The Bureau (A Cage for Men and Wolves Book 1) (22 page)

"Nothing." The lie came out almost before he'd finished his question.

"Nothing at all?"

"No. He doesn't tell me anything about his work."

He looked at her with his deceptively soft expression for a long time, but Clover didn't believe his act for a second. She tried to brace her shoulders, to raise her chin, but a moment later her arms jerked against the cuffs as Rainer reached for her. For a second she thought he was going to hit her. Instead, his course hand slide under her fingers and cradled them in a way that seemed artificially gentle. She was reminded of the way he'd touched her in the abandoned office—when he'd undone the top button of her blouse. He lifted her quivering fingers and brushed a thumb over the backs of them, studying them, like he'd forgotten what they were talking about.

"You have beautiful fingers. Has my brother ever told you that?"

"N-no." Clover's heart was in her throat. She wanted to wrench her hand away from him, the heat of his fingers sickening as it seeped into her skin.

"Tell me, what month was it when you were apprehended?"

Clover felt ice shoot down her throat and chill her core.

She tried desperately to remember how long it had taken Hannah to go through the finishing school system. How many months had passed between her capture and her reappearance on the streets of the city? Whatever answer she picked, she knew the pregnant pause had already given her away.

"A-August." Even in her own ears it sounded like a question.

"August?" Rainer nodded slowly, then his fingers tightened around her longest digit and wrenched it backward until it touched her wrist.

Clover felt, as much as heard, the snapping of her bone and she was on her feet immediately, her body trying to get away from her assailant, and from the table that she learned was bolted to the floor. Instead of distancing herself, her chair toppled over and the rawness in her throat told her that she was screaming. It was hard to hear anything over the rush of blood in her ears and the crunching sound that had lodged itself in her head. A second later, she was on her knees.

Somewhere inside her, the sliver of pride she had left told her to get a grip on herself, so she clenched her teeth and breathed hard through her nose, pressing her forehead against the cold, metal edge of the table. If she could manage the pain of transformation every month, she could handle a broken finger.

"Forgetfulness is going to get you hurt in here, Ms. Rhodes."

His veil of gentleness was gone, and the levelness of his voice made Clover realize that it wasn't just the pain from a broken finger that had left her feeling helpless; the fear that had been planted in her the day she squeezed into the sewers, that had been germinating inside her as she spent her days in the Bureau's hallways, had finally blossomed into a terror that soaked her face in tears. She'd been foolish and arrogant for not aborting her mission the moment she realized Rainer was connected to her prisoner. She'd been playing with fire, and now she was bound to the stake she'd planted herself.

"I think it's time we stop playing games." Rainer gave her a minute to catch her breath. "You and I both know you're lying about more than that data. Did you really think I wouldn't recognize you?"

Clover's body went still as the cloud of pain and exhaustion vanished. She heard him get up from the table and right her chair, then hands gripped her under her arms and dragged her from the floor.

"Don't look so surprised. It's insulting." He redeposited her in the chair, shoving her up to the table again.

Clover was silent as blood rushed back down her arm, intensifying the throbbing in her hand. Rainer took his seat across from her again, his hands folding themselves in front of him.

"The unfortunate truth is that your records are perfect, so
technically
there's no way for me to prove to the Legal Department that you're an impostor. But you've given me a way around that by getting yourself arrested. I should thank you, really, because now I have
weeks
to get the information I want."

"You can't bust me for being an impostor, but you expect me to believe you'll get away with torturing information out of me? I think you're lying."

Rainer smiled at her, ignoring her accusation. "Tell me, how was Elliot able to fake your records so perfectly?"

"Because he's smarter than you." The words left Clover's mouth before she processed what he was asking. He thought
Elliot
had faked the documents?

A look that mockingly resembled admiration broadened Rainer's smile, like he might be pleased with her response, then he slapped her. The force nearly knocked her out of her chair again, but the pain was bearable after what he'd done to her finger.

"Be smart, Clover." He was still smiling. "I know you're strong, but I promise you, I'm stronger."

