The Hunt: War Continues

Chapter 25

Finn's battered face came into view on the screen, and I could hear a few voices of the people who were recording him. My palms were sweating, and I watched in horror as Finn was tied to a chair, blood trickling from his face and neck.

His bottom lip was puffy and it looked like he had been beaten senseless. His head lolled to the side as he sighed, spitting out a mix of saliva and blood.

"Oh my God," I mumbled with teary eyes as I covered my mouth in shock, Rowan stepping back and clasping his hands behind his back as he glared at the floor. He was tense - his jaw taut and shoulders hunched. I wondered how many times he had already watched the video.

The men on the other side of the camera chuckled, jeering Finn and asking him to speak to 'his friends and beg them for help'. I couldn't see who was in the dark and eerie looking room with him, but water dripped from the ceiling, crumbly dirt coating the floor.

Planks of wood boarded the walls, what looked to be soil spurting in from the gaps. The ground was rocky and slippery, and Finn's chair was sat at an angle on top of them, one leg higher than the other. It appeared as if they were underground.

I watched in shock for the remainder of the video, thankful that nobody touched Finn on camera. I wouldn't have been able to view him being beaten, but I gathered that Rowan knew that and was showing me because of the lack of graphic content.

"How long was I out for?" I asked, trying to get a gage of how long Finn had been captured.

"Four days," Rowan answered, snatching the laptop from my bed, grunting as he glared at the red flashing warning appearing on screen.

I arched my brows at it, pushing myself off of the bed so I could get a better view.

"Turns out you have to charge these things, and they've purposely sent it to us with low battery." Rowan's tone was full of venom. "I need to dig through what else is on here, so I'm going to head to my office at home. Please stay here though, Reya. Don't go and see Bill again. Not until we've both discussed a plan."

I furrowed my brows at him. "Well let's come up with a plan now. It can't wait."

Switching the laptop off with difficulty, Rowan tucked it under his arm, turning to me as his hand rested on the hospital door handle. "The wolfsbane should be out of Cole's system soon, and then they can operate to speed up the process. We can come up with a plan when he's awake. For now, I'll brainstorm with the warriors, but they really need to get their strength up. They're struggling."

Rowan really was holding onto the hope that Cole was going to wake up soon. I was too, but I also understood that Cole wasn't the type of Alpha who would be happy to see that we had done nothing while he was under. He would want us to plan and act. Finn didn't look good, and that video they had sent us was days old. I wasn't sure how long he could last.

I was going to talk to Bill, and I was going to find out the location of this colony that was holding Finn hostage. Rowan would be mad at me, yes, but he wasn't technically in charge. I was. We couldn't afford to sit around and wait.

Rowan was comfortable- because he could see from the video that Finn wasn't talking. The men on the other side of the camera were yelling at him, demanding that he told them the location of our pack and anything else he knew, but Finn kept a straight face the entire time.

I understood that Finn didn't mean anything to Rowan and to him, he was just another person lost in this war, but I wouldn't leave my friend to die.

Especially not when he was retaining his loyalty to us, despite the fact that he was being beaten and tortured.