Chapter 211: The Situation Room
Edrick
I watched the police officer take Moana into the interrogation room and shut the door in my face before I could even really protest.
“She’ll be fine,” I whispered to myself. But did I really believe that?
What happened to Moana and Ella was extremely traumatic. At least Ella didn’t have to remember what happened at her young age, but Moana… She would never forget it. I had already seen the way that it was affecting her since it happened. During normal conversations, she would go elsewhere. Whenever the events in the warehouse were brought up, her face would darken and her eyes would gloss over, like she was reliving it. I tried to help snap her out of it whenever I noticed it happening, but I was worried that she would freak out in there and I wouldn’t be around to help her. I highly doubted that the police officer would know what to do, or if he would even care. To them, Moana was just a piece of evidence to collect before Ethan could be convicted. That was it.
For a long time, I just paced back and forth outside of the interrogation room in that little hallway. There was no window on the door, and no matter how many times I asked, they wouldn’t let me into the room next door with them to watch through the one-way mirror. I felt completely cut off from Moana, and it made me sick.
Suddenly, one of the female officers came up to me as I was still pacing in front of the door.
“Mr. Morgan,” she said in a light, friendly voice with a plastic smile spread across her lips, “your fiancee will be fine. Why don’t you come with me, and I’ll get you some coffee?”
“No, thanks,” I replied. “I’ll be staying right here.”
The female officer’s face darkened slightly, but her smile didn’t fade. “I’m afraid you can’t stay here,” she said. “We don’t allow people to pace outside of the interrogation rooms, and it’s a narrow hallway. Come with me; we have a nice room where you can wait and relax.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but before I could, the female officer took me by the arm and led me away. She led me down the hallway and into a small waiting room with a couple of vending machines, a few tables and chairs, and a coffee station. It was anything but comfortable in there, but I knew that it would be useless to try to get back to Moana, so I sat down at one of the chairs and put my head in my hands while I waited.
A few minutes later, the female officer slid a cardboard cup of steaming coffee to me from across the table. “Here,” she said. “It’s good coffee. Cream and sugar?”
I shook my head. “Black is fine, thanks,” I muttered. I took a sip of coffee and it burned my tongue, but I didn’t care. At least the motion of raising the cup to my lips and sipping the bitter coffee was something to keep my hands busy.
After a few minutes, however, the still air in the waiting room and the hum of the vending machines only raised my anxieties.
But it wasn’t just that; suddenly, I felt a pang in my chest. My wolf suddenly appeared, and he seemed panicked.
Something was wrong.
I suddenly stood so abruptly that I knocked my chair backwards onto the floor and toppled my coffee cup over, sending coffee spilling across the white lacquered table. I didn’t care about that, though. While the female officer still stood there in shock, I took off out of the room and bolted back down the narrow hallway toward where they were keeping Moana.
“Sir? Sir!” the female officer shouted, running after me. Her calls alerted other officers, who came out of adjoining rooms with puzzled looks on their faces. I ran past them, ignoring their demands for me to stop, but was suddenly halted by two officers who stepped into my way.
“Sir, please calm down,” one of the officers said, putting his hands up. “Come on. Let’s get you back to the waiting—”
“Get out of my way,” I growled angrily. “My mate is in distress. I can feel it.”
The officers looked at each other, then back at me. I suddenly shoved past them to get closer to Moana, with only the thought of making sure that she was okay on my mind. I didn’t care that they were yelling at me or threatening arrest for my actions; I just needed to get to Moana.
However, I was quickly stopped by those same two officers tackling me to the ground. I felt my skin scrape against the tiled floor as I went down, but I only growled and writhed beneath the two officers.
“Let me go!” I snarled. “Just let me get to my mate!”
“Mr. Morgan, you really need to calm down,” the female officer from before said. “Ms. Fowler is fine. The interroga— I mean, interview, will be done any minute now. Please just come back to the waiting room and relax, and we won’t need to arrest you.”
The two male officers hauled me to my feet, each one of them holding me by each arm. Realistically, I could have used my strength and abilities as an Alpha to break free and smash through the door to the interrogation room, but I knew that it was a futile effort that would only end in my arrest.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was seriously wrong, though. The aching pain in my chest was too distinct; it was the same pain that I felt when I realized that Moana and Ella were gone on the night that they were kidnapped, only now that Moana and I had marked each other, it was even stronger and more visceral. Maybe the police officer was grilling her too hard in the interrogation room. Maybe she had a flashback, or maybe something was wrong with the baby…
“Look,” I said, feeling desperate now, “I don’t want to cause any trouble. But please just check on her. I have a really bad feeling.”
The three officers looked at each other. Finally, the female officer sighed and nodded. “I’ll go and check,” she said. “Just stay calm, okay?”
“I will.” I watched as the female officer walked away. Down the hall, I could see her knock on the door and crack it open a moment later. She poked her head in and said something.
But then, she opened the door further, and gasped. I watched in horror as she ran in. Raised voices could be heard coming from the interrogation room, and that was when I’d had enough. I wrenched myself away from the two officers and bolted down the hall to the interrogation room, where I burst in through the open door. My eyes widened as I saw what was in front of me.
Moana was passed out on the floor with her eyes rolled back, in some sort of fugue state. The two officers were bent over her.
“What happened?!” the female officer said.
“I-I don’t know,” the other officer replied. “She just started to panic, and then this happened.”
I felt my heart sink. Growling, I shoved the officers and picked my mate up off of the floor. “Call an ambulance,” I ordered, glaring at them with glowing eyes.
