Filed To Story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
Males laughed and shouted and brayed, their voices echoing off the low ceiling. The scent of liquor, sweat, aggression, and fear seeped under the edge of the sofa, burning my eyes.
The females’ small feet were frozen in place while the males’ boots stomped and dashed and rocked back on their heels.
Wedged so tightly between the underside of the sofa and the cold floor, I couldn’t hear the males’ words, but I understood them all the same. They were taunting the females. Lunging at them to make them shriek. As the fear stench grew thicker and thicker, their laughs boomed louder.
And then something changed. A female screamed in earnest. Then another. Feet dashed. Shouts rose, followed by guttural snarls. A rubber sole squeaked on the tile. The swampy air thickened with copper and salt and terror and pain and rage.
I didn’t dare close my eyes.
A yard away, Iona Ryan fell to the floor by the leg of the pool table, cradling her left arm. It was hanging from the socket wrong. A male approached her, looming, squatting—
Aunt Nola crashed to her knees, right next to my head, holding her dress to her chest. It had been rent, collar to hem. She hovered there, bent over, shoulders hunched, her side pressed against the sofa, blocking me, shielding me while she shook, head tucked to her chin, arms tight to her ribs, protecting her organs.
The weeping and screaming and laughter whipped toward some kind of crescendo, and something inside me screamed run, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t protect my soft parts; I couldn’t even turn my head.
And then a distant door slammed into a wall as it was flung open. New shouts filled the air.
“Fire!”
“The commissary is on fire!”
Declan Kelly and his favored males rumbled in disbelief.
“It’s burning down!”
They ran, stomping up the stairs, their frenzy put on hold like it was nothing at all.
The silence that they left in the basement resonated like an aftershock. It singed like ozone.
The males’ heavy footsteps trekked across the ceiling, tracking away toward the front of the lodge. Aunt Nola rose to her knees, and I could see the others’ bare feet as they picked through the clothes and shoes strewn about like they’d been caught in a tornado.
They moved slowly, silently, like haunts. Aunt Nola staggered to her feet and wandered a few steps away, so I could see.
A female on her back in the middle of the room, staring at me. Her eyes were dark and wide. They didn’t blink.
It was Orla Sullivan.
I’d never really spoken to her. She was grown. I was only eight.
She was old enough to be mated, but she wasn’t, and now she never would be.
I’d never spoken to her, but I’d heard her scream.
She rested in a pool of blood, her sightless blue eyes staring at me, her mouth twisted in a frozen scream. Red marks blossomed on her skin like roses.
We looked at each other, but she wasn’t there, and neither was I. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
Iona Ryan used her good hand to cover Orla’s body with someone’s torn dress. Blood soaked through the homespun linen. More roses.
“They didn’t get her,” the females whispered to each other as they circled Orla Sullivan’s body, drifting into each other’s arms, holding each other up.
“Where is she?”
“Under the couch.”
“She alive?”
“Yes. She’s safe. She’s fine.”
“Did she see?”
“No, no, Nola blocked her view.”
“She’s not hurt?”
“She’s fine. They didn’t see her.”
The females murmured and wept—softly into their hands or with their faces pressed into each other’s bare shoulders—until a sharp step sounded on the stair. They tensed and then exhaled as one when Old Noreen’s raspy voice called down, “It’s clear. I have the crone.”
I couldn’t see what happened then. Nola and a few others moved and blocked my view, but I heard Abertha’s quiet orders, and I smelled the smoke that clung to her skirts.
“You, get her shoulders. You two, get her sides. You and you, get her knees. Wait. Hold a second. Let me cover her back up. Take her out through the kitchens. There’s a wheelbarrow by the woodbin. Take her to my cottage. We’ll clean her up there. Don’t let her mother see. Keep your ears open and your eyes peeled. Go quickly.”
There were murmurs and grunts and a thump, and then Aunt Nola and the others drifted apart, and Orla was gone. The green and white checkered vinyl tile where she had been lying was empty, except for the blood. The white tiles were smeared with bright red. The blood was so dark against the green that it looked black.
Aunt Nola bent over and offered me a trembling hand. “It’s safe now, Annie. You can come out.”
No, it’s not, a strange, new, blade-sharp voice had said in my head.
It’s a lie. She knows she’s lying. Look at her shake. It’s a trap.
I tried to scrunch myself farther back, but I was lodged in tight, my cheek pressed to the slat holding up the sagging leather cushions.
“Come on, Annie,” Aunt Nola begged. “We’ve got to get out of here.” She darted a glance over her shoulder.
They’re out there, the voice said.
She knows they’re out there, and she’s afraid.
Aunt Nola knelt and reached for me. Somehow, I curled my fingers around a slat, puffing my body so she couldn’t budge me.
“Annie, you’ve got to come now. What if they come back?”
See, she lied. It isn’t safe. Don’t let her take you.
Tears rolled down Aunt Nola’s cheek. “Please, Annie. Please.”
I couldn’t tell her to leave me. I couldn’t make a noise.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” The crone’s boots appeared next to Aunt Nola. The hem of her flowy skirt was stained with brown blood, already drying.
Abertha lowered herself into a squat and peered under the sofa. Her face was gaunt and grim, but her gray eyes flashed like steel.
“Why is she down here?” Abertha asked.
“I left my bag on the table when they called me. She thought to bring it to me.”
Abertha hissed softly through her teeth. “You were quiet as a mouse, weren’t you?”
I was.
“Good girl. You did right. But you’ve got to come out now.”
I couldn’t.
“It’s not safe here,” Abertha said. “The males are still blood mad. They’ve left for now to deal with the fire, but they’ll be back. It’s not time for quiet mouths anymore. It’s time for quick feet.” She snapped her fingers, and her bangles jingled.
The voice in my head had nothing to say. Abertha was right, but I still couldn’t move. Nothing worked, not my legs, not my arms. Even my fingers were frozen, curled around the wooden slat.
“Oh, hell,” Abertha sighed. “Can you lift the couch, Nola? Maybe I can grab her…”
Foot falls sounded on the ceiling above us. Aunt Nola moaned in fear.
“Shit. Get out of here, Nola. Now. I’ve got the pup.”