Filed to story: Sorry Alpha I Am Wolfless Novel
“Armina.” I stepped a little closer to her. “If you want to get away from the family, we can protect you. Will you join us? Will you work with us?”
“I..I don’t know. They will come for me. They will kill me. I know that they will.” Tears were streaming down her cheeks now. She was too scared to do anything at all. I didn’t want her to be this scared, but I didn’t know how to make her feel better.
The only thing that came to mind at the moment, that I thought might help her to trust us, was to show her that she wouldn’t be alone. She needed to see that Clovio and Warrick were on our side as well.
“Armina, I need you to talk to someone else. Please do not be scared. I am going to use magic right now.”
“M..magic?” Her eyes went wide at the word. “So, the rumors were true?”
“Just relax. I am not going to do anything to you.” I turned away from her and looked at the wall to the left. That was where Clovio was. Almost immediately after that, while my magic was still taking effect, I looked at the other wall.
What I had done here was to create doors into the walls. They were like my magical portal doors, but a lot more simple. They just needed to connect two rooms and allow people to move from one room to the next.
“What is this?” Armina was looking around warily.
“Armina?” Clovio called out in relief when he saw her. “I am so happy that you are OK.” I saw that he and Warrick both ran to her and hugged her in relieved happiness.
“You have agreed to join us, Armina. You are going to help us fight the family.”
“F..f..fight the family? S..so you two are against them as well?” She was relieved. “I knew that we talked about it before, but I didn’t think that you were going to turn against them like this.” Armina was the most shocked right now. She was learning things that she had never thought was possible.
“We want out, Armina. And we knew that you did too. Th..that was why I told King Joaquin about you. I wanted him to keep you safe. I wanted you to have a choice. If you renounce the family, then they will protect you. We will all be safe.”
“I do.” Armina’s words were hurried and filled with passion. “I don’t want to be with them, on that side. I want to live my own life. I want to be free.”
“She is telling the truth.” Vincent smiled.
“I know.” I could tell that even without Vincent’s confirmation. She was too obviously relieved at the prospect of getting away from the family. “Armina, you have a chance to side with us and work against your family. We will protect you and make sure that you are not harmed by them ever again.”
“Please. I just want to be free of them. I want to live a life that isn’t ruled by them and their weird rules.” Her tears, once caused by fear, were now from relief. I was happy that I was able to offer this salvation to her and the others. Any of them that turned against this family would be offered safety with us.
“Vincent, please take the three of them upstairs to one of the apartments. See to it that they are taken care of. They are to be protected and treated well. I will speak with them again later.”
“Of course.” He was the one that spoke to Armina earlier, so I thought that she might trust him the most right now.
“Joaquin, Gabriel, we need to finish the interrogations. And don’t forget to see if any of them will turn against the family.”
“Of course.” Gabriel nodded.
“Offer clemency, got it.” Joaquin nodded. “Let’s go.”
Our night wasn’t over yet. We still had so much to do. It wasn’t as stressful though, and that was a good thing.
****
Riviana
****
There were seventeen people that we needed to interview. That was more than there had been earlier in the night. And it was already starting to get really late. Or was that early? It was going to be getting light out soon. the kids would be waking up soon. Well, not as soon, since they weren’t going to school yet. This stuff wasn’t over yet, so I couldn’t risk their safety. I needed to make sure that the kids were safe at all times right now. I don’t know if or when those higher ups would retaliate against us for taking their people from them. I was sure that they would though. And that was why I needed to find them first.
I had let some of the others go to sleep a long time ago. We were going to need some of them in the morning when the rest of us were all dead tired from working all night. At the moment, it was just me, Joaquin, Shawn, Dietrich, Gabriel and Trevor. The six of us and the guards, that is. We were dividing up the interviews so that we would all have three. And I technically interviewed Armina, so she counted as my third one. I think that the others were trying to prove themselves. I was the only one that had gotten information from the other prisoners, so now they wanted to be the ones that learned something. They wanted, in a small way, to show me up. It would make them feel better about themselves.
The next person that I was to interview was a man that was named Gustav. He was with the men that were at the hotel. He wasn’t as stony faced as some of the others when I went into the room. In fact, he was so scared that he nearly screamed at the sight of me.
“W..w..what are you going to do to me?” He was almost crying. “You killed the others, didn’t you? Claud and them, they’re dead. I just know that they are. Their marks have stopped reporting.”
…..
“Their marks?” I eyed him curiously as I sat at the table. “What marks are you referring to? Would that be the Jaegan mark that was on all of you?”
“YES!” He practically screamed at me. “They stopped transmitting, so I know that you had to have killed them.” He was so scared and worried about his family. I know that he thought that we were killing them all, and that I was here with him meant that it was his turn to die.
“Gustav, you have nothing to worry about. Would it help you if I showed you the others? To prove to you that they are still alive? We are not out to hurt any of you. We just want your family to stop killing our people. Our people, our children, they have been killed by your family. And for no reason at all. They had done nothing to your family, they were innocent, and now they will never get the chance to live their lives. Your friend or cousin, or whatever he is to you, Claud, he didn’t just ritualistically kill a girl in California, he raped her as well. He tormented her in a way that no one should have ever done to another person. That was horrible. And yet Claud is in the other room, awaiting his official arrest by the FBI so that he can be taken to his new prison cell. He will be tried by a jury and punished for his crimes. He will spend the rest of his days in prison. I do not plan to kill any of your family. Not unless they attack me. Or if one of you attacks one of my people in front of me. I do not have any intentions of harming any of you. I want the killing and the heartache to end. Not to cause more of it.” I was doing my best to explain all of this to him, but I didn’t know if I was getting through to him.
“I..I..I don’t know what to believe.” He truly looked conflicted.
“Come here, Gustav. I will show you where the others are. Then we can come back here and talk.” His eyes went wide, but he nodded.
“I..I need to know that they are alive. I can’t let them all be dead. I..I..I wouldn’t forgive myself if I knew that I had a chance to save one of them.”
“Come on then.” I beckoned him toward me. He didn’t have a weapon on him, so I wasn’t worried that he would hurt me. Plus, if I showed that I trusted him, it would make him trust me even more.
I took Gustav to the hall and down toward the room that I knew Claud was in. He was the one that I had interviewed earlier, so I knew that he was safe and unharmed. When I opened the door, I saw that he had fallen asleep while sitting in the chair. He wasn’t chained to it anymore, but he was still sitting there. He even had a big puddle of drool forming beneath him. It was pretty much all the proof that Gustav needed. Someone that he thought was dead was here and very much alive.