Chapter 119

Seeing that I meant to start working, Wendy stood. “The revisions will need to go through the panel once more, so you have an hour to get it done. We’ll need to submit it and get it back, then have time to do any edits before the deadline at the end of the business day.”

I nodded. “I’ll get on that right away.”

“I’m going to go talk to the photographers who were there with us yesterday. And we’re going to select the photographs that go along with the story. When you finish up, I’ll be in the photography department if you’d like to come and join us and see how that process goes.”

“I might just do that,” I said.

I waited until she was gone and then slumped in my seat, letting out a huge sigh. How was I ever going to help Charles now? If the palace had really decided, like he seemed to think, that the alphas were already guilty and the press wasn’t interested in hearing a dissenting viewpoint, then how was I supposed to get the truth out there?

If we found out that government officials were involved, I didn’t have a platform to te the people. If all the Palace Press Panel was going to do was remove all references that they didn’t approve of, I could already see how this would play out.

Any alphas that turned out to actually be guilty would make the front page and bear the brunt of all of the corruption. And any government officials that they didn’t want to throw under the bus would just be edited out of the stories.

Perhaps there might be quiet repercussions behind the scenes. But clearly, the palace wasn’t going to air its dirty laundry on the front page by admitting that anyone within the actual government had been corrupt.

I didn’t know whether that was a sign of corruption itself or whether they would just quietly punish the corrupt officials outside the public view. I couldn’t imagine that the government would want dishonest individuals subverting them in any government positions.

Unless…

I bit the inside of my cheeks so hard it bled. Unless the corruption went all the way to the top, and it wasn’t actually corruption at all. Perhaps the government individuals were actually being ordered by the Alpha King to do what they did.

This thought chilled my blood. If that were the case, then Charles and I were fully embroiled in something that was far more dangerous than just the loyal son of a corrupt city official trying to get back at Charles and me for ruining his father’s reputation. What if Culpepper had actually been hired to get rid of us?

Suddenly, breathing grew very difficult. I sat at my desk panting. It took a few minutes of carefully controlling my breathing before I was finally able to focus back on the screen clearly.

Until I had a better idea of where the danger lay, I would need to play their game. So, I carefully went through and paraphrased the interview with that nice man. The whole time, I felt that I was doing him a disservice. But if he knew anything about the government, then he wouldn’t be surprised when the article came out, and he saw what I was forced to do to his quotes.

I also knew exactly how I needed to help Charles. I had to find a way to make whatever he uncovered heard far and wide without getting us in trouble. I also needed to use my position within the official state building to see if I could uncover whether or not the Alpha King was the one pulling all the strings.

The best place to start on this was right under my nose. I’d find out if the nice man I’d interviewed was correct about Southhaven. Researching that would give me a better idea of how much the government covered up.

By the time I got done doing research on my own, trying to find a way to paraphrase that poor man’s quotes and to verify whether or not his ideas were real, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold my peace anymore and be the good reporter that I wanted to be.

Wendy’s assurances that the man was mistaken about Southhaven were stronger than Theo’s, but between the two of them, they both spent time trying to cast shade on this poor man for voicing his opinion that the city’s money could have been better spent. Were they in on this, or simply lied to like everyone else? But if Wendy were an even halfway decent reporter, she couldn’t be so blind, could she?

I dug through first the archives of the Palace Press to find anything that I could on Southhaven. I only found a few instances where Southhaven was even mentioned, and then mostly in connection with its initial funding on the part of Packhaven. All of those articles were written in a light that made the government, and particularly the Alpha King, seem like the saviors of the less fortunate.

So I started going through the archives of other press in Packhaven, looking up old articles online that referred to Packhaven and Southhaven’s relationship. What I uncovered was very similar. At all of the other presses, they did have a few additional articles on Southhaven, but they were nearly as spotless as the ones from the Palace Press.

Reading between the lines, I tried to form my own opinions. I came to several conclusions. First off, Southhaven was definitely a real location, and it was definitely built so that those who were living below a certain standard of living in Packhaven were shipped out of the city, always under the guise of being for their own good.

When these low-income people were moved, the space that was left behind was quickly taken over with grandiose projects that made Packhaven look more like the utopia that I saw when I drove through it rather than a city occupied by all types and walks of life.

From other articles, I went into a broader internet search and only found websites that had been shut down. It looked like the government was really keeping a tight lid on this as if Southhaven were one of its dirty little secrets.

The more I saw, the more I realized that the rumors that the man that I interviewed told me about were most likely true. Why else would there be nothing about the living conditions or the workmanship or even pictures of Southhaven broadcasting the success of this supposedly philanthropic project?

It seemed like everything was a carefully crafted piece of public relations on the part of the Alpha King and the palace. They certainly bragged about all their projects inside Packhaven.

So, if they had really done such a good job creating a comfortable home for the less fortunate, it seemed to me that they would be broadcasting that everywhere. Every municipal project and every public work within the city limits of Packhaven was on display for the whole of the nation to see.

Taking all of this evidence and tucking it away for later, I left my desk and headed down to the photography room. Wendy greeted me with a wide smile when I came through the door.

“I’m glad to see you’re done already.”

I nodded. My work was complete as far as she and the Palace Press were concerned. I’d done exactly what they wanted me to do and altered my story to be their shiny little piece of propaganda. The problem was all of this soured my stomach.

I half-listened while Wendy gave me an upbeat walk-through of how our relationship with the photography department worked. And then she showed me the photos that she had chosen from the story and explained why she had chosen the ones she did.

“Is the story ready?” she asked.

I nodded. “I changed what you asked me to, and I sent the file back to you.” I lowered my voice. “Can we talk in private?”

“Sure,” she said. She looked at the clock. “It’s just about time for lunch. Why don’t we go out and we can spend our break together? Then you can ask me whatever you need to know.”

“I think that would be good,” I said.

I waited while she finished up with the photographers and then followed her as she left.