The Exiled Alpha | ✓

29 | Shattering Screams

Cold stone against my skin. Ropes tied tightly around my wrists. Those are the first things to welcome me back into consciousness. I sit up, bones popping with stiffness.

I recognize with a stab of trepidation the face sitting only yards away: Romanov. He's sitting cross legged across the room, staring at me with the intensity of a scorned animal. His face is unreadable, yet somehow I can read it just fine, having had plenty of practice with Riot. I have an idea as to why I'm here, but I don't want to believe it as true.

"She's awake!" Romanov calls, not breaking eye contact for even a second, "Bring him in."

While we wait in silence for "him" to arrive, I take the chance to stake out my surroundings. The room is large and circular, with floors and walls made of cobblestone. The ceiling comes to a hollow point above in the shape of a turret. Small windows dot the walls, like that of a medieval watch tower. Outside the windows the sky is a dark gray, an abyss of angry storm clouds brewing over the white and gold city. Rain drizzles down heavily, so dark that you can hardly tell it's day instead of night.

At the side of the room it begins to square off into a descending stairwell. From that stairwell comes a boy, every piece of his apparel black and every part of his body leaden with a weapon sheathe. One feature jumps out at me with a chill, and those are the dead eyes in his skull that are fixed on the ground, void of emotion.  

Something oblong and large is draped over his shoulder. It's wrapped in black plastic and looks eerily life-sized. He drops it carelessly on the ground beside me. It lands with a dull with a thud. Romanov gets up and the bounty hunter he'd called in steps back. With a gloved hand, Romanov pulls away a portion of the plastic.

I cringe, the rancid stench of decaying flesh burning my nostrils. The corpse's skin is pale. His eyes are still open, staring hauntingly up at ceiling. They're glazed over, the expression of fear frozen inside them. Half of his face is completely gone, torn off down to the dirty white of the bone. His jaw is slack, only a slither of flesh holding it together.

"Do you recognize him?" Romanov asks, almost accusingly. This is why I'm here? To play guessing games for the name to a mound of mutilated flesh?

"How could I? He barely has a face," I say, my palm muffling my words.

Romanov growls, apparently displeased with my answer. "Smell again. Closer."

"Sniffing the dead isn't really my thing-"

"NOW!" He barks, shoving my head next to the dead man's.

I only stop recoiling when realization hits me like a ton of bricks. The color drains from my face, just like his did.

The blood that Riot came back covered in smells exactly the same as the blood dried to this corpse's torn and flayed flesh.

This is the hunter from last night. The spy that snapped one too many twigs in the bushes. Of course that's why I'm here. Romanov made it very clear; if Riot breaks any law, any at all, then this entire deal is over. Possibly along with other things, such as my life.

For once, I hate the fact that I'm right.

This is him. And his is what Riot done to him. He ripped him apart. Dissected him like a frog. And now I have to answer for it. For letting the tyrant "run off leash."

Romanov must notice my pale face and gaping jaw, though not as pale and gaping as his friend I'm sure. He bends down and throws the plastic blanket back over the body.

"He's only the first of many I've found in the last 24 hours. So maybe you'd like to tell me why my hunters are dropping like flies." He steps threateningly closer and I scoot cautiously back.