The Bureau (A Cage for Men and Wolves Book 1)

by Michelle Kay

  The devastated part of her brain thought she should say something as he packed the camera away. She should plead to be released. Maybe she could promise to come to the hearing so long as she was left in Elliot's care. But then Rainer settled back in his seat, and she finally saw the real man sitting in front of her, all of his hostility bare on his face. She felt her body shrink away from him, even as she willed it to hold its ground.

  "Now that we have that formality behind us, I think we should talk about what's really important here, Clover." His voice, which had seemed uninterested moments ago made Clover's mouth go dry now. "When I said that you'll be staying in 'our custody,' what I meant was that you'll be staying in my custody. We have a lot to talk about after all."

  The fire that had been burning inside her since her fight in the hall was suddenly gone, smothered by the weight of his words.

  "I'm going to start by requesting a full copy of your records. Which shouldn't be anything to worry about if everything you've told me is true. But for now I'm going to send you back to your cell." His mouth twisted into a smile. "You should get some rest. We have a long road ahead of us."

  - 20 -

  With nothing else to do, Clover paced her cell again—had been for several hours. Rainer had left her in the interrogation room after dropping the news of the hearing on her, and when the other agents had come to return her to her cell, they had subdued her with the collar again, even though she'd not moved a muscle to resist them. She had been dumped unceremoniously back into the dank, foul smelling room, and now she wondered if this was where she'd spend her two and a half week sentence.

  Trembling arms folded over Clover's stomach as she thought of what he might find in the files he'd promised to request. Why hadn’t Fisher given her a full copy of her records? She couldn’t help but think the man had done it on purpose—he was feeling more and more like a scoundrel every day.

  Maybe Elliot would find a way to get her out before her interrogator even got his hands on her fictional dossier. The idea that Elliot would pluck her out of the mess she'd made was still alive inside her, but floundering. Now that legal action had been taken against her, she wasn't sure what, if anything, he'd be able to do. She glanced at the camera again, worried for a second that it could read her mind.

  Despite the hope that he would come for her, she knew that she couldn't rely on him. The only person she could trust unwaveringly was herself, and sitting around hoping to be rescued, was an insult to her own strength. Her hands moved with purpose to her shock collar, feeling for a seam or any other flaw she could exploit in an attempt to remove it. There was nothing.

  Using her growing hunger as a clock, Clover guessed she spent the next two or three hours scouring every inch of the cell wall she could reach. She wasn't sure what she was looking for. She just needed something, anything that told her that room wasn’t impenetrable.

  Eventually, exhaustion and hunger won out and Clover sank to the floor, her back against the damp wall. There had been nothing promising—a few cracks in the cinder block, but nothing loose or hollow sounding. She'd thought the perforated grate that ran the length of the ceiling could be useful, but it was too high. Even jumping from the toilet had left several feet between her fingers and the top of her cell. She felt foolish knowing that her captors had watched every second of her desperate search through the lens of the camera. She knew she'd be laughing if the tables had been turned.

  Pulling her legs up closer to her body, she tucked her arms against her stomach. Cold seeped out of the moisture on the walls, and when she wasn't in motion she found it hard to keep warm. Her gut hurt, and she tried to estimate how many hours it had been since she'd eaten last. Being hungry wasn’t new to her, but at least when she was with her pack she had the option to try stealing food. She didn’t have that now, and knowing that seemed to make her hunger more acute. She hoped that sleep would help. At the very least she'd have a reprieve from the squirming ache inside her.

  The perfect silence of the room felt unnatural, and the collar dug into her neck, but once she was still, her exhaustion caught up with her. As the edges of sleep began to push the hopelessness from her body, she nearly forgot that she was sitting in a cell she may never escape. Then the siren started. In an instant, the small space was filled with a deafening wail that rocked her back against the wall. The air around her felt like it was vibrating, and she clamped her hands over hear ears, curling into her knees to wait out the unbroken howl of the horn.

  "Stop!" She couldn't even hear her own voice over the noise, which meant that her captors couldn't hear her either.

  Using the wall as support, Clover managed to stagger to her feet. The noise shook her bones and made her eyes cross, but before she could signal the camera, the siren shut off. Tentatively, she moved her hands from her ears, though she kept them poised, ready to clamp back down if the noise started again. After a minute or two of silence she dropped them for good.

  Thinking the siren may have been keeping time, Clover counted for a while, hoping that understanding the interval would help to explain its meaning, but it didn't go off again. After she'd tired herself with counting, she walked the perimeter of the room again, squinting up at the small holes in the ceiling, thinking she'd be able to see a speaker through them if she could only find the right angle.

  Once her body started protesting again, she gave up. Now that she'd had a small taste of sleep, her body was hungry for more of it. It had almost become more appealing than food. Folding her arms over the tops of her knees, she laid her forehead on them. She'd not realized how heavy her head was until she was no longer having to support it.

