After dinner around the campfire that night, tensions were still running high.
“Let’s go to sleep,” I told Mia, who was still holding onto her somber expression and had barely picked at her food.
“Okay,” she said and gave me a blank look as if she had already checked out emotionally.
I didn’t press her. I understood where she was coming from. Sometimes, I just needed time to be alone with my own thoughts too. It was a coping mechanism. We slipped away, back into our tent as Thom busied his attention with some of the other slaves.
“Look at the bright side,” I told her. “At least we already got the sex part over with. We can have a good night’s rest knowing that he’ll be focusing his time and energy elsewhere.”
There was a glimmer of solace that flickered through Mia’s eyes and she managed a sliver of a smile.
“I guess so,” she said.
We climbed into our tent and zipped it up behind us, sealing ourselves into safety for the night. I wrapped myself into the cocoon of my sleeping bag and sighed with relief that the ordeal with Thom was over, at least for tonight. After only a few minutes, my heavy eyelids fluttered closed.
Sleep came easily for me that night. I had to count my blessings when I could, because they were few and far between.
The next morning, I woke up to see the light of day cracking through the folds in the tent. I yawned and stretched and glanced beside me. Mia was still sleeping soundly. I didn’t know what time it was, but my heart dropped when I heard the sound of muffled voices and people shuffling around outside.
“Mia?” I croaked and hastily stood up. I got myself dressed as quickly as I could. “Mia?”
She groaned and stirred beside me. When she realized that I was already up and awake, getting dressed, and that it was daylight outside, her eyes widened with dread.
“Shit!” she exclaimed and threw the sleeping bag off herself.
“It might be okay,” I tried to reassure her. “Maybe Thom isn’t awake yet if no guard has come banging on our tent door.”
Mia seemed doubtful and discouraged as she fumbled to get herself dressed too.
“Are you ready?” I asked after a few moments.
Mia nodded and took a deep breath to prepare herself to go out there in the world once again. We never stayed in the same camp more than one day at a time. Thom kept us on the move. We were paranoid, but we weren’t the only ones. We could see the skittish expressions on Thom’s and his guards’ faces every time we took off in a caravan of uncertainty.
I shimmied the zipper down, struggling as it caught in the fabric for a few seconds before maneuvering it loose again toward the bottom.
We stepped out and noticed that the sky was overcast, cloaking the forest with damp dew and dreary gray. It was fitting, given the mood of the camp. Everyone appeared to be groggy and out of sorts as they sleepily prepared the horses and the carriages to keep moving.
“I finally understand why Thom didn’t want to use cars to leave the castle,” Mia said.
“Yeah,” I nodded in agreement and glanced around. “At first, I assumed that it was because he wanted to save the animals from the fire, but now I know that wasn’t the case. He knew a car wouldn’t make it up these tiny mountain trails.”
Mia looked pensive as she poured herself some oatmeal that was hanging from a cast iron circular bowl over the crackling fire that the guards had left glowing overnight.
“Where do you think we will go today?” Mia asked me.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” I told her with chagrin. I was only certain of one thing. I yearned for freedom, but that longing didn’t separate me much from the other slaves who were wishing for the same thing.
“We are leaving in ten minutes,” one of the lieutenants announced gruffly to the group. “Master Thom wants to get an early start.”
Each set of slaves were responsible for breaking down and setting up their own tents. The guards had been scurrying around the night of the fires trying to throw the supplies into carriages that Thom had wisely set aside in a barn on the property in the event that there was ever an ambush or attack.
He was smarter than I gave him credit for. I wondered how many other Masters out there had thought of the same strategy ahead of time. Only the strongest would survive. Unfortunately for me, Thom was one of them.
But then again, if he hadn’t been so quick on his feet and prepared for an event like this, I would probably be dead right now. It was an internal struggle for my psyche to both despise Thom and feel gratitude to him in the same breath.
