by Eva Harper
“Who knows, our little bean could be in there right now,” he snickered.
I smacked his shoulder lightly. “Don’t even joke about that,” I replied haughtily. “You know that’s not possible; we didn’t have sex during my heat.”
“I know. I just like scaring you.” He kissed the top of my forehead where my hairline started. We stayed in our bed for the rest of the evening, talking and teasing until our clothes began disappearing. In a sleepy haze, I wandered to the bathroom to brush my teeth and go to the bathroom before I committed to being in bed.
As I cleaned my mouth from toothpaste residue, my mouth became dry, and I wanted a bottle of water from the fridge. I scurried down the steps, as I did most nights, in my dark silk robe, hurriedly snatching a bottle from the refrigerator and prying the top off. The fresh water hit my throat, and I nearly squealed with happiness.
A few drops dribbled down my chin, forcing me to walk over to the sink in search of a napkin. It was something I had done many times before, something that had become routine to me. I grabbed one and wiped my chin and chest of the cool water. My eyes shifted up out of the window above the sink. Something moved in the shadows outside.
I squinted, focusing on the movement of the trees. A small body was standing in the open space of the backyard. The body turned around, and Kenna’s unmistakable curls shifted under the small light from the moon.
I set the bottle down and walked to the sliding door, stepping out onto the small veranda.
“Kenna,” I hissed, hoping that I didn’t wake anyone up. She didn’t turn around. “Kenna!”
She turned her head but didn’t move her body, and she never responded. I grunted and pulled the robe closer to my body, stalking towards her. She wasn’t far from the house, and her shoulders shook softly.
“Kenna,” I said, nearing her. She turned, showing me the small trail of water her tears had left on the sides of her face. “Kenna, what’s wrong?”
“I did something bad,” she whimpered, arms folding around herself.
“What happened? What did you do?”
“I can’t tell you,” she whined, fingers curling into her skin.
“Kenna, we will figure everything out. Come inside.”
“No,” she said loudly and forcefully.
“Kenna,” I said, surprised at her roughness.
“No, Sloane. It’s too late.”
“Kenna, I’m going inside. I’d really like for you to come with me.”
“You aren’t.” She shook her head. “They won’t let you get that far.”
“Who?” I looked around the empty field behind her.
Something moved behind me, and I turned swiftly, looking at the three humans that somehow had appeared behind me. My blood moved faster in my veins as I prepared to shift. They paused and raised a rope and a pair of shackles. My muscle quivered in the few seconds before my shift, and in my concentration, I didn’t notice Kenna’s hand reaching around me, forcing a cloth over my face. I breathed in unknowingly, and the smell of chemicals seeped into my mouth.
I turned my body, no longer capable of shifting.
“I’m sorry,” she said, sounding anything but remorseful. My body slouched to the ground. Four hands grabbed my arms and legs, securing my limp limbs in metal and rope. My vision faded quickly, and as my foot kicked out, striking one of the human’s, the other man pressed the cloth to my face again.
My eyes closed.
Counting Heartbeats
I coughed when I woke up, dust and debris coating my tongue as I inhaled. I attempted to reach my hand up to wipe the dirt off my tongue, but as I tugged, I found my wrists were still restrained in metal.
My cheek pressed awkwardly against the ground, arms pulled tightly around my back, legs limply splayed over the floor. My left eye peeked open to find a small metal room around me like a jail cell. I coughed again, the burst of air causing a pile of dust to explode in the air.
It took me some time to get myself in a sitting position against the wall. Three of the walls were solid steel bolted together. Across from me were seven metal bars coated in silver. I leaned my head weakly back against the wall and swallowed the sediment on my tongue.
I sat for hours before I heard someone’s footsteps. I pulled my legs closer to my chest as the steps got closer.
Harrison’s nephew stood on the other side of the bars, smirking deeply with his hands grabbing the bars.
“Comfortable?” he seethed.
“Go to fucking hell,” I growled with a weak and raspy voice.
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you, princess?” I remained silent, only enraging him more. “Out of all the other bitches here, I’m happiest about you.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because you just looked so smug. All the others looked scared. It’ll be fun to see that smile break.” His thin lip hitched upward, showing a sliver of his buck-teeth.
“I won’t break you son-ova-bitch,” I spat, trying to tear my hands from the metal bindings.
He only smirked, turning his head at the sound of another’s feet approaching. Another man came to the bars of my cell, tall and thin, and threw a piece of bread on the ground in front of me. He shoved a water bottle through the bars as I kicked the bread into the corner of my cell.
“Eat,” the skinny one grunted, turning and leaving.
Harrison’s nephew stayed and watched me, licking his lips as he peered through the metal bars.
“I can’t wait to tear through your throat,” I murmured.
He laughed and walked away, leaving me alone.
I sat for a while, glaring at the piece of bread before finally crawling over to it. The bread was on the ground, forcing me to practically lay next to it to tear off a small bite. I saved most of it in case they didn’t feed me regularly.
In the room with silver bars, it was impossible to use my mind-link to contact anyone. I sighed and leaned my head back, hitting it lightly three times before it settled against the wall.
