Rejected Mate and Following Fate novel Chapter 39

Deacon is a brute of the highest order, who probably got his training in Juan's school of charm for asshats, and half drags me, half lets me walk on my own feeble legs down the corridor to an elevator. Only stopping to bark orders at another guard sat at a desk nearby, before shoving me inside and taking me down to a level that has an air of aircraft hangar. The doors slide open to reveal a large, empty garage like space, in semi darkness, with concrete floors, and strip lighting on the ceiling, which stands a good twenty feet above us. The space is huge and there are three trucks parked at the far end on what looks like a platform, which I'm assuming raises up. It's dull, definitely many degrees colder, and seems like a part no one frequents all too often.

As we walk the lights begin to flick on automatically over our heads, and I note at the semi middle of the wall on the left a low glow is already illuminating from what seems to be an open alcove. From this angle I don't really see what it is until we walk level with it and turn right, my head snapping to turn back, even while being dragged along away from it, so we head in its exact opposite direction where I catch glimpse of what it actually is.

A room behind a full glass wall stretching its width for ample viewing, that looks like at one point it's been a sectioned area for parking and was repurposed. There are tire grids running up to the window, but the inside room it has concrete smooth floors as though they were resurfaced. It houses a bed right in the center, surrounded by machines, and carts, and equipment, all making flashes, and low beeps, and hums, keeping the solitary figure within the bed silent.

A motionless brunette woman, hard from this angle to tell if it's Sierra, is laid out like sleeping beauty, amid wires and tubes, under a single dull spotlight hanging directly over the bed. It's almost like an art piece of a priceless mummy in a museum, she's so still, pale, and lifeless, and it tightens my stomach in knots, choking me with emotion.

She's on full view to this entire area in her glass box, yet completely unmanned and without any kind of caregiver keeping an eye on her, which speaks volumes. I guess all the monitors and machines are doing the job of people, and it breaks my heart to see her so alone, even if she isn't aware of it. Colton would die if he saw the way she's being kept, with no human contact, no care or interaction… just machines, and isolation, in a god damn basement. My heart aches for her, for him, and I'm glad he doesn't know this is what Juan has done to his mom.

Deacon gets annoyed with my straining backwards to stare and jerks my arm cruelly, snapping my face back around and I give him a hateful scowl, scared of him less and less the more I'm in his company. He's a typical Santo bully and not unlike a lot of the pack were my whole life. Pushing people like me around, in a bid to exert his dominance in the hierarchy. He would last ten seconds out there if he made me mad enough to throw air at him, as stupid as that may sound. He's a dumb jock type, with a bad attitude, and the need of a dart gun to take down a running femme…. Loser.

I focus back where we are heading, and I can see my room mirrors hers and I'm about to join the glass casket crew. I'm guessing it's the backup room should they need to move her to do whatever, or maybe in case something happens in there and she needs moving over here. God knows, but it's almost identical and I wonder if there was ever a second person like Sierra here. Or maybe Juan has plans to add one…. like me.

Mine is not full of tubes and machines but it does house a solitary single hospital bed in the center, which appears to be bolted down, and a wall of units and cupboards behind it. One corner holds a very public portable toilet that the other room's lacking, and I don't struggle when Mr. Security. pulls me up level with the transparent wall. There's no privacy or places to hide with its matching glass barrier and as we stand here, I see the almost invisible outline of a singular door within its vast transparency.

"Is this so you can watch all day and night without opening the door? Getting your freak on and watching defenseless women!" I snark at Deacon, who's avoided saying anything more to me since we left the doctor in our wake. The only words were uttered at the guard outside the door, when he informed him my three meals a day were to be added to the rota and reported to the cook until further notice. Another Santo looking douchebag upstairs, who glared at me like I was something gross he found stuck to his shoe.

He glares at me, with that sardonic asshole expression, scans a swipe card against a panel on the wall to our right and pushes me inside aggressively when the door slides open. It's a little sci-fi tech, and I refuse to react in any other way than hostile bitch. I almost trip over my own feet and end up slapping my hand on the wall to steady myself, before turning my head with a half turn to snarl at him, wishing I could turn, because that boy's throat would be in much need of repair given half the chance.

I have so much aggression peeking inside of me that I almost can't contain the sudden hatred of him. I can almost taste his blood, and feel his pulse beating out of his jugular, as I focus on what I could do given half the chance. I spin back to him fully, my robe flapping around so he probably gets an eyeful of naked ass as I did so, and throw the angriest, hostile, vicious sneer I can, right at his smug face.