“Come on,” I said to Mia after breakfast. “Let’s tear down our tent so that we can be ahead of the game.”
“Good idea,” Mia said with an enthusiastic nod.
“At least we’re outside,” I said as we began unlatching hooks and poles from the tent. “I mean it’s chilly and kind of gray out here today, but it’s better than being locked in a cold, dark cell.”
Mia smiled. “I wholeheartedly concur with that statement.”
Once we had disassembled the tent, the same guard told everyone to hurry up and get moving towards their assigned seats on the carriages. There were dozens of guards everywhere, watching everyone’s moves.
We couldn’t even go to the bathroom without a guard looming nearby. Thom was extremely anxious about his slaves making a run for it. He knew how to keep a tight grip on us, and he used his guards to terrorize every move we made. The guards knew exactly how to unnerve us, lurking from the shadows.
We were afraid to make any moves toward freedom. As soon as we had entered the forest, Thom had given a speech to us that if we ever did attempt to escape, we would be shot by a firing squad, execution-style. It was enough to keep us all in line, at least for the time being.
After a while, we took off in the carriages again. I was near the front of the line with Thom and a couple of the other male slaves. I drifted off into a light sleep listening to the lulling hum of the horses, hooves clomping against the dirt on the trail path.
“Stop the caravan,” Thom shouted, jolting me back awake after a time.
“Hmm?” I blinked and yawned.
“Get up,” Thom said and gave me a look of annoyance. “You shouldn’t be asleep on the trek anyway. If I had been paying attention, I would have slapped you back awake.”
I sat up straight at attention and shuddered. I had no doubt that Thom wasn’t exaggerating in his statement.
“I’m…sorry,” I stammered. I was flustered and angry at myself for getting too relaxed in the moment.
Under the watchful eye of the guards, the slaves were allowed to get out of the carriages and stretch their legs or have a bathroom break in the woods. We never stopped to rest for very long. Thom wanted to reign everyone in and he always made sure no one ventured too far from our group.
I climbed out of the carriage and walked over to the edge of a cliff where we were parked. It was a beautifully rustic scene, really. I heard the sound of birds chirping. The sound of the river flowing below was pacifying. The warm sun was soothing as it hit the back of my neck and shoulders in beams that cracked through slivers in the tree branches.
I was so entranced by the spectacular scene that I forgot about what was going on in my surroundings. I stared at the water flowing down below, rushing along as if it were racing to the finish line in another location. I wondered where the river emptied, if it was an ocean somewhere. I wanted to see the world. I was so exhausted from being a prisoner. There was too much of the world to explore.
At least you aren’t in your cell, I reminded myself. The militia uprising out there had done me a favor. I wasn’t a free woman yet, but I was one step closer. I needed to brainstorm a way out of this group, but the guards were always hanging around.
“Don’t get too close,” one of the guards told me from behind.
I jumped slightly and cringed, temporarily startled. I didn’t turn around and give him the satisfaction of acknowledging his demand. I
couldn’t bear to see the smug expression on his face.
I continued to stand there like a statue.
“Are you going to take a piss or what, lady?” the guard asked impatiently.
I knew I would need to answer him if I didn’t want to start a war. I glanced at him briefly over my shoulder.
“No.”
“Then what the fuck are you doing?” Irritation laced his voice. “Thom doesn’t have all day to watch his slaves stare into space. It’s time to get going. Now move.”
I sighed and turned around to walk back towards the carriages. The moment of peace had been brilliant while it lasted. I would just have to find a way to manage until the next break.
“Get going,” the guard berated me. “You are moving too slow.”
Of course, I was deliberately sluggish. Whenever I was able to take the opportunity to get under the skin of the guards, I took it. I didn’t carry it too far or anything. It wasn’t my goal to make them irate, just to bug them a little. It was my own method of taking some control in the situation, even if the act or exchange was so entirely subtle that it blew right over the guards’ heads.