Clover's cheek was hot where he'd hit her, and she forced herself to keep still, watching her rapidly swelling finger. She didn't want to admit that he was right, but egging him on while she was bound to a table was only asking for more injury.

"Why don't I give you a choice in the matter? You only have to answer one question, and I'll even let you pick which one you answer. You can tell me what my little brother is up to, or you can tell me where your pack is hiding."

Clover knew she must have looked at him like he was insane, because he seemed satisfied.

"I'll even give you some time to think about your answer."

Before she could tell him that he was stupid if he thought for a second that she would give up her pack's location he was on his feet, plucking her file from the table.

Before the severity of her choice could really settle in, her shock collar signaled the arrival of her guards, and soon, she'd been bagged and led back to her cold cell, left to decide who would die—her parents, or her pack?

- 21 -

The throbbing that pulsed up Clover's arm did little to distract from the real terror concealed in the choice Rainer had given her.

She knew what the right
thing to do was. Every good pack member knew what the
right
thing to do was. But she wasn’t a good pack member—not like she had thought.

Clover struggled to remember the girl who had once exchanged letters with Hannah, who had been so insulted by her attraction to her master’s son. She tried to remember what it had felt like to be so sure—so righteous—about what was right and wrong, about what it meant to be a good pack member. Now she could feel a shadow inside of her, another person who was ready to throw them to the fire if it meant ensuring her own success.

In the end, it didn't matter if she gave up the location of her pack—Rainer had no intention of letting her go, and Elliot seemed to have no intention of getting her out. She would go to trial, then to the incinerator. In one sentence he'd given her both the hardest question of her life, and the easiest. She didn't have to worry about right and wrong, the only answer she had that wasn't surrender was
silence.

She'd never expected it to be so easy—accepting her own death. How badly could it hurt, after all? A flash of heat—she'd probably be dead before the meat fell from her body.

Just as she was sealing her pact of silence, a squealing of static filled her cell. Certain that the siren would follow the crunchy white-noise, Clover's hands moved to her ears, then light came from the screen above the door. It had been black since she'd first woken up, but as the snowstorm of static cleared, it revealed the inside of an interrogation room just like the one she'd been in a few hours ago. She lowered her hands. There was no siren, but she could hear the heavy breathing of the man locked onto the table.

Clover knew she was looking through a camera that was different from the one she'd seen during her first interview. The angle was wrong. It wasn't split or face-level, but peered over the shoulder of a black-haired agent from its perch in the corner of the room. 

"I know you think you're being brave." Clover didn't need to see the agent's face to know that it was Rainer's voice coming through the speakers. "But silence won't save you, and it won't save
them
. It's only going to make things harder in the long run."

A squirming sensation started in the very bottom of Clover's stomach. She felt like Rainer was addressing
her
, like he knew somehow that she'd just sworn herself to secrecy. She thought the man at the table was feeling the same queasy sensation, because he shifted in his chair, balling his fists and leaning further away from his captor. 

Rainer waited for an answer, but the man only pressed his lips more tightly together. Even over the speakers, Clover could hear the dramatic sigh that Rainer released, followed by the soft thud of the hammer he placed on the table between them. 

"I'm going to ask you one last time." The conversational tone he used, the one Clover had become accustomed to, was gone. "Where does your pack hide?"

Clover wondered where her resolve had gone. She'd just finished convincing herself that nothing they did to her would make her talk, and now she was willing this man to tell Rainer everything, all because of the glint of light that reflected off the head of an everyday hammer. Maybe she was a coward and saw herself in that man's position. Or maybe it was the broad set of the prisoner's shoulders, and squared edge of his jaw. The man who was built like her father.

