WHAT KIND OF PUNISHMENT WAS THIS?

29 FEBRUARY, MONDAY, BEFORE DINNER

"Harvey, are you mad?" I asked very quietly, half afraid of the answer I would get.

"What?" Harvey took a quick glance away from the evening traffic, and then he shook his head at himself, "Apologies, Alpha. I was preoccupied on the mindlink and in a hurry to beat the traffic home."

"So... You're not mad? Like not even the teensiet bit?" I prodded.

"Was I... Did you want me to get mad?" Harvey asked.

I shook my head, "But I ran off by myself."

I felt like a pup guiltily trying to explain my misconduct so that the adult present (e.g. Beta Lucas) would know how to properly respond to the resulting situation (e.g. assure me that what I did was completely understandable.) But Harvey wasn't Beta Lucas.

"I'm not angry with you, Alpha." Harvey answered quite directly.

Oh. So he was angry - just not with me. I remembered Bra and Jules saying my guards would be dead.

"Urm... It's not Fluffy or EJ's fault either. Cos I tricked them." I told Harvey. Just in case we had a chopping board that I was unaware of.

"I should've known better than to assign those two." Harvey's mouth was pressed down in a straight line.

Wait, don't tell me my good beta was blaming himself? Or was someone else blaming him?

"Are you in trouble?" I wondered, "Is Dad mad at you? Or Bell?"

You know, because the beta usually took the rap for everything.

Harvey produced his usual wry smile, "You don't have to worry, Alpha. It's alright now."

But just in case, I just had to ask anyway, "Everybody's okay right? Nobody's in trouble because of me right?"

Harvey shook his head, but his expression soften, "I understand Alpha, but the disciplinary order has already been sent by your father's alpha office. Fluffy and EJ will spend the rest of the day in the new detention center."

WHAT? A disciplinary order from the Alpha Office?!? And they threw Fluffy and EJ into the dungeons! Omo!

Oh wait, Harvey said for "the rest of the day" which was only for like a few more hours. They might have to eat dinner there. Unless Laura was cooking, then they might have to wait another hour or two and eat dinner after they were released. I know I would.

But a few hours? That's it?

"They will also be suspended from any further duties in Winderhill from next week onwards."

Next week, as in when the term was over? Urm... Dad knew I wasn't returning to Winderhill after this week, right?

Very sus. What kind of punishments were these?

"Furthermore, they are on snow duty till the last of the snow clears." Harvey said. Okay, this one was definitely Beta Lucas' idea, and probably the real deal. I'm not sure what the first two was for, but snow duty sounded like proper grueling punishment.

We reached the long road home and I could see the traffic slow as the beginnings of a line formed up ahead.

Two warriors jogged up and opened the barrier to the express lane. With a wave of Harvey's hand, we drove through, past the line of cars on the other lane, past the warrior wolves who bowed respectfully in our direction.

And once we were speeding down the long straight road, I could see it was no longer snowing in our packlands. The Snow Wolves had gone home. What more, the trees we passed were already budding profusely.

Wait a minute... what's the point of setting them on snow shoveling when it was obvious that it wouldn't snow anymore?

It was just as lame as locking them in a clean newly renovated dungeon for a few hours, and then suspending them from a duty that will be ended anyway.

I mean, I'm glad that Fluffy and EJ wouldn't suffer long term for my running away, but what kind of half baked punishment were Dad dishng out from his Alpha Office?

"Was Dad really trying to punish them?" I asked.

Harvey laughed then, "I wondered myself."

And then he confessed, "I myself have been let off with just a verbal warning. Ben is grounded for a week. He says he will be in his basement if you need him. And Ki was forced to cancel his dinner date to report immediately to the FAO for extra duties - mostly to handle the inquiries from the media about the Alpha Princess being spotted on the train."

Oh. But I realized by now that things weren't as simple as it seemed. So my betas had to shoulder some of the blame, but Harvey who was the one picking me up, he got off with a verbal warning.

"Ben wasn't even there!" I blurted out.

"He admitted to being aware of your location, via the GPS, but he had not reported your leaving the school or your phone being switched off outside school grounds. It was quite a serious breech in security protocol." Harvey explained.

Oh. Note to self, I should've turned off the phone BEFORE leaving the school.

"And Ki..." I wanted to argue that Ki was hardly at fault, but wait... Wasn't that a good thing? Now Ki wouldn't have to be stuck with butt-touching Madam Silvia.

I nodded, "Okay. I can live with that."

Harvey raised a brow, "Funny, Ben said the exact same thing."

Oh right, I guess Ben could now hole himself up in his basement computer lab to deal with the Trojan in Bra's pack network without being disturbed.

Harvey's wry smile reappeared again, "I don't know how to explain this, but even though I was the only one who got off with a warning, I can't help but feel that Ben and Ki were far gladder than I was when the disciplinary order was received."

"Oh well." I didn't know how to explain it either, "All's well that ends well, I guess."

"Indeed, Alpha." Harvey drove on with his wry smile in place, "Indeed."

Our car pulled up the road to the Alpha House, and then up over the driveway. We were home.

I checked my watch, "If its okay, can I go check on Fluffy and EJ before dinner?"

"Oh, yes. Yes, of course, Alpha." And then Harvey drove around the roundabout outside the garage and all the way across the short distance to the packhouse porch.

Okay, I had meant to get off at the Alpha house and just run over, but okay. I'll let my beta do his job.

I let Harvey get off and open the car door for me. And then I let him accompany me into the packhouse. Dave opened the front door for us and Harvey dropped the car key into the warrior's hand.