“Try to keep your strength up,” a woman’s voice called from the other side of my cell.
“Hello?” I called out.
“We’re here,” the voice responded. “We’re all here.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Danica,” she shouted. “Who are you?”
“Sloane,” I said, breathing out slowly.
“Sloane?” another voice screeched. “It’s Cherry!”
“Cherry!” I shouted happily, and then my heart sunk. “Where are we?”
“Some neutral territory,” Danica moaned.
The cells settled into silence again. It was another series of hours before anyone came down to the cells again. When the humans came down again, they dragged one of the other Lunas out of her cell and took her to another area. She screamed as they grabbed her.
“Sloane?” Cherry’s whimpering voice invaded the quiet.
“Yeah,” I said softly, knowing she could hear me.
“Will you tell Francis I love him, and I’m sorry?”
“Stop that!” I growled. “We’re getting out of here. Nothing is going to happen to us.”
“You don’t know that,” another soft voice added.
“Yes, I do,” I fought. I glared at a spot on the wall.
“Will you please just tell him?” Cherry begged. Her voice wavered like she was crying, and I kicked the wall angrily.
“Tell him yourself,” I spat, angry that I was the only one prepared to fight my way out.
Cherry didn’t respond. She continued crying in her cell, which made two of the other women start crying as well. Our captors didn’t feed us for the rest of the night, nor did they come back into the cells until morning. A man came and made sure the cell doors were secured before leaving.
Soft footsteps echoed off the metal, and I scooted to the bars to see if the Luna they had taken was returning. A woman bent down and set food into the cells, her face blocked by her hair. As she got closer, I realized it
was Hazel.
Before she got to my cell, I scrambled to the corner in embarrassment. I heard her bend down near my cell, but I stayed huddled in the corner, eyes glued to the rough-edged corner.
“Hello,” Hazel called wistfully. “You must be new.” I made no noise or movements. “You’re safe here, you know. No one will hurt you.”
“I doubt that,” I spat automatically, then cursed myself for speaking.
“I’m serious,” her frail voice argued. I heard the muted sound of bread being thrown into my cell. “We just have to keep you here until we get a more secure room for you, one the Alphas can’t break into. They can’t hurt you anymore.”
“The Alphas?” My voice was nothing more than a hiss that skimmed off the walls.
“Yeah,” she sighed. “They can’t get you in here.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I heard her lightly jump from the iciness of my voice.
“That’s why you’re here,” she said, sounding like she was trying to convince herself more than me. “To keep you safe from those wolves.”
“That’s why you think we’re here?” My arms shook against the chains roughly, a shrill clattering emitting around me.
She stayed quiet, and I could feel her sadness behind me. It didn’t bother me anymore. Her softness, her innocence, her human-ness didn’t bother me.
“We’re here because your family and those other humans are going to torture us and send the pieces of our bodies back to our families.”
She hissed in a breath. “No,” she muttered softly.
“They drugged us, shoved us in these cages, and they’re going to kill us, Hazel.”
“You know my name,” she said, my growls were too oud for me to hear her soft words, so she repeated them again. “You know my name.”
“Are you honestly that stupid?” I kicked the wall. “Are you that stupid to still believe that your father and cousins are good people?”
“They are,” her words held childlike wonder.
My head snapped to the side, looking at her awestruck face through the dark waves of hair around my shoulders.
“Sloane?” she whispered.
“What did you think, Hazel?” I barked, using my legs to push my back against the wall, I slid upwards into a standing position. “Tell me, are you really that naïve?”
“You can’t be one of those…things.” She shook her head, still kneeling in front of my cell.
“Hazel!” I screamed loudly. “Open your eyes. This isn’t kindergarten anymore, this is serious. Open these damn cells and let us out!”
“Sloane, I shouldn’t,” she whimpered, looking sideways.
“Hazel, look at me.” Her head slowly turned forward, looking at me once again with hesitant eyes. “None of us are going to hurt you. We want-no, we need to get back to our families. You remember Rush? He’s my mate, my ‘husband.’ He doesn’t know where I am. He’s probably worried sick. He has never hurt me in any way. He loves me. I need to get back to him.”
“Sloane.” Her brown eyes filled with tears. “I can’t.”
“I’m not asking!” My voice grew louder. The door down the hallway opened. “Open the door. Now Hazel!”
Three sets of footsteps quickly approached, grabbing Hazel’s arm, and pulling her upright.
“You know this one?” a short, stout guard asked her, holding her arm tightly.
Hazel nodded her lower lip wobbling. “She’s my friend.”
“These animals are not our friends, Hazel,” he scolded, tugging on her arm harshly. He pulled Hazel down the hall and out of the cellblock, her tray of food forgotten on the ground behind her. The thin human man from earlier remained behind, squinting into my cell.
“What is your name?”
“Luna,” I hissed.
“That’s your name?” He huffed.
“That’s what you can call me.”
“Fine,” he snarled. “Luna?”
A chorus of other women in their cells shouted, “Yes?” The guard looked to the side in confusion.
“You all can’t be name Luna.” He shook his head.
