Chapter Thirty-Six
Harley
"Are you ready, Harley?" Rafe tried to keep his voice calm and gentle.
I nodded jerkily, squeezing Scott's hand between both of mine.
"You're sure you want to do this in an open forum?" Colby asked from his spot beside Rafe. "We can video tape it or even stream it live, instead."
"I can do it," I said, scooting my chair slightly closer to Scott's.
Rafe nodded toward the one-way window and the door opened, one of his detectives – Jackal, I think – began ushering people in one at a time.
The older man who seemed to be in charge patted my shoulder as he took his customary seat at the front of the table. Carol, a woman from the Crimes Against Omegas division took the open seat to my right. As much as she had bugged me with all of her repetitive questions when I didn't have any answers, now that I'd several chances to talk to her, I'd really started to like her.
Another familiar face - Charles somebody - took the one next to her.
By the time the door closed, the twenty seats had all been filled and the back wall was two people deep.
"Thank you all for coming," Rafael began, rising from his seat and walking to the front of the room. "We're here for an update on the Omega Doe case."
A whisper ran through the room and the Blood Valley Omega snorted. "Nope. It's not actually the wrap-up, unfortunately."
Rafael shook his head. "As much as we wish it were, we've only scratched the surface of this case." He flicked off the lights and walked back to his seat. "Colby? If you don't mind?"
The massive screen mounted to the wall came to life, filling it corner to corner was a simple picture of the hell house from the woods. Or, as Rafael had correctly guessed, the hell church.
"This is an abandoned church on the Northeast corner of the Blue Ridge territory," Rafael began. "According to Alpha Sultan's records, when he took over management of the pack, no one mentioned it to him. It was even omitted from the official asset registration and the map in the Alpha's office."
"Why?" a male voice wondered quietly.
"We're still trying determine that," Rafael responded. "Harley, do you recognize this place?"
I nodded and then remembered that they needed me to answer verbally. "Y..yes, Alpha. I do."
"Can you tell us about it?"
I took a deep breath and tried to center myself. "It's where I was held after I was taken."
A faint gasp.
"Maybe you should tell us what happened from the beginning?"
Scott squeezed my hand and I stood up, walking to the front of the room.
"Eighteen months ago, I was sold to the Blue Ridge pack elders as a potential mate for their Alpha." I sent an apologetic smile to Levi; I was well aware that he and Zade still hadn't resolved their differences. "But he wasn't interested. That left me with a lot of time on my hands and I used to spend most of it wandering in the woods."
"One night I was watching the moon when someone came up behind me and grabbed me. Before I knew what happened, I was tied up and there was a cloth bag over my head."
"Oh, honey," Carol sighed.
"They took me to that building and tied me to a chair inside."
Another picture flashed on the screen, this one was a panorama of the interior of the main room. There were evidence markers on the exam tables and in front of the row of small biocontainment units.
"Do you know why they took you specifically?" Rafael asked gently.
I shook my head. "I know that someone said it was as part of a forced mating ring, but I never heard anything like that." I drew in a breath. "I never saw any other real shifters being held there."
The picture changed again, showing the laboratory where the evidence markers sat beside smashed equipment and a pile of glass that had been shattered out of an adult-sized bio unit.
"Do you know what happened here?"
"No," I said slowly, mentally superimposing the image of it as I had last seen it over the trashed room. "When I was released, it didn't look like that."
"Okay," Rafael waited for me to continue.
"Those monsters, the ones in the woods," I started, choking back a sob when Rafael brought up the uncensored image of the dead bodies. "Yeah, those. The last time I was there, the one with the bird's head was in the containment cell that's broken in the picture."
"When you say the one with the bird head, you mean the one you killed?"
I nodded, swallowing hard.
"Okay," Rafael continued. "Were there only two of them?"
"That were complete, yes. At least, as far as I know."
"Can you tell us what that means?"
"Can you go back two pictures?"
"That row of small bio units? The ones marked with the number 16? Those are incubation units. The people who grabbed me were trying to create a race of super-shifters by combining DNA from several species into one." I sucked in another breath of air. "They would inject the mutated DNA into Omega eggs and then incubate them in there. Once they were big enough, they were moved to the next room with the larger containment units. Most of them died after a day or two, though, so they weren't ever moved."
This time it was a horror-laden gasp that ran through the room.
Rafael clicked forward through the pictures again, stopping on a close up of the boar-like creature. "You said that the other creature, for lack of a better term, was in the containment unit the last time you saw it. Where was this one?"
I swallowed again, but the lump in my throat wouldn't recede.
"That one had already escaped," I said quietly. "That was why they had to grab me. When it got out, it killed the Omega that they were harvesting for eggs. Without her eggs, they couldn't continue their experiment."
The room was completely silent now, but when the screen changed again and brought up the image of a pretty young woman with a fading bruise on her cheek, Trevor choked on a cry. Next to him, Colby reached for the hand that Clint wasn't already holding.
"Was this the Omega that was killed?"
I nodded. "Her body was still there when they brought me in. I heard them call her Christine." I closed my eyes and forced myself to continue. "They had her hooked up to life support so they could try and harvest the rest of her eggs, but something went wrong."
"What happened next?"
I had to take several breaths before I could force the words out. "The doctor started forcing me to take huge amounts of hormone pills and then every few days, he'd strap me to the table and inject me with something that kept me from moving while they cut me open to harvest eggs."
Another shocked gasp.
"Those were the injuries that you were healing from when you were released?"
"Yeah."
Another picture flashed on the screen, this one was an older man with sagging jowls and hard eyes.
"Do you recognize this being?"
"Yes. That was the one in charge. The others called him Cal." I blew out a long breath. "He like seeing me suffer. Every time they cut me open, he watched like it was a damned television show."
Rafael's eyes widened. "You were conscious?"
I nodded. "They didn't see the point of anesthesia or painkillers."
Rafael muttered something under his breath that might have been a curse. "How many more captors did you know of?"
I thought for a minute, replaying it in my mind. "The doctor that tried to kill me yesterday, but he's dead now. So, other than him and Cal, I only remember seeing two others and they were both muscle types – not scientists. They were the ones who grabbed me. But Cal talked to somebody on the phone nearly every day. I don't know who, though."
"Thank you, Harley. You've been a great help." Rafael paused to turn the lights back on and turned back to face the room.
"Harley," he began, his voice firm. "I owe you an apology. When I first caught this case, I decided that you were involved before I'd bothered to investigate the case thoroughly." He glanced over at Carol with a smile, "Some people called me out on and they were right to. I want to take this opportunity to tell you publicly how sorry I am for that."
"Thank you," I managed before stumbling back toward my chair. Scott caught me and pulled me into his lap, nuzzling my neck.
"Is that all?" Scott asked. "He's exhausted."
"Of course," Raphael agreed quickly. "I'll have a few more questions tomorrow, but I think we've covered the key questions for now."
Wrapping one arm around my waist, Scott led me out to the van and we headed out into the night.