She knew it was impossible, given the poor quality of film, but Clover thought she saw the man's fists shake. He frowned, which hardened his jawline, and shook his head. Rainer nodded, as though accepting his answer, then he struck with the same speed she'd seen him scruff his brother with. In one motion, he grabbed the hammer and brought it down on the man's fist. The crunching of bones was muffled, and Clover realized that it wasn't just the man's screaming that was drowning out the sound. Her breath was coming in deafening gulps as she turned her back to the screen, one hand covering her mouth, the other folding over her stomach to keep the terror from writhing out of her body.

Clover refused to look at the screen again as she heard Rainer restate his question, shouting over the growling coming from the werewolf across the table. There was no answer and the thudding of the hammer returned. Screams of pain framed the dull percussion and Clover locked her hands over her ears, determined to keep the sound of shattered bones out of her head. Just as she'd managed to press hard enough to drown the noise out, she was knocked to the ground by the jets of ice water, whose threat she'd forgotten about. She was washed toward the center of the room, and as the volume of the video was cranked up over the crashing of water, she realized they were playing a new game—she would watch the video or suffer.

The television stayed on after that, playing through an endless string of interrogations, all ending worse than the one before. Clover tried to ignore them, tried to fool the camera watching her by staring at the wall just to the left or right of the screen, but they seemed to know when she was blocking the sensations out. When an older man had his face beaten beyond recognition, when a woman had her brown jump suit ripped from her body by two unrecognizable guards, when a boy her age had an ear cut off, Clover found herself washed to the ground, punished for trying to block the screen from her line of sight.

Forced to watch as she was, Clover tried to harden herself against the onslaught of violence. She wasn't a stranger to injury, and tried to remember every gory slice of flesh she'd watched as she and her father had removed their friend's arm. She would combat their violent imagery with her own, she would remind herself that she was stronger than Rainer's scare tactics. Then she watched a woman have each of her fingertips clipped off with wire-cutters, and she realized that it wasn't the injury that forced the bile up her throat and onto the floor in front of her—it was the horrific intentionality of it.

Once her body had given up the bit of ground she'd maintained until that point, she was no longer able to close the floodgates of tears and vomit that had been opened. Hours passed like that—cycling between bouts of strength, followed by a trip to the toilet to be sick, then the battering of water—and soon the interrogations began ending in death. She was watching her future through the misery of these strangers, and she knew that was exactly what Rainer wanted her to take from his sick collection of snuff films. He wanted to show her what was waiting for her if she chose not to answer his questions.

Eventually, she stopped guessing how much time had passed, but her body felt like it had been days. She knew, at least, that it had been long enough for everything to go numb. She'd stopped crying, and hadn't been sick for at least a score of videos. She didn't even have to stare at the wall any more to trick her wardens. She watched, heavy lidded, as an older man's arm was broken over the edge of the table. He wasn't bound any more, but as Rainer broke his second arm in a similar fashion she guessed it didn't matter if he was or not. The man was dropped to the floor, both limbs making "L" shapes in directions that were unnatural.

It might have been shocking at the beginning of this onslaught, but now broken bones was only a precursor to the real interrogation, which is why Clover was shocked to hear this man's voice suddenly break through his screaming, answering questions that so many people had died to protect.

"There's an old mining vein!" The man was sobbing in a way she'd never seen an adult cry until these videos had started. "Three miles west of the old factory."

"Are you lying to me?" Rainer wiped sweat from his forehead looking as surprised as Clover was that the answer was coming so readily.

"No! No, it's grown over, but it's there. I swear!"

Rainer stood taller and straightened his uniform, then went to the small speaker by the door, mashing a button to open communication. "Send him to the medic."

This time, instead of changing to another interrogation, the TV went black. Clover didn't move from where she'd planted herself against the wall. Was that the end? She knew that the end of a show like that could only mean one thing—it was her turn. She could still hear the reverberation of screaming in her head when the sound of boots started thumping from the hall outside her door. Tears stung her eyes again. Since the screening of torture had started, she hadn't thought of escaping, or of Elliot rescuing her. She had only thought of how she would endure something so horrible while keeping her dignity intact. As the boots got louder, she considered biting her tongue off. They couldn't torture her if she was dead.