But halfway back to the trail, we heard the sounds of raised voices. There were men shouting at each other. When we made our way back to the carriages, I stopped in my tracks, stunned to witness that the argument that had broken out was between two slaves, and not between a guard and a slave or two guards.
The slaves were locked together. One of them had the other in a headlock. Their faces were red and puffy as they grunted and attempted to clock each other with their balled fists. The guards next to them were attempting to break up the fight, but a dramatic wind was beginning to fiercely swirl around us as if were in the center of a hurricane.
Thom was shouting expletives at both the guards and the slaves that were locked in a heated battle against each other. The wind storm continued to rise, seemingly out of nowhere. The strangest part was that the storm was only swirling around us.
I glanced up and inspected the area of the woods where we were located. A few yards in front of us, there wasn’t a single tree limb or a leaf blowing out of place. It was calm and still all around us, as if we were trapped in bubble of wind chaos that encircled our caravan and nothing else.
That’s when I realized that the wind was being brewed by the taller of the male captives that was aggressively fighting his fellow prisoner. He was somehow subconsciously summoning the wind storm and it was wreaking havoc on the group.
The wind was blowing so ferociously at this point that I had to grab onto the nearest tree trunk beside me and root my feet to the ground to prevent myself from toppling over. The guard who had been keeping a watchful eye over me seemed distressed about the situation. His eyes darted between Thom and the prisoners as if he didn’t know what to do or how to react. He just stood there, mouth agape and looking generally dumbfounded.
There was a carriage parked directly in front of me. It began to sway in the heavy breeze. It was top heavy and looked as if it were teetering on the edge of crashing over to the side with a giant thud.
I tried to get out of the way, but everything was happening so fast. It was madness. Thunder crashed overhead as an angry sea of blackened and blue clouds churned above our heads, adding lashing rain to the mix.
“Make them stop!” Thom roared. The veins in his neck bulged.
The guards looked powerless, as if they didn’t want to get involved and become the victim in the attacks going between the pair of slaves.
I knew something was going to happen. I just had felt the energy of the group growing with tension and I just knew it was like a rubber band that was going to eventually snap after it had stretched too thin.
The carriage began to tilt to the side, but I wasn’t paying attention to it. I was watching the fight as it continued to escalate.
“Watch out!” One of the guards shouted in my direction and began jogging my way.
It was too late. I was either going to have to jump to safety or be crushed by the carriage that had no chance of survival in the fury of the windstorm. I stumbled over a tree root and lost my balance.
Then everything happened in a blur.
My body fell over the side of the cliff.
I began tumbling down toward the river, my legs sprawled out unnaturally. I tried to place myself in a protective ball, but it was no match for the impact of the hill I was rolling down.
I was like a human snowball falling in an avalanche of mud and dirt down the cliff. I seemed to fall forever, like I was tumbling into oblivion. I squeezed my eyes shut and just prayed that I would hit the bottom soon and that it would all be over.
I had no idea whether I would live or die.
I landed in the icy water with a splash. It was so bone-numbingly cold that I gasped and then the very breath in my lungs suspended. I was frozen instantly from head to toe.
My legs!
Oh no, my legs. My one lifeline, my beloved dancing legs. I couldn’t feel them. I couldn’t swim with them or move them in any capacity. My body began to involuntarily shake in the frigid water. My teeth were chattering, and the tips of my fingers began to turn blueish-purple.
Somehow, I managed to keep my head above water, but I was barely treading along because I couldn’t move my legs and I desperately needed to be able to use them if I was going to stay afloat.
I gasped for air and paddled my arms above the water. I couldn’t die here. I couldn’t drown in this icy water. The river was moving just as intensely as the winds above had been. It was swirling like a whirlpool and rushing past me. The force of the current kept pulling me under.
I was trying not to panic but it was extremely difficult. My entire body from the waist down felt numb and tingly. Was I paralyzed? I had no way of knowing, but I could still feel every part of my body from the waist up. I was disoriented and couldn’t get my bearings.