The other guard, a taller, broader man, shoved the thin one’s shoulder. “That’s what they call their head female.”
“What is your real name?” His voice was sharper.
“I said you may call me Luna.”
“I’ll call you bitch before I ever call you Luna,” he spat, a thick glob of spit splattering next to the bars of my cell.
“Well, they’re both accurate,” I smirked. “So, take your pick.”
The guard stepped forward, wrapping his meaty fingers around the bars. “How do you know, Hazel?”
“We’re best friends,” I smiled sarcastically. “We have sleepovers and paint each other’s toes.”
His hand reached through the bars, and before I could step back, his hand was gripping my throat.
“I expect a serious answer this time.”
“I met her in town,” I choked out. “We became friends. Started talking about a way to prevent the war.”
“You don’t talk to her anymore,” he warned, releasing my throat.
“Yes, sir.” I glared.
The men left, and I fell sadly onto the floor behind me. After two more days with only a small drink of water, the hysterics began to set in amongst us. The other Lunas started shouting, crying, and hitting themselves against the walls.
I stared at the same spot outside my cell where the human man had spit, leaving a small, lopsided stain on the concrete floors. After three days of pulling, I was able to slip one of my arms out of the metal brackets that encased my wrists.
Hazel returned with a tray of bananas and small cups of water. She set them down gently inside of the cells. I didn’t look at her when she came to mine, although her eyes never left my face. I was the last one in the row, and she set the tray down after she placed mine inside.
“Sloane, please look at me,” she pleaded. My head lazily tipped upward. I glared. “Sloane, I don’t know what to do.”
“Unlock the damn doors.” My voice was scratchy and weak, jutting out from chapped lips.
“Sloane,” she begged.
“Either unlock the doors or leave me alone.”
“It’s not that easy,” she fought.
I lurched forward as she spoke, reaching through the silver bars, and grabbing her arm. There was a burning on either side of my arm where the silver touched, but between the ache in my stomach, the pain in my arms and wrists, and the delirium of thirst and hunger, it seemed like a small issue. I pulled her roughly forward, her forehead smacked the metal.
She moaned as the skin on her forehead split in the middle. I kept my face close to hers.
“Hazel, listen to me. I am getting out of here today. Today. I will kill you myself if I have to. I don’t care. You will reach into your back pocket where I know you keep those keys, and you will hand them to me. If you don’t, I will rip your throat out with my other hand, and I will reach into your pocket and retrieve the keys myself.”
Her eyes were staunch and wide, breathing uneasy, face paling quickly. She reached back slowly and grabbed the ring of keys from her pocket. She held them out to me, and I greedily snatched them from her shaking hands.
As I fumbled with the keys, Hazel belted out a scream that sent four guards launching into the cell block.
In my dehydrated haze, I didn’t notice the guards approaching, and I continued to look through the keys. The brawny guard reached into the cell, grabbed the keys from my hand, and pushed my head back. I growled and reached for them again, but another guard shoved a long metal pole through the gaps in the bars and touched me with the rod.
An electric shock jolted up from my leg. My body fell quickly and rigidly onto the ground. My head smacked the concrete, and I was left lying on my back. There was nothing I could do. I didn’t have the strength to move.
All I could do was lay in my cell and count to beats of my heartbeat, made only more diff
icult by the small, alternating, heartbeat coming from my stomach.
Hidden in Plain Sight
It was another two days in silence before any of the other women talked. There was quiet banter, about their children and their mates, nothing of substance.
I hadn’t made a noise since the guard zapped me with the electric rod, and I felt the first signs of life in my stomach. I couldn’t afford to be foolish now. Before, I knew that I could fight my way out of the cells with minimal injuries, but the baby in my stomach wouldn’t be so lucky.
Cherry attempted to call out to me multiple times, and when I didn’t answer, she became hysterical. The blonde guard came in and yelled at her to be quiet because she was upsetting the rest of the Lunas.
I could tell I was losing strength; my head felt weak, my heartbeat seemed louder, and I could no longer feel the neglect of my empty stomach. This child needed food and water, or they wouldn’t survive much longer.
A human walked into the cells with a tray of food sometime in the evening. The cells were dimmer, and most of the other women had fallen asleep.
“Hey,” a delicate voice called outside my cell. I didn’t have to turn my head to realize Hazel was back and waiting outside the bars of my cell. “Sloane, look at me.” I didn’t. “Sloane, please.”
Eventually, my head lolled over to the side, and after a moment of trying to focus, my eyes locked in on her bloody and bruised face. I crawled over to her, brushing my hands against the burning metal poles to reach her.
“Sloane, we have to get out of here,” her panicked voice whispered.
“Who did this?” I moaned, trying to reach up to her, but I was only able to lift my hand mere inches off the ground.
“We need to leave.” Her brown eyes flickered to the side. “The guards left for a smoke break three minutes ago, they should be back in about fifteen minutes. They like to have a beer while they smoke.”
“What?” I asked, suddenly confused.
Hazel huffed and fished the keys from her pocket. They jingled around for a moment, I closed my eyes to concentrate, and when I opened them again, my cell door was slid open.