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He scowled as he looked down at the phone. I looked away from him as he opened it up and tapped the screen, opening this app and that app until his eyes grew black with hatred. He took the phone and threw it as hard as he could on the concrete floors, smashing it to bits with the force. I flinched, and he reached right to grab my face painfully hard.
“You are a lying little slut,” he hissed, mere inches away from my face. “And because of you, some of these children might not make it through the night.”
“Curt, don’t,” I begged. “Please—”
“I don’t need to spend my precious resources feeding the hungry mouths of weakling children who will never amount to anything,” he said. “I was indulging you because I know you like the little pests. But you had to go and be a fucking idiot.”
“Curt, just…let them out. Let them go into the forests and find their way home. They’re probably as good as dead any—”
He drew his hand back from my face and struck me with it so hard that my teeth clattered and my ears rang.
“Don’t fucking manipulate me,” he said. “Your pathetic fuck of an ex-boyfriend may have been a clown and an imbecile, but I’m not.”
I held my face, still reeling from the stinging blow. For a moment, I thought he may have even dislocated my jaw. A few of the children whimpered, and a couple of the older ones shushed them tenderly.
“Curt,” I choked out finally, “you can’t…hurt people’s children. Please. If you feel they’re a burden, just let them go.”
“But then how else would I punish you, Marley?” he asked. “How else will I correct this behavior for the future?”
“The future?” I said, looking up at him. “There is no future with us, Curt.”
“Yes, there fucking is,” he said. “Whether you’re on board with the plan or not, you will comply eventually.”
Rage bubbled up inside me.
I was so sick and tired of men telling me I would be on board with them. I was so done with being told my wants and desires didn’t matter, that I was nothing more than a notch on a belt or some sort of demented trophy in a curio cabinet.
I was a woman with thoughts, opinions, feelings. And every single one of them mattered, even the shitty, childish ones. Even the jealousy and the anxiety. Even the trauma.
They mattered because they were mine. They mattered because they mattered to me. And for fuck’s sake, I mattered.
I glared up at him as he glowered menacingly down his nose at me.
Forget waiting for Cole to get here. I could get out on my own. I could do it myself and with all the children in tow.
I quickly reached behind me, grabbing a half-full bottle of warm beer. Then smashed it against Curt’s temple.
He tumbled to the floor like a sack of potatoes, and I turned toward the children. “We’re getting out now,” I hissed, scooping the little blond girl into my arms. “Come on. Through the pipes, go, go, go!”
I lifted the large grate over the pipe I’d seen the teens come in through, and the children all came together, the older ones picking up the smaller ones and sloshing into the muck of stale water throughout the exit.
I looked back just as Curt sat up, blood covering half his face, one eye squinted shut.
“No…” he slurred. Then he shouted, “EVERYONE GET OVER HERE NOW! WE HAVE A BREACH!”
I leapt into the drainage pipe and followed after the other running children, not daring to look back for a second, lest I lose the short head start I’d gained. I was grateful to learn the pipe was only about ten yards in length and relieved when we spilled out into the clear, wintery night air. Even more happy to learn that the other end of this exit had a hatch I could lock from the outside.
I let go of the little blond girl and heaved the hatch down with a loud bang, turning a giant iron wheel until it locked properly. On the other side of the metal, I heard a thud and then the sound of other thuds as what I assumed to be shifters were unable to stop in time to avoid smashing into the metal seal. A collection of low whimpers confirmed it.
“Okay,” I said shakily, “Okay, you kids, head that way. Stay together. As soon as you’re a decent ways away, one of you shift and howl. Don’t leave anyone behind, you hear me? Shifters, protect the nonshifters, okay?”
The kids all nodded and waited a moment. I realized they were waiting for me.
“I just made that man and a few other people very angry,” I said gently. “So he’s going to come looking for me. I’m going to go a different way so that you don’t get involved in this trouble I got myself in.”
“But what if we get lost?” one of them asked, their voice small and reedy.
“That’s what the howling’s for,” I said, smiling at him. “Out here, your howls will echo for miles, and someone from my pack will come and save you, okay? But you have to be big and brave until then. You have to trust me that you’re going to be okay.”