Instead of killing herself, she shuffled to the center of the room and, working against the stiffness of her body, laid face down on the cold floor. Her hands were folded neatly behind her back when the door scraped open. Surrendering almost felt like a reward as her body was finally relieved of its task of supporting her, and she was happy when her captors took her invitation and didn't use the shock collar before cuffing her. The bag came over her head as she tried to guess whether she would be the one to talk or the one to die.

- 22 -

Despite the strange calm that had taken her in the last minutes inside her cell, when the hood was removed, she could see her hands shaking where they were bound to the table, and without the fabric sopping them up, she felt tears dribble from her chin. She didn't test her bonds this time, but tried to draw her fingers into fists, though her swollen, crooked finger refused to move. She wanted to protect them, imagining them as short, waving stumps that would coat the table in the grainy blood puddle she'd seen through her private screen.

Before the roots of panic could plant themselves any deeper, the door opened and her interrogator stepped inside. Rainer seemed larger, broader and more dangerous than he ever had, and despite the chill that had set in Clover's bones, the room felt hot and claustrophobic. She held her breath, not wanting him to hear how terrified she was, as he sat down across from her. He folded his hands in front of him and Clover thought that for the first time, she may actually look like the helpless, enslaved creature she'd been feebly portraying for the past week.

Rainer's voice was soft, the malice she knew he kept under pressure inside himself expertly concealed. "Did you like the show? I put it together just for you. I wanted to make sure you were fully informed before deciding on your course of action. You remember the questions I gave you, don't you?"

Clover pressed her lips together when she felt her chin start to shake.

"I suggest you answer me, Clover. Unless you need me to help you."

A gagging sensation stung the back of Clover's throat and she nodded, wondering if playing his game would postpone what she knew was coming.

"Good girl." The side of Rainer's mouth twitched and Clover thought he might be enjoying himself. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but I get the impression you're not very interested in talking to me right now, so why don't I guess what you might want to say to me?"

Even as she hoped to postpone the torture she knew was in her immediate future, part of Clover wished he would just get on with it. When she'd laid down in her cell she'd been ready for the onslaught of pain, but now he was playing with her, and it threatened to crack the foundation of her resolve.

Rainer steepled his fingers in front of his mouth, as though pretending to concentrate on what Clover might be thinking. "You're wondering why I don't interrogate every werewolf we pick up. Why I don't just find every pack. Am I right?"

Clover bit the inside of her mouth. That question had never even crossed her mind, but after a quiet warning from her interrogator she nodded, performing the way she knew he wanted her to.

"We don't hunt you all down because the Bureau doesn't
want
to get rid of you. Not
really.
We might tell everyone else that's what we want, but it's not." He watched her again for a minute in silence, then continued, apparently not getting the shocked reaction he'd been hoping for. "You see, this agency is just like my little brother. They want to keep you trickling in forever. They want to keep the suffering going for as long as they can. And do you know why?"

Clover was still shivering, but a small place inside her, a place where her strength and curiosity had been entombed against onslaught of horror, was listening. She nodded again, this time meaning it.

"Monsters like you line their pockets. I bet you can't even fathom the amount of money people like Elliot make off every one of you. Think about it, Clover. When he and his little Evaluator friends kill one you,
we,
the Bureau, take the financial hit. But if he
saves your life,
" his voice strained with disgust. "Then he makes bank. He makes money, and the Bureau makes money, and he gets all the praise because he's just added another free worker to the system."

His game was clear, now. He was poisoning the well. He seemed to be under the impression that Clover, like many of the other indentured werewolves she'd met, admired Elliot—thought he was some sort of light in the darkness they lived in. If he wasn't an Evaluator, if he didn't sign death warrants for innocent people, she might have felt that way about him. But she also knew that she would take his betrayal over her current position in a second.

Elliot was no saint, but there was something good at his core, Clover could see it. She could see a good man struggling against the system in his own, ignorant sort of way. There was nothing beneath the hard surface of Rainer, though, nothing but darkness and bloodlust.