Liam did his best to keep his head down. The longer the Rogues stared the further the panic clawed up his throat. Liam wanted to freak out hours ago.
He had wanted to cry and to break down and beg Mira to let him go. By some miraculous miracle, Liam was calm. Well, as calm as he could be, given the extreme circumstances.
He tugged uncomfortably at the chain around his wrist. The metal was icy cold from lying in a pool of seawater, and red with rust, but strong enough for Liam to look like a fool if he tried to break free.
Mira sat on her own by the door, smirking proudly at the many spindly faces. How can she be pleased with this? Every Rogue was skin and bones, dirty, and depressed.
He eyed the Rogue sitting in front of him, the Rogue who had carried him through the woods and away from Baela, the Rogue who held his arm through the tunnel, and the Rogue who had chained him to the cave wall. Words formed, but he didn't voice them. He thought about speaking for almost ten minutes until stuttering,
"H-Have you... um-"
The guy lifted his head. Hollow eyes lingered on him, but Liam looked away.
"What is it?" he asked glumly.
"Um, have you always been a Rogue?" Liam pursed his lips as others close by looked too.
"I went Rogue fifteen years ago."
"You chose this?" Liam asked, astonished.
The guy nodded weakly. "The freedom," he mumbled.
Liam didn't see freedom, he saw fear, and a whole lot if it was stuffed inside a cold and damp cave.
"But this?" He glanced back to Mira, their substitute Alpha. Some wolves thought Zayn was a bad leader but this... Liam's heart ached at all the misery.
"I chose freedom," the Rogue repeated.
Liam felt sorry for him and wished he could let the Rogues see that whatever Mira had promised them wasn't worth it.
"What's your name?" he asked instead.
"Leo" he mumbled. "Short for Leonard."
"H- How long have you been a part of Mira's pack?"
Len shuffled away with a sudden frown, and Liam noticed Mira weaving through the wolves. She stopped by the chain, giving it a light kick.
"Don't talk to my Pack," she said before turning to Len. "Don't talk to him. He's a manipulator."
Liam had never been called that before, and he very nearly scoffed. "We were good friends once."
Then I abandoned our friendship for Zayn. I guess that was for the best. Liam wondered what else would've happened if he had stayed friends. She might've killed me ages ago.
"Once, and then Zayn Malik took you." Mira tilted her head. Shadows fell across her thin face, darkening her eyes. "And you never came back."
Liam sighed. "And you stood by a murderous Beta wolf who had Zayn's father killed because he was jealous of the power. You're not innocent." Liam's boldness earned him a slap on the side of the head.
"Shut up or I'll have your tongue removed" she hissed, slapping him again before storming back to her lonely corner.
Liam looked back to Leo. He stared hard at the uneven floor. Liam had never seen werewolves so scared of a human before. Well, Liam assumed most of the wolves had been there since Jaiden, and maybe stayed out of pity for Mira. Maybe they feared what would happen to them if they tried to leave. But they were Rogues, they belonged to no pack, so why were they together in the first place?
"What did she promise you?" he whispered. Leo didn't look up this time.
Len didn't reply, but an older woman to his left said, "she promised us a home."
Liam's heart thumped out of control. He did feel sorry for them, but now his heart leaked from him so thickly, he wished he wasn't chained up, so he could give the older woman a hug.
"She's lying" he said before thinking.
The Rogues nearest to him all glared. "No she's not. She promised us she'd get you and kill Zayn Malik and give us the North."
Liam once again found himself surprised. "And you're so sure about this that you've just um- told me right to my face?"
"Zayn Malik killed our Alpha."
"Jaiden?"
The Rogues nodded.
"Do you know why he killed Jaiden?"
"Because he knew Jaiden wanted his Alpha role."
"No." Liam shook his head furiously. "Jaiden was trying to kill me, so Zayn killed him before."
"That's bullshit. Mira said-"
"Zayn didn't know who Jaiden was or what he was doing. We only recently found out about him being your Alpha. This whole time, we thought he was the Alpha's mate." Liam tugged on the chain.
"Zayn didn't even know that Jaiden was a part of the Bedlam Pack before he was killed." The chain on his wrist was long enough for Liam to subconsciously rub his neck, remembering Jaiden's hands on him when he shoved Liam's head underwater almost two years ago.
"Zayn killed Jaiden to protect me. Now Mira is trying to kill Zayn to avenge his death. Nothing about any of this is okay, b- but nobody else has to die."
Mira glanced his way and Liam pulled his knees to his chest.
"We want our home" Leo finally mumbled.
"But-"
"But what? You're the mate of an Alpha who has everything. We have nothing. Do you see other Pack's coming to help us out? That Shadow Pack has been here a few times and told us off for stealing cows, that's it. Mira is the only one who wants us to thrive"
"The Shadow Pack has been here?" Liam glanced to the gaping mouth of the cave, and the water beyond. "Are we close to them?"
