The Alpha's Lifeline

~Chapter eight~

"Go ahead." The guard passed back his card and unlocked the door to the cells.

Rylan had to walk down a few flights of stairs before he got to another reception desk.

"Level 7..." Rylan asked the next guard and had to go through the same security precautions.

"The alpha asked me to give you this before you went down." The guard handed him a set of files.

"I'll read them on the way down." He took back his card and got into the elevator, pressing the button for level 7.

He skimmed through the notes briefly and instantly recognized a few of the people from the warehouse. This wasn't going to be easy.

When he got down to level 7, it was dark and cold. It reminded him of the warehouse, but he knew that he needed to do this. He physically shook his head off and made a sound of discomfort.

He showed identification once again and used his thumbprint on the scanner, before being let through to the cells.

"Rylan." His father nodded at him and he just looked at him. He had regret in his eyes. "I didn't want to interrupt I just wanted you to be safe I apologize."

"Let's get this over with." He said bluntly.

He stopped at the end cell and turned on the light, finding one of the men who had tortured him many times. He raised his head and spat at Rylan, completing missing and growling at him instead.

"Well, I apologize. But as you can see, this is important." His father walked towards the end cell where he was crouching in front of the silver bars.

"If you would've told me when they arrived, we wouldn't have this issue, would we? Hmmm?" Rylan added sarcastically. He layed his head in his hands and look up and down the cells.

"Let's get to the point. Who's this?" William asked.

"I didn't know him by his name." He pointed to the sheet. "He was one of the main guards, usually on day shifts." He kept eye contact with the man.

"Brody, write this down." His father asked and Brody nodded, appearing behind them, scribbling notes. "Did he used to hurt you?"

"Well... yeah. Dad. They all used too." His father sensed his discomfort, he didn't realise how hard this would be for him.

"What do you want to know?" Rylan asked, turning to him. He hadn't realized that a whole group of men was sitting behind him writing notes too.

"It's okay, they're meant to be here. They're helping with the investigation. Trained hunters and investigators." William explained. "Ask away." He told them.

"Has he changed his appearance lately? Did he have a beard, wears glasses? Anything like that?" One of the men asked.

"He looks like he did I think..." Rylan admitted.

"What uniforms would these guys wear?"

"Whatever they could get hold of. Usually camo stuff, probably stolen from the nearby military base. I don't know." He told them.

"What about the other men?"

Rylan flicked over the page and moved along a cell at a time. "I recognize most of them."

"Names..?" His father asked.

"Thomas at the end, these guys I don't know... The guy on the end was seen less."

"What did he do?"

"I saw him a few times, though he might have been higher up maybe. Always bossing round the guards on our level." He suggested.

"This one?" Someone pointed to the guy next to him.

"Another guard..." Rylan was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

"When you were being hurt, was is random? For any reason?

"I recorded all of this last year why is this necessary...?" He asked his father.

"They came in yesterday I just wanted to see if you could remember anything or it brought stuff back, Rylan." He said with sympathy.

"Yeah well it is bringing stuff back, that doesn't mean it's helpful for me."

"Just look at a few more, please." He turned the page of his own notes. "How about this person?"

"Yeah... I know him." He sat down in front of the cell and the man looked up at him. Rylan was trembling, but he knew this man very well.

"Who is he?" His father asked, seeing Rylan's interest in the man.

"I don't know how old we were... probably 12 or 13. But there was a period where the torture and pain was... Intense. I think his name is Harris." He paused for a moment as the man nodded.

"DONT TELL THEM YOU IDIOT." The man next to him screamed and he flinched.

"He tried to get us out. There was a group of about 10 of us... And by then, we had realized that we were on the bottom level of this particular place, I think it was an abandoned car park that they'd turned into a fucking prison." He paused again, never taking his eyes off of Harris.

"He began helping us to plan an escape. I was probably the weakest by then and I could barely walk, let alone run out of this place... We got to level 3 when the guards caught on, he was trapped and a few of us managed to get outside... We started screaming and shouting and got about a mile before we were captured." He explained. "That's when they moved us to the warehouse."

"Three weeks later, and nothing had happened. They hadn't touched us, even been in to check that we were alive. But then they turned on all the lights and barged in one day. He was brought in, silver handcuffs rotting his ankles and wrists, just like ours."

"Rylan, you don't have to..." Brody could see that Rylan was beginning to get upset. "Stop mate."

"He had been starved like the rest of us for those three weeks, and then they made us watch him being tortured... His was much worse than ours. They smashed his jaw and just began cutting at his limbs... They stopped, just before he died and about a month later, we saw him again, but he was back on guard duty."

"Were you ever hurt from that incident?" One of the men asked. Brody gave him a sour look, indicating that he should've just left it there.

"They tried to drown us, a few of the kids went unconscious and nearly died. But it was all just a game of doing as much as they could, without killing us..."