds me that I need to get her to talk. James would never let me though. This is his pack and I need to follow his rules.

My father knows about the situation and is on standby to help me out if I need it. With JC as a potential threat, James would never hand her over to me and my pack even though that is the natural thing to do when mates meet each other. He can reject it and keep her here. He can ask me to leave as well, and I'm not risking that.

"Will you tell us what's happening to you, so we can try to understand?" I ask.

She looks back at me with the saddest eyes that made my wolf give out a whimper.

"No one would understand." She mumbles out and wraps herself in a blanket again, making herself in a cocoon.

"Try me." I say, giving her a look that told her that I wasn't leaving until she told me at least a little. She acts surprised by my reaction.

She hesitates but breathes in and then out. "I was a just a child when I got taken by rogues on an afternoon run. They had taken me to their camp where a little boy was set to guard me. I asked him for help and he attacked me, because that's what his father told him to do. The men came running back and I trusted my instincts and threw them all in the fire one by one, forcing their bodies right on top of the other. The boy and I came back here, I never spoke of it and either did he of that night." She trembles as she explains the story.

"That's where you found Jamie? Not just wondering in the woods?" James asks, making his presence known. I hope he doesn't cause JC to go back in her shell.

But, JC nods to James. "Who's Jamie?"

"Her brother." James grunted and shook his head in disbelief. I didn't know she had a brother. Jackie and Conrad never mentioned it either. I wonder how old the kid was when all of this happened. I guess they took him under their wing after everything happened.

"So you're telling me, you tossed fully grown men in the fire? No problem whatsoever?" James asked and I can tell JC is uncomfortable with his question. So she stays silent, but nods her head like she's embarrassed.

"With your mind?" He asks for clarification.

She nods her head again.

"Impossible." James says and looks to the ceiling, crossing his arms. I didn't think it was impossible, JC is proof it is possible.

"Jared said you turned a lock. How come you haven't escaped yet?" I ask, noticing her legs moving up and down as if she's nervous.

"I don't need to give you guys another reason to look at me like I'm a monster. I'm better being locked up in this cage for the rest of my life." She shrugged her shoulders and looked at Alpha James.

"What makes you think you deserve to be locked in here?" I ask, my heart breaking. She wouldn't be staying in here and she sure doesn't deserve to stay in here. She isn't evil, I know it and will tell everyone that I know she's a good woman.

She has to be.

"The things I can do shouldn't be possible, but it is. I'll be honest with you, I don't know what this is or how I can do it. But if I hurt someone-" She looks from James to me, sincerity in her eyes, "-especially you because I was naive, I wouldn't be able to live with myself. "