Reclaimed and Restored

Marcus hadn’t known about the hidden compartment beneath the floor of his parents’ bedroom until his father laid him down inside the cramped space in the middle of the night. “Promise me you’ll stay right there, baby,” Marcus’s mother whispered in a voice the ten-year-old had never heard her use before. She sounded scared, and Marcus’s mom never sounded scared. “Why?” he whimpered. The pounding on the front door was growing louder. He was still so tired after being woken up in the middle of the night, but beneath that tiredness lay confusion and fear. Looking up into his parents’ faces, it was clear that something was wrong. “Promise me, Marcus,” his mom repeated. “We need you to stay there and not make a single sound, no matter what you hear. Do you understand?” Marcus swallowed the golf ball-sized lump in his throat, embarrassed when a tear ran down his cheek. He hated crying―it was a good way to get teased at school by the other boys. The girls too, in fact. “Marcus, I need you to be brave for me.” This time, it was his father who spoke. “You’re so strong, my boy, but right now, you need to hide and stay there until one of us or your gran comes to find you. Can you do that?” “Okay,” he replied, the word coming out choked through his tight throat. “I promise.” “Good boy,” his mom said with a watery smile. A loud crash sounded from the front of the house, and Marcus let out a quiet whimper while his parents’ bodies tensed. “Not a sound, okay. No matter what,” his mom reminded him in a rush of words. Marcus nodded. “We love you so much,” his dad said as the two of them straightened from their crouch. Marcus had decided that year that having his parents tell him they loved him was a humiliating experience, but he didn’t mind it when his dad said it then, and something in his gut told him that he should say it back. “I love you too.” Marcus didn’t roll his eyes as he said it or mumble the words like he usually did, and he was happy that he hadn’t when his mom and dad beamed down at him. “I love you, baby,” his mom whispered before his father lowered the trapdoor. Marcus was left in complete darkness, but he could hear his parents panicked whispers and their footsteps as they frantically placed the dressing table back over the trapdoor. Dust tickled Marcus’s nose, and something crawled over his bare foot, but he dared not move a muscle or allow himself to sneeze. Not when he had promised them he wouldn’t move or make a sound. He flinched when another crash sounded above him―this time, it was his parents’ bedroom door that had been broken down―and though his entire body tensed with fear, he didn’t move, and he didn’t cry out. “Alpha and Luna Walker,” a male voice greeted coolly. “Where is your son?” he asked after a moment of tense silence, and Marcus’s breath caught at the man’s mention of him. “Is there a reason you broke into our house in the middle of the night?” Marcus’s father asked, sounding angrier than Marcus had ever heard him. “I’ll ask again. Where is your son?” “He’s at his grandmother’s house,” Marcus’s mother lied. “Split up and search the house,” the man ordered. “Yes, Master Gold,” several male voices responded. If possible, Marcus grew even more still as he waited for his hiding spot to be found. The sound of his too-loud heartbeat and breathing accompanied the sounds of someone opening and closing the doors of his parents’ closet. He stopped breathing altogether when footsteps approached his hiding place, but they moved straight past the dressing table, and he knew that the trapdoor hadn’t been discovered. “He’s not in here,” the man who had stayed to search the bedroom said. “Like my mate told you, he’s with his grandmother,” Marcus’s father explained angrily. “Why are you here?” “You need to come with us,” the first man said once his other men had reported that Marcus hadn’t been found in any of the other rooms. “Who are you?” Marcus’s father demanded to know. “Come now, Alpha Walker, I’m sure you already know. We represent the Council and the law,” the man sighed impatiently. “The law that you have broken.” “You can’t do this. We’ve done nothing wrong,” Marcus’s mother seethed. “By accepting the Brooklyn pack into your own, you have allowed your pack to grow to an unmanageable size. The Council has it on good authority that you are not fit to lead anymore.” “Even if that were the case, which we all know it’s not, being an unfit leader isn’t a crime,” Marcus’s dad said. “True, but you are responsible for your unruly pack members and their disregard for the rules. Their disobedience and unlawfulness fall onto your shoulders.” “Bullshit,” he yelled. “Our pack follows the law. Where’s your proof?” “You should show Master Gold some respect,” a different voice snapped. “Like hell. You broke into our home! Our pack will not stand for this. You won’t get away with it. “ “Ah, but your pack will never have to know about any of this,” the man explained smugly. “Why else would we have come in the dead of night?” Ten-year-old Marcus didn’t know what the Council was or what a Master was, but he took every word in, focusing on what they were speaking of rather than the suffocating darkness pressing in on him and the skittering of what he was sure was a spider over his ankle. He heard it all as his parents argued that they were innocent and the man named Master Gold ordered his men to restrain them. Shouts rang out, but it was his mother’s screams that pierced through every other sound and that had Marcus straining against his promised stillness as tears ran down his face. Soon, the sounds of his father’s yells were replaced with the growl of a wolf, but even through the snapping of teeth and threatening snarls, his mother’s pleading screams persisted. It could have been seconds, or minutes, or even hours―Marcus didn’t know which, had no way to know which―before the last growl tore through the air, and everything went quiet. Even his mom’s screaming had ceased, and for several seconds he wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing. “What would you like us to do with them, sir?” The breathless voice broke the silence, and any hope Marcus had left in him fizzled away. “Get them into the van,” the man ordered. “Make sure you give them another injection of wolfsbane every hour. Only enough to keep them unconscious―I want to finish them off myself.” “Of course, Master Gold.” Frozen in fear, Marcus could only listen as his parents were dragged out of their bedroom. He wanted to leave his hiding place and protect them. He wanted to scream for help. He wanted to do something, anything. But instead, he did nothing. He didn’t move a muscle or make a single sound until his gran found him the next day, lying in urine, his face caked with dried tears and snot. Marcus had done what he’d promised, yet when his grandmother asked him what had happened, he couldn’t look her in the eye because he knew the truth―he had failed his parents. He was a coward.