The Rogues Who Went Rogue
Chapter 14

At 2 a.m., Alissa cautiously removed the ceiling panel of a prison corridor after checking the outline of the place three times with Hailey. There was no room for error. They had a stringent timeline to stick to or they would all get caught. Hailey stayed in the space between the roof and ceiling as Alissa climbed down the rope she just let loose. She skillfully landed with an almost inaudible thud on the cement floor. Alissa then got out a few melatoxins, mothball-like objects that vaporized into the air to make everyone in the room drowsy. If one was already asleep, then the chemicals would induce deeper sleep. She rolled one into every prisoner's cell, making sure that her flicking of each ball made it to the far corner of their cells, where their beds were.

When Alissa was done flicking seven melatoxins from the eight-cell prison corridor, she took light steps to the eighth cell, but before she could say a word, the prisoner laying on his bed muttered sleepily in a low, deep voice, "Is the queen in danger?" Alissa responded in a whisper, "No, Your Grace. Ivory is watching her for now. But we need to get you out of here. There's w..."

"Are our sites compromised?" Greg asked.

"No, but..."

"Are any of our people taken?"

"No, Your Grace, but..."

"Then I don't have to leave yet, Alissa. Get out of here. Go join the others."

He turned to face the wall as his eyelids fell, ready to continue his sleep that was interrupted when his sharp hearing caught Alissa's landing.

Alissa heaved a frustrated sigh and whispered a little louder, trying but failing to mask her anger, "Someone is in the midst of concocting a substance to challenge the Queen's Authority, Your Grace."

Greg's eyes snapped open and his body shot up from the bed as he asked a little too loudly, "What?!"

The duke was hoping to find traces of humor on Alissa's face but all he saw was anger and worry. She continued in a frantic whisper, "This began as a laughing matter but it's turning serious, Your Grace. The boastful rumors are not dying off. In fact, it was cemented just recently. Certain groups are talking about certain other groups who were boasting about having a new source of ingredients for their experiments. We need to get you out to help us fix this!" "Any names of the ones involved?"

"So far? Dr Tanish and Madame Psych."

"The mad duo," muttered Greg.

Alissa nodded in confirmation, and her leg started fidgeting in impatience as she awaited instructions. Greg's heart was beating faster by the second as he asked in a low voice, "Anyone else?" "Not that we're sure of yet."

"Who are the current suspects?"

Alissa hated it when Greg asked her or any member of the te am to make guesses like this. They didn't like giving less-than-accurate information. After sighing in frustration, she muttered, "Desmond and Hailey are placing bets on J.J. and Bundy because they've suddenly become less chatty. Ivory and I think that Dormant Little Red might not be very dormant anymore. It's the first time in decades that anyone has seen him sober up."

After a few seconds that felt like an eternity to Alissa, the duke muttered, "Deploy a team to study the movements of everyone you just named. Study only. Take no other action. And send a message to the queen. Tell her I'm requesting an immediate audience with her."

"And if she refuses?" Alissa challenged.

"I doubt she would."

"The king might stop her."

"My cousin... is powerless when it comes to the queen. He gives her anything she wants. The only thing stopping her from seeing me is herself, and I doubt she'd say no. I haven't given her a reason to mistrust me. If I go with you tonight, it won't just be me who'll be in trouble. It's all of us. She won't be able to help us out of this even if she wanted to. We have to do this right. Tell the queen I need to speak to her at her earliest convenience."

Alissa knew she couldn't convince Greg to do otherwise, and she was running out of time. "As you wish, Your Grace," she muttered in dissatisfaction, and skipped down the corridor she came from before climbing up the rope. Greg and his animal couldn't sleep for the rest of the night. The duke thought he had already protected the queen from every possible danger. Who the f*ck was trying to hurt her now?

Dr Tanish and Madame Psych were self-proclaimed mad. However, their madness never made them accomplish much as far as Greg could recall. The only thing they succeeded in making thus far was synthesizing silver with as little amount of silver ore as possible. Silver ore was not only difficult to extract and steal, it was getting less and less each passing year. The mad duo's 'revolutionary' breakthrough was coming up with a chemical formula that made silver manufacturing possible with the most minute amount of silver ore, which, to Greg, was not great seeing that silver didn't affect Lycans, and before Lucianne, the duke didn't give a damn about werewolves.

He mentally pinned the duo under the 'small-achievers' category, and because of that, he almost forgot about them. That was a mistake. Sure, the duo didn't have the brains to create something that would harm or kill lycans, but that didn't mean they were incapable of replicating the formulae of other scientists to synthesize deathly substances like oleander or the shell.

J.J. and Bundy were two loud-talking female lycans who spun more illogical tales of their purported heroism than they actually experienced. There was once when the two entered Greg's casino, and the duke got his men to throw them out after he was done enduring their nonsensical boasting when he was in the midst of pondering on a security plan.

The best part of that night was, once they were thrown out, the rest of the customers in the casino applauded and cheered at Greg's decision to kick out J.J. and Bundy. Their inconsiderately-blaring chattering made players lose concentration, thus lose games. They frequented other bars and recreation locations that were not owned by Greg, but one thing was for sure: they never stopped speaking loudly. If Alissa was right, if they were quieting down now, something was wrong.

Dormant Little Red. Greg gave him that nickname because the smaller than average lycan went everywhere with an old red cap. 'Dormant' was because apart from drinking with whatever he earned from the small drug trafficking cases, he never did anything else. He didn't talk, didn't mingle, didn't even look like he was interested in his surroundings. He just downed alcohol until he passed out on the table. Compared to everyone around him who was either having fun or throwing a fit, Dormant Little Red was literally dormant. Two habitual tale-spinners no longer tale-spinning at the top of their lungs. Dormant Little Red was sobering up. This was not a coincidence. And these were only the preliminary observations. Imagine what Alissa and the others would find out when they start looking further into the matter.