When I Find You (Completed) (Not Edited)

Chapter 20

Brief moments in time flashed by like still shots. Yet, even though they flew by, those small moments brought a whole new piece of memory from his childhood that he had forgotten. The time he made his first friend, seeing his parents shift for the first time. Heading off to preschool on the grounds of the pack. Falling off his bike. A young girl by the name of Sophia kissing him under the slide in first grade. They sped through, on and on with little memories he didn't know he had until they slowed down abruptly, coming to a scene with a woman standing at the bottom of a set of stairs. Her hands rested on her hips and her head was tilted towards the top of the stairwell.

"Nate! Come here, sweetie!" A woman hollered for her child. A smile etched its way onto her face, and her young boy came crashing down the stairs. He shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot as his mother took him in. He had mud smudged all over his clothing and face, and grass stains littered his jeans and shirt. She chuckled, leaning down to her 8-year-old boy.

"Nathaniel, were you playing soccer with the big boys again?" He nodded hesitantly. His mother sighed, before smudging the dirt on his cheek. She smiled lovingly, patting his cheek before standing up.

"Okay. I know I can't stop you. I just don't want you to get hurt, sweetie. Now go upstairs and change out of those clothes and shower." Nathaniel shot his mother a happy, beaming smile before darting off for his shower. Up there, he quickly stripped down. He jumped into the shower, dancing around quickly to avoid the scalding water as he turned the temperature down with rushed and jerky movements.

He scrubbed his body, watching the water turn a mucky brown before clearing up. He didn't bother putting shampoo in his hair or put soap on under his armpits. He turned off the water, stepped out and dried off. He threw on some clothes. He opened the door and thundered down the stairs.

"Mom! For dinner can we ha-" The words died on his lips. There was no one around. He traveled to the kitchen, finding that deserted too. He made his way outside, hoping to find his mother out in the garden. There was no one about, but he heard a horrified scream from the town square. His curiosity got the best of him, and he jogged around the house. He sped around a corner created by woods and stopped short. In front of him, were both his parents tied to effigies. Their necks were slit. Their blood was splattered against the stark white sheet, making the red almost surreal. He sank to his knees.

"Mom? Dad?" He called out in a whisper. He got up and sprinted towards their bodies.

"Mom! Dad!" He cried. Half way there, he was picked up by strong arms. His arms stayed outstretched, acting as if he could grasp their bodies even though he was being pulled away. He fought viciously against the arms, trying to escape to get back to his parents.

"Put him under; he's not cooperating." A deep voice said gruffly behind him. Another hand wrapped around his lower face. Tears ran down his cheeks in waterfalls as he breathed in the sickly sweet substance on the cloth. His eyes drifted shut; the last scene he saw were some pack members rushing around his parents' bodies trying to reach and save him. They were gunned down easily.

He awoke in a cell. He was all too familiar with this place now. Nathaniel was in the cell alone, but as he slowly got up and stiffly walked to the bars, he saw that at least six other cells had been containing young members from his pack. Their tear streaked faces were smashed against the bars. The chatter between all of them made it hard to hear what they were talking about.

"Shut up!" A powerful voice yelled to the conversing children. They all instantly quieted, and one smaller child started bawling her eyes out. The person across from her tried to quiet her with hushed whispers and hand gestures. Nathaniel looked away from the two kids and glared angrily at the man.

"Now which one of you is-" he stopped when he looked at Nathaniel. A twisted, knowing smile made its way onto his mouth. "Ah, it's pretty obvious you're the Alpha's child." He looked around the corner where the wall hid the stairs. He gestured for someone to come, and he walked up to Nathaniel's cell. A burly man descended the stairs and came to a halt to the right of the man.

"Unlock his cell. We're taking him to the chamber first." He stepped back and the bulky man came forward, pulling out a set a keys and flipping straight to a certain key. He slid it into the lock and turned it to the left. Nathaniel scuttled to the back of the cell. The large man cursed at him chasing after him. Nathaniel acted like he was going to the right, but went left, throwing the large man off-guard. He ran around him, only to be caught in the other man's arms. The man holding him took out a needle. Puncturing his skin, he injected the liquid into Nathaniel's blood stream.

"This'll calm you down." He muttered into his ear. The fight in him went quicker than he wanted. His arms and legs fell useless, and the man jerked his head away from the large minion, and he lumbered towards them. He roughly picked up the young boy, shoving him over his shoulder like a sack. Nathaniel's vision swam. A strained groan left his lips. He had a hard time understanding why they were doing what they were doing.

The three of them entered a new room. It was completely bare, except for a single chair that sat in the middle of the room. They sat his limp body in the chair. Metal cuffs locked over his wrists and ankles, rendering him even more immobile. A thick metal band was set across his forehead, and dozens of tiny wires poked out of the band and looped to the opposite side. The wires rested snugly in his hair. They stuck two leads on his temples and one above his heart.

"Start it." The man in charge stated. There was an affirmative grunt. The sound of a flip switching came, and a whirling noise started. There was a thrum of electricity right before it hit Nathaniel's body.

Despite his drugged body, it twitched with the voltage shooting through his system. Her let out a pained scream, tears already streaming down his face. The higher ranking man prowled along side the chair before stopping in front of him. He stooped down, leaning over Nathaniel.

"You will forget all of your childhood leading up to this moment after we are through with you."

And he did.

Nathaniel's eyes snapped open, the lights painfully bright to his eyes. He squinted, lifting his head upwards and took in his environment. He could vaguely tell that he was in the facility's infirmary. He'd hadn't been there since the beginning of his training when he would get knocked around by the larger trainees. There was an IV stuck in his arm, and he grumbled incoherently to himself. He yanked it out, never liking needles near him. A drop of blood pooled around the opening. Then it stopped.

Nathaniel's eyebrows shot up lazily in surprise as he wiped the blood away. It smeared across his forearm, but didn't continue to well from the puncture. He brought his arm close to his eyes, shocked to see that he could make out all the hairs and indentations in his skin around the inside of his elbow with outstanding detail. There wasn't any trace of the IV being in his arm.

He picked up the sound of someone coming to his room and looked up patiently at his door. What he didn't expect was to continue to hear the approaching footsteps for another 30 seconds before they reached his door. One of the few doctors employed there opened the door, smiling slightly when seeing Nathaniel awake.

"Okay Nate, I have some questions to ask you." The doctor said to him, sitting down into the rolling chair from across the room and wheeling it to his bedside. "Why don't we start with what happened before you fainted."