Chapter 99: FOAMING
DANE’S POV
Osric came out of the meeting hall last.
Of course he did.
He stood at the entrance for a moment talking to Thorne in a low voice and I was already moving before they finished, cutting across the courtyard and into the covered walkway that ran parallel to the main path, which gave me the angle I needed without the visibility.
Thorne went left toward the residential quarters. Osric went right toward the dungeon.
I slowed down. Let him get enough ahead that he didn’t feel me and then followed, staying in the shadow of the walkway, watching his pace. He was moving with the unhurried certainty of someone who thought they knew where they were going and what they were going to do when they got there and hadn’t yet factored in the possibility that someone might have thought of this before he did.
He got to the dungeon entrance and spoke to the guard.
I couldn’t hear the words from where I was but I could read the body language — Osric presenting himself as authority, the guard’s posture going uncertain, Osric pressing the uncertainty, the dynamic of a senior elder exercising rank on someone who wasn’t sure if they were allowed to say no.
The guard didn’t let him in.
Osric’s posture changed subtly. The warmth dropping slightly from his shoulders. He said something else, and the guard said something back, and Osric said something more but I had seen enough.
I came out of the walkway and walked toward them at the pace of someone who had been heading this way anyway, hands in my coat, nothing urgent about it.
"Elder Osric." I said pleasantly.
He turned.
For one moment — one single unguarded moment — something moved through his face that was not his usual composure. A flinch that was so fast most people would have missed it. Then the warmth came back and his expression reset and he looked at me with the patient eyes.
"Beta Wolfe." He said. "Good morning."
"Good morning." I said. I looked at the dungeon entrance. Then at him. "Something I can help you with?"
"I heard about the arrest." He said. "I was concerned. I wanted to assess the situation for myself, given my responsibilities to the pack—"
"The Alpha has restricted access." I said. "Standard procedure when we have a prisoner under active interrogation. Nobody in or out without his clearance." I looked at him pleasantly. "Even elders."
"I appreciate that." He said. "But given my role on the council I think it would be appropriate for me to—"
"I’ll let the Alpha know you’d like access." I said. "He’ll make a decision." I held his gaze. "In the meantime, anyone attempting to access the prisoner without clearance would be considered to have an interest in the prisoner’s situation." I paused. "Which would make them a person of interest in our investigation."
Osric looked at me with a tight smile and I looked back at him.
"Of course." He said. "I understand completely." He nodded once. "I’ll wait for the Alpha’s clearance."
He turned and walked back up the path and I watched him go and then looked at the guard. "The one I just told you to shadow." I said quietly. "Start now."
The guard nodded and went.
I turned back to the dungeon entrance and went inside.
The corridor was quiet as I walked toward the far cell and the guard outside it looked up when he heard me coming and then looked back at the cell. He looked at me again with an expression that said something had changed.
"He’s down." He muttered.
What?
I moved faster.
Rhett was on the floor of the cell. Not sleeping. Not positioned the way a person positioned themselves when they lay down. Collapsed— the boneless, wrong-angled way of someone who had gone down without choosing to, face turned toward the wall, one arm underneath him and foaming at the mouth.
Shit.
"Open it." I ordered.
The guard had the key in the lock before I finished saying it and I was through the door and crouching beside Rhett and checking his pulse— it was there, unsteady, but there —before turning him over and looking at his face.
His lips were white at the edges and his breathing was shallow and wrong.
"Get the clinic." I said. "Now."
The guard ran.
I stayed crouched over Rhett.
Someone had gotten to him already.
Before we could.
The clinic staff arrived fast and I walked beside the stretcher the whole way and stood outside the treatment room and waited and when Dr. Fenn came out she looked at me with the expression of someone who had questions she wasn’t going to ask yet.
"He’ll live." She said. "Whatever he took, he didn’t take enough."
"Or he didn’t mean to kill himself." I said.
She looked at me. "What?"
"Was it self administered?" I said.
She was quiet for a moment. "I can’t say definitively." She said. "The amount suggests—" She paused. "It’s possible it was intended to incapacitate rather than kill."
I looked at the door to the treatment room.
Incapacitate.
Get himself into a clinic.
Away from a dungeon cell where nobody except authorized personnel could reach him.
Into a space where someone with enough authority and enough access could walk through the door without raising flags.
I pulled out my phone and called Callum.
He answered on the second ring. "What happened?"
"Rhett’s in the clinic." I said. "He collapsed. Foam at the mouth. Dr. Fenn says he’ll live." I paused. "I think he did it to himself."
Silence on the other end.
"And Osric." I said. "Was at the dungeon entrance trying to get in when I got there. Two minutes after the meeting ended."
Another silence. Longer this time.
"I’m coming." Callum said and he ended the call.
I put my phone away and looked at the treatment room door.
Why would he do that to himself?
Someone had a line to him even in custody.
Which meant the dungeon wasn’t safe.
Which meant wherever Rhett was, they could reach him.
I looked at the clinic corridor. At the other doors. At the windows.
At all the places someone could come through if they decided they needed to finish what the foam in Rhett’s mouth had started.
I pulled my chair outside his door and sat down and didn’t move.