Then I let Harvey take my jacket and waited patiently while he hung it for me. I guess I was extra cooperative now because I was still feeling a little bad that my running away had gotten so many people in trouble.

Even though the punishment meted wasn't anything horrible, receiving a Discipline Order from the Alpha Office was a big deal and would be kept on records. So it's not like any of them got off scot free - well except for Harvey, who got off with a verbal warning, which was lucky. A Disciplinary Order on his record would really take him out of the running for high school valedictorian, or a university scholarship, or any of those things the New Leaf Academy Student President in his final high school year was obviously in the running for.

Note to self: I should probably have considered all this BEFORE running off.

Harvey accompanied me all the way down the two flights of stairs to the dungeons. I hadn't been down here for a while now, but I've read some reports on the renovations after the Rat King gutted the place and was interested to see the new changes Ben had installed.

First impressions, I had to say it was very nice.

The old stone floors and walls had been padded with multiple layers of epoxy resin which were selected for its hardy rubbery waterproof non-slip durable properties - at least that was what the report said. In reality, it looked just like plain slightly glossy light grey walls and a darker grey floor. Nothing fancy, but it was clean and smelled like disinfectant.

The reception room had a long bench and a drink machine installed, with all the buttons lit up even though no one had put any money in it yet.

Harvey tapped his beta access card over it - the same one as he used to let us in from outside, and got two cans of coke and two cans of black coffee.

He handed me a coke.

"Thanks." I said.

The drink machine was freeflow with an access card! I wondered if the card in my school bag was more than just a key card too.

There was a guardsroom on the right. Now with a bullet proof glass window so they could look up from their monitors and control panel to wave to us.

Harvey waved back. They saw me and stood up immediately to bow.

"They can't leave their positions unless for scheduled break or emergency." Harvey explained. I waved back and followed Harvey down the passageway.

Further inside, the observation room was shut. Harvey noticed that I paused to regard the door so he used his access card to let me in.

The room was the same grey, but furnished with plush black sofas and chrome finishings, and a polished black stone coffee table. It was stark but very fancy. There was even a clear glass bar table across the full floor the ceiling double glass wall.

Next door was the torture, I mean interrogation room. It had also been revamped. Now, it no longer looked like some dungeon from some dark medieval time. Instead it looked more like a sci fi horror scene.

Unlike the rest of the dungeons I've seen so far, this room was white. Or looked like it should have been, except that there were various unidentifiable stains on the floors and walls. And right in the middle, something that looked like a dentist's chair.

If they were trying to set the scene to scare someone, I think they got it spot on.

Harvey cleared his throat, "We, ah... We had a bit of of a miscom and Jonah had the new dental chair delivered and stored here this morning."

The craziest thing was that Harvey wasn't lying.

"It was supposed to go to the gym on B1. We are setting up a larger more comprehensive healthcare for our growing army." Harvey explained.

So the smaller training hall where the medical team usually set up as temporary medical centre in code orange/red/black situations will now be a permanent medical centre within our packhouse.

Which would include a dentistry in what used to be the gym.

And our gym was moving to the second floor where the elite warriors already had a gym.

"We've calculated that sharing resources would be more cost efficient." Harvey said. Which made sense because most of the equipment and maintenance was repeated, but now that elite warriors would be sharing an expanded space with the normal warriors.

"We're still treating the surfaces. The white stuff is just antifungal wall treatment." Harvey continued, "Hopefully, the stains will clear up and we can get the expoxy up. It should end up looking like the rest of the detention center."

Oh, right. We weren't going to have a dungeon in our Packhouse anymore. We had a detention center now.

I nodded, my eyes staying on the dentist's chair. Personally, I would probably leave everything as it was. Hahaha.

Anyway, we moved on to the rest of the dungeons... I mean detention center. There was a staff shower and changing room now. But it was unisex since all of our active warriors were men anyway.

And then there were cells - each one about the size of a fight dog cell. Okay. I don't know why I thought of fight dog cells. Maybe the light colored walls and flat white lighting just reminded me of when I visited Bell at the fight cages. It was also furnished with the same thin padded mat but nothing else.

Unlike the large conjoined cells surrounded by bars on almost every side, the new ones were designed for single detainees only and walled three ways with only bars on one side where there was a matching gate.

The gates required access cards and a corresponding thumbprint to open. The lights can be dimmed but are never turned off. There were also cameras everywhere. These can be monitored from the office upstairs, or the guards room.

It was all very cool and safe looking. Like I was pretty sure that if we hauled in another lot of rogues for questioning, they wouldn't be able to kill each other at night when we weren't looking.

Vast improvement. Plus there were no rats, no leaking sewage, no gyaara, and nothing that smelled like something died.

There were altogether 16 cells. Eight in each section, and four to a side. Harvey led me out of the empty section to the one they were currently using.

We pretty much heard EJ the moment Harvey unlocked and pushed opened the section door.

Just like the empty section we first toured, this one has four cells on each side of the passageway. It looked like the four facing cells were occupied.

On the left was Jude (Oh! I had clean forgotten about him!) and his Beta, Ron. One in each cell, side by side so they couldn't see each other.

On the right was Fluffy and EJ. Also one in each cell, side by side, and looking a little too at home.

Fluffy was wearing blue fennel pajamas and lying on this stomach over a large bear design bolster. There were opened packets of cute snacks arranged in a neat semicircle around him while he smiled at whatever was on his screen.

But it was EJ's cell which immediately caught my good Beta's attention, "Why is your gate opened, EJ?"