"Why? It's not like you're getting out." The older woman turned her back to him, but Leo raised a brow.
"Not everything is so simple, if it was, I'd still be in my old pack."
Liam didn't understand why any wolf would choose this life. "What Pack did you leave?"
"The Blade Pack."
"The Blade Pack" Liam mumbled, familiar with that name. "Oh, the Pack where the Alpha has a human mate." Liam frowned. He had always been terrible with names. "I spoke to them recently."
"You did?" Leo perked up and stopped hunching over. He asked in a quiet voice, "Uh... How are they?"
"Good, I think. I spoke to Camilla about being a human mate. She's nice."
"Yeah." Leo's eyes dimmed as quickly as they sparkled. He wrapped arms around his thin frame.
"Why did you leave the pack?" Liam was too curious not to ask.
Leo glanced in Mira's direction, but a Rogue was speaking to her and her attention was elsewhere.
"The freedom. I just wanted to travel and have that simple life of well, the humans."
"You wanted to live with humans?"
"Not exactly, but I just couldn't settle. Many Rogues have been through the same thing, and werewolves in Pack's look down on us like there's something wrong."
The older woman leaned closer to Leo. "I don't know why you're telling him this," she hissed.
"Mira said he was a manipulator"
"I'm not the one plotting to take over the North," Liam mumbled. A friend's betrayal was making him bitter, but Liam had every right to be angry. Mira planned to kill him, and Zayn, and take the home that had only just started to feel like his.
"Right!" Mira yelled through the cave, scaring everyone. Her voice echoed along the curved grey walls. "We've been informed that the Shadow Pack is on their way. We need to act fast."
No, please! Liam panicked. He had to stall them, but how? How?
Leo leaned forwards to stand, and Liam whispered, "If you help me escape, you can have a place in the Ethdellin Pack."
Shit, what have I done? Liam could think about the consequences later. The way Leo stared with big round eyes in his sunken sockets told Liam that he had not expected such an offer.
"Please, Leo. Please help me."
Liam was taking a huge risk. Leo could run to Mira and then she would kill him for sure, or he could accept the offer and be a mole in the Pack Mira was trying to destroy.
Leo did neither. "Are you trying to get us both killed?" He quickly unchained Liam and gripped his arms tightly, stopping Liam from running away.
Liam had nowhere to run. The heavy rusted door was closed, and the cave led straight into the sea. Liam could swim, but how far were they from levelled land? What if wolves grabbed him first? Or even worse, what if wolves could swim faster than him? If Liam were caught in the water, that would be the end.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
A group of Rogues crowded by a large bulging rock. The Rogues shoved and shoved until a foul scraping funnelled through the cave. The boulder rolled sluggishly to the side, uncovering a black hole and white scrapes all around it as though the rock was often moved back and forth. "Where does that go?"
Len was reluctant to answer him, but the old woman muttered, "It's where we keep them."
"Them?" Liam panicked when Len dragged him through a pool of freezing sea water, soaking him to his knees. A crab scattered from the pool and a turned Rogue caught it under a dirty paw.
"Uh... Prisoners.!"
"But-" Liam glanced at the two guys who were chained to the wall.
"They're Rogues, they got caught by a farmer when they stole some chickens. They're chained up as a punishment."
Liam did his best to resist Leo's strength. The black hole in the side of the cave was shaped like another mouth, waiting to swallow him up and digest him into its slimy sea eroded stomach. Leo really struggled to pull Liam, so he was pushed away, and two other Rogues took the human.
"Mira, please!" Liam yelled, scuffing his shoes and digging nails into the rocks. Three Rogues managed to drag him close enough to the hole that Liam felt icy air exhaling from its mouth. He didn't know what waited for him in the darkness, and he didn't want to find out.
"Please, we can sort something out. You don't have to be like this!"
Tears fell. Liam's eyes were as brown, as watery, as restless, and as salty as the sea that slammed the entrance to the cave.
Mira floated over to him with an odd smirk. Her eyes were always wide and mad. Liam had no hope of finding her empathy. How could he find something that had never been there to begin with? All of it must have been an act, a cover up to hide the true Mira, the Mira who was the mate of a man who wanted power more than her warmth at night.
"Please," he whispered, knowing that if he went through the hole in the cave, seeing daylight again was slim, and seeing Zayn again was even more unlikely.
"We can come to an agreement. Mira, we can stop all-" Liam was booted so hard in his chest, the air was knocked out of him. He fell backwards into the hole, smacking his head on the curve as his body met the ground, and his vision blurred.
Liam curled up on the wet ground, gripping his head and his chest, expecting Mira to watch as the Rogues enclosed him into the darkness. But Mira slipped inside the darkness with him, and Liam was trapped with a monster.