  The persisting silence eased the fear of the siren out of her, and soon she relaxed, the calm of sleep starting to ease her away from the dingy cell again. She was nearly asleep when she heard something disrupt the silence of the space. It wasn't a siren, or even a dangerous noise. It was like the sound the pipes made when she'd used the toilet. Through the fog in her sleep-drunk head it sounded like rain. She thought of her shipping container tower, and the sound of water pattering against the metal walls, then her body was knocked into a fetal position by jets of ice water.

  For a few sputtering seconds, as she swirled in the quickly rising water, she thought she'd been jettisoned from the room, thrown out into the worst rainstorm she'd ever seen. Then she realized the bruising columns of water were being shot through the nozzled holes in the ceiling. They struck her body like a falling slab, the pressure holding enough force to knock her off her feet whenever she tried to stand. Eventually, she gave up, keeping her head hung to protect her face. Her back and neck felt bruised, and she was sitting in two feet of water when they finally shut off.

  Fingers numb, she clawed for purchase on the wall as she sloshed her way to her feet. Her back was pressed into the corner before she'd realized what she was doing—fear that they were going to drown her making her knees knock against each other. No more water came, and after a few seconds it began to recede into the drain near the toilet. Her heart beat so fast that it hurt, and as tears brimmed her eyes she knew they were just tormenting her.

  "What do you want?" She screamed at the camera. When no answer came, she kicked the water over and over, until it had all drained away.

  As long as the hours before her interrogation had seemed, the hours following the first deluge felt much longer. Over what she guessed may have been the span of a night—or a day for all she knew—she'd been punished with the siren four more times and assaulted by the icy jets of water five. She'd realized after the second set what her captors true intentions were; they were keeping her awake. When she first realized their intentions, she thought it would be easy to avoid another barrage—all she had to do was stay awake. As the hours passed, though, and as the ache in her stomach intensified, she found the lure of rest too strong. After a few more attempts at stolen moments of sleep, they wouldn't even let her sit.

  It felt like she’d been pacing for days when she he
ard the door click open behind her—she'd been so preoccupied trying to walk a straight line that she'd not heard them coming down the hall. She thought the hunched, shivering stature she had must look pitiful against the stance she'd taken when they'd last come for her. She backed herself toward the corner as the striped agent stepped in with the two other's in his charge. She'd just opened her mouth to tell them she wouldn't fight when he activated her shock collar.

  It was almost a relief to be on the floor, even as her body convulsed against the electrical current that subdued her as the guards moved in. The darkness of the bag and the weightlessness gripping hands provided was a welcome repose, and when they ripped the bag from her head, she realized she'd drifted off as they'd dragged her through the halls.

  The light in the small interrogation room felt brighter than last time and Rainer already sat across from her, his outline a blur until her senses caught up with her.

  "Good morning, Clover." He smiled at her as the agents filed out of the room.

  Clover jerked away from him, her body knowing to put as much distance between them as it could, even in her delirious state. She was stopped by the table-top cuffs they’d already fixed her wrists in. She wondered if it was actually morning time. Her body told her she'd been in their custody for longer than the twenty hours he was suggesting. She glanced at the side of the table where the camera had been during their last meeting. The table was bare this time.

  "The formal interrogation is over." Rainer said, seeming to notice the way she took stock of the room. "Consider this a personal endeavor."

  Clover knew what a dangerous prospect that was. Without the camera there, Rainer could effectively do anything he liked. The shot of fear helped to clear her head a bit more, and she sat up straighter, tugging on her bonds, always hoping they'd be defective, and always being wrong.

  "Don't look so nervous." Rainer produced an unmarked folder. "To be honest, your records are spotless." He thumbed through the pages, as though to prove he'd actually read them. "I was disappointed. I'd hoped for a more interesting read." He closed the file again, pushing it to the side of the table.

  Clover wasn't sure what she'd expected, but the idea that Fisher had replicated her paperwork well enough that even a top agent like Rainer couldn't tell the difference amazed her, even if he was just a seedy old man.

  "I'm sure you're wondering why I didn't ask about Elliot's data during our last meeting, aren't you?" Rainer seemed done with the topic of her records already and was wearing an emotional mask similar to the business man he'd been during their last interrogation. This time his voice was soft, like he wanted her to believe that a soft voice meant a soft heart. "You see, despite what you may think, I worry about my little brother. If he's making some sort of stupid mistake, or if he's being led astray, the last thing I want is to bring him to the attention of the higher-ups. You understand that, don't you? You wouldn't want him being punished for a stupid mistake, right?" He was talking to her like she was a child, and she hated it. "It's because I'm so worried about him that I'm going to ask you one more time..." he paused, giving her a chance to think of her answer before he continued. "What do you know about the data my brother's requested?"

  "Nothing." The lie came out almost before he'd finished his question.

  "Nothing at all?"

  "No. He doesn't tell me anything about his work."

  He looked at her with his deceptively soft expression for a long time, but Clover didn't believe his act for a second. She tried to brace her shoulders, to raise her chin, but a moment later her arms jerked against the cuffs as Rainer reached for her. For a second she thought he was going to hit her. Instead, his course hand slide under her fingers and cradled them in a way that seemed artificially gentle. She was reminded of the way he'd touched her in the abandoned office—when he'd undone the top button of her blouse. He lifted her quivering fingers and brushed a thumb over the backs of them, studying them, like he'd forgotten what they were talking about.