Everything had happened so fast. I attempted to summon my wings, but they wouldn’t come. My body was too shocked and stressed to protect itself. I continued to struggle against the current, but to no avail. The water yanked me under again, trying to claim me as one of its own. I felt a stabbing pain in the side of my head as I slammed into a cluster of rocks.
Then everything went dark.
16
Blaze
I squinted and shielded my eyes from the brightness of the sun penetrating the clouds. I glanced up at the sky, which threatened rain.
I could smell the impending rain in the dampness of the air. The wind had picked up too. The thunder clouds were heavy and dark, ready to empty their downpour onto the atmosphere.
The sun was no longer playing hide and seek. It was all but disappearing at this point beneath the blanket of deep purple clouds.
“Well, shit,” I muttered.
A rainstorm hadn’t exactly been in my plans this morning, but the weather up here in these mountains was unpredictable to say the very least.
“Just hold out for a little while longer for me, will you, nature?”
I glanced up at the skies, trying to barter with rain when I knew it was a hopeless cause. The bottom was only seconds away from falling out. I ran a hand through my jet-black hair. I was slightly annoyed, but I was used to being in the wild. I was a bear shifter. I could handle a little forest thunderstorm. I’d survived far worse in my days.
I had been living up here in the mountainous woods for a couple of years now in the safe seclusion of a bunker. The bunker provided refuge for other former shifter slaves who had been fortunate enough to escape their Masters
I was happy to be living in freedom, but I always slept with one eye open. I always found myself glancing over my shoulder. I was paranoid and rightly so. Most of my childhood and teenage years had his slaves were living in a state of constant fear.
I refused to be crippled by the emotional demons of my past. I knew that in order to survive, I would need to live each moment to the fullest, as cliché as that sounded. It was impor
tant for me to count each second as if it were my last, because I had been through the ringer and I knew what it felt like to be so encompassed in dread that death seemed like the only viable solution to my problems.
I lifted my gaze to the sky again. The angry clouds swelled around me in a churning sea of uncertainty. It was a mirror of the hauntings of my past. I set my jaw and turned my gaze back to the water as perseverance pumped along with adrenaline through my veins.
Every waking second was a constant reminder that I had survived the emotional and physical abuse and it hadn’t taken me over completely. Sure, the injustice had taken its toll, but I was coping with the shit that tried to suck me down like quicksand.
“It’s time to focus on the task at hand and why you are here,” I reminded myself with a deep sigh that felt heavy as it lifted from my lungs.
I didn’t shift into a bear much these days. I had been beaten down by my Master for so long that I only shifted now when I felt like my life was threatened. I didn’t like shifting anyway. I was a danger to those around me, because I became extremely aggressive. I wanted to protect those I cared about and loved, those who were still around.
I closed my eyes and saw a picture-perfect scene of my mother and my brothers with my father. We had lived in these very same mountains in a cozy cabin nestled in between the firs and pines, but when my father got a job in town, we had to move to the neighboring village.
That was when my world came crashing down and all hell had broken loose. The Masters had killed my mother. They had tried to take my three brothers and I, but my father had stepped into the line of fire.
He shifted and took us, his little cubs, and tried to flee into the woods. But his noble and brave efforts had backfired.
The guards working under my particular Master snatched me right off my father’s back. In the chaos of trying to scramble to safety, my father hadn’t even realized that he had lost the weight of his fourth baby cub from his back as the Masters muzzled me and stripped me away from my family.
Back in the present, I opened my eyes and inhaled the crisp mountain air that was beginning to get misty. The rain was coming soon. I had no doubt in my mind that I would be reunited with my father and brothers one of these days. They were out there, I was certain. I just didn’t know where to find them yet. I was still trying to process the atrocities of my past. Once I had come full circle and healed, I knew that my heart would open up the doors to the answers I needed.
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