AllFreeNovel
Share Us
5
Kendra
I'vespentalotof time in cells over the past few months, and as far as prisons go, this one isn't so bad. There's a big bed, a lamp that glows with soft golden light, a plush mattress and comforter--and even a connected bathroom. It's extremely comfy, in fact, to the point where it raises question about who the hell this guy is.
Especially after I find the journal in the side table drawer...and start to read.
The handwriting is looping and cute, like it belongs to a girl who might have been even younger than me. It goes on about life after the Great Mutation, about what it's like to be an unmated omega in Solstice Bay's poverty-stricken slums. She talks about selling her first heat to some random alpha, what she had to do to make sure she didn't get pregnant...
...running from the ACB.
Falling in love with a man named Zane Stone.
At first, I use the journal to distract myself from the twisting pain in my stomach, the desire coursing through me. After the pain fades though--as my heat ebbs away--I get truly invested in her story. She talks about her brother, her brother's best friend--Zane, the big guy that rescued me and kept me here--and how she had to be locked away to keep her safe from alphas during her heat. She wrote her whole story down in that time frame, living in this room just like I am.
Then the journal abruptly ends.
An unfinished story stashed in a drawer for who knows how long.
As I close the notebook, I realize that my heat has finally ended--that I need a change of clothes, that I'm starving, that I'm ready to see the light of day and figure out how to leave Solstice Bay.
I find a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt in the dresser drawers, and I get changed before I unlock the door and rest my head on it, listening for a sign of Zane.
"Hey," I call out. "It's over. I'm ready to come out."
Footsteps sound a few minutes later, and I give the door some space as I hear the lock click on the other side. The door opens with a creak and I look out into the darkness of the shop to find Zane's retreating back covered in a black t-shirt, his hair still up in a messy bun.
He looks over his shoulder at me.
"It's just after dawn," he says. "Breakfast is ready if you want it."
Okay...so it's been two days.
Not bad. Maybe the ACB is off my scent at this point.
I follow him out to the kitchen, getting a glimpse of his home for what's really the first time. When I got here, I was too distracted by trying to escape my fate to notice how this place looks--but now, I realize it's homey and lived-in. Art and photos decorate the walls, a thin layer of dust on the frames suggesting that he hasn't updated the place in a while. All the furniture is old and rundown--but in a way that makes it seem well-loved rather than trashy.
The wooden table is covered in paint, ink, scuffed up wood. A name is carved into the surface in the spot where I sit down.
Evelyn.
I look up at Zane, searching his features for any sign of what he's been through, of who Evelyn is, if the journal belonged to her.
I'm dying to know.
"Are you feeling better?" he asks. "Your scent has calmed down quite a bit...you can probably travel safely now."
"Yeah," I say. "It was good to stay in there. Thank you for helping me."
"I'm sorry about the locks," he says. "I've found that uh..."
He pauses as he pours a cup of coffee for me, then passes it over.
"Thanks," I whisper.
"I've found that we aren't always in our right minds when heat and ruts are involved," he says. "Thus, the two-way lock. I've known omegas who will forget everything about what they actually want and fling themselves through that door to get onboard whatever alpha they can find."
I laugh softly. "Yeah...I had my moments over the past couple days when that was definitely a possibility."