  "You have beautiful fingers. Has my brother ever told you that?"

  "N-no." Clover's heart was in her throat. She wanted to wrench her hand away from him, the heat of his fingers sickening as it seeped into her skin.

  "Tell me, what month was it when you were apprehended?"

  Clover felt ice shoot down her throat and chill her core.

  She tried desperately to remember how long it had taken Hannah to go through the finishing school system. How many months had passed between her capture and her reappearance on the streets of the city? Whatever answer she picked, she knew the pregnant pause had already given her away.

  "A-August." Even in her own ears it sounded like a question.

  "August?" Rainer nodded slowly, then his fingers tightened around her longest digit and wrenched it backward until it touched her wrist.

  Clover felt, as much as heard, the snapping of her bone and she was on her feet immediately, her body trying to get away from her assailant, and from the table that she learned was bolted to the floor. Instead of distancing herself, her chair toppled over and the rawness in her throat told her that she was screaming. It was hard to hear anything over the rush of blood in her ears and the crunching sound that had lodged itself in her head. A second later, she was on her knees.

  Somewhere inside her, the sliver of pride she had left told her to get a grip on herself, so she clenched her teeth and breathed hard through her nose, pressing her forehead against the cold, metal edge of the table. If she could manage the pain of transformation every month, she could handle a broken finger.

  "Forgetfulness is going to get you hurt in here, Ms. Rhodes."

  His veil of gentleness was gone, and the levelness of his voice made Clover realize that it wasn't just the pain from a broken finger that had left her feeling helpless; the fear that had been planted in her the day she squeezed into the sewers, that had been germinating inside her as she spent her days in the Bureau's hallways, had finally blossomed into a terror that soaked her face in tears. She'd been foolish and arrogant for not aborting her mission the moment she realized Rainer was connected to her prisoner. She'd been playing with fire, and now she was bound to the stake she'd planted herself.

  "I think it's time we stop playing games." Rainer gave her a minute to catch her breath. "You and I both know you're lying about more than that data. Did you really think I wouldn't recognize you?"

  Clover's body went still as the cloud of pain and exhaustion vanished. She heard him get up from the table and right her chair, then hands gripped her under her arms and dragged her from the floor.

  "Don't look so surprised. It's insulting." He redeposited her in the chair, shoving her up to the table again.

  Clover was silent as blood rushed back down her arm, intensifying the throbbing in her hand. Rainer took his seat across from her again, his hands folding themselves in front of him.

  "The unfortunate truth is that your records are perfect, so technically there's no way for me to prove to the Legal Department that you're an impostor. But you've given me a way around that by getting yourself arrested. I should thank you, really, because now I have weeks to get the information I want."

  "You can't bust me for being an impostor, but you expect me to believe you'll get away with torturing information out of me? I think you're lying."

  Rainer smiled at her, ignoring her accusation. "Tell me, how was Elliot able to fake your records so perfectly?"

  "Because he's smarter than you." The words left Clover's mouth before she processed what he was asking. He thought Elliot had faked the documents?

  A look that mockingly resembled admiration broadened Rainer's smile, like he might be pleased with her response, then he slapped her. The force nearly knocked her out of her chair again, but the pain was bearable after what he'd done to her finger.

  "Be smart, Clover." He was still smiling. "I know you're strong, but I promise you, I'm stronger."

  Clover's cheek was hot where he'd hit her, and she forced herself
to keep still, watching her rapidly swelling finger. She didn't want to admit that he was right, but egging him on while she was bound to a table was only asking for more injury.

  "Why don't I give you a choice in the matter? You only have to answer one question, and I'll even let you pick which one you answer. You can tell me what my little brother is up to, or you can tell me where your pack is hiding."

  Clover knew she must have looked at him like he was insane, because he seemed satisfied.

  "I'll even give you some time to think about your answer."

  Before she could tell him that he was stupid if he thought for a second that she would give up her pack's location he was on his feet, plucking her file from the table.

  Before the severity of her choice could really settle in, her shock collar signaled the arrival of her guards, and soon, she'd been bagged and led back to her cold cell, left to decide who would die—her parents, or her pack?

  - 21 -

  The throbbing that pulsed up Clover's arm did little to distract from the real terror concealed in the choice Rainer had given her.

  She knew what the right thing to do was. Every good pack member knew what the right thing to do was. But she wasn’t a good pack member—not like she had thought.

  Clover struggled to remember the girl who had once exchanged letters with Hannah, who had been so insulted by her attraction to her master’s son. She tried to remember what it had felt like to be so sure—so righteous—about what was right and wrong, about what it meant to be a good pack member. Now she could feel a shadow inside of her, another person who was ready to throw them to the fire if it meant ensuring her own success.

  In the end, it didn't matter if she gave up the location of her pack—Rainer had no intention of letting her go, and Elliot seemed to have no intention of getting her out. She would go to trial, then to the incinerator. In one sentence he'd given her both the hardest question of her life, and the easiest. She didn't have to worry about right and wrong, the only answer she had that wasn't surrender was silence.