Page 11 of Mated By the Pack
“Wait,” I whisper, moving Fiona’s hand away from my leg and moving close to the bars. “You’re a hybrid, right? Part… lion?”
“Something like that,” Frank answers. “Did they teach you that in school? Behind that big fancy wall that is supposed to keep you safe from beasts like me?”
“They taught us about hybrids,” I confirm. “Not much, just that they showed up during the heat storms. Nobody is sure where they came from.”
Frank’s lip twitches. “Is that so?” he snarls. “They know exactly where we came from. They created us.”
“What?” My eyebrows shoot up in surprise.
“We were designed to be weapons of war,” he says. “You’d be amazed what your scientists could do before the flare took alltheir toys away. But we’re a dying breed. Most of us are forced to wander The Tangle with no hope of ever finding a mate.”
“Fertility issues? Like us?” I question. “People; I mean… non-hybrid people.”
“There were sixteen in my Pride when I was a cub,” Frank says. “I’m the only one left.”
Frank walks away without elaborating further. I don’t try to stop him. I saw the emotion in his eyes when he talked about his Pride. The kind no supplement could regulate, and I doubt he’s ever had a cycle. I’m almost certain mine has worn off. Extreme emotional events usually do that, and mine wasn’t working the way it was supposed tobeforeI got kidnapped.
I turn to Nara and give her a gentle shake. She wakes up like a bullet fired from Carl’s gun but doesn’t explode.
“Frank gave us some rations and water,” I whisper. “You and I should eat and then we’ll wake the others.”
“Good call,” Nara yawns, shaking her head and forcing her eyes wide. “I think I’ll take second watch anyway, since I’m up.”
We stash two bags of rations in our clothes and divide the others into five equal shares. The water can’t be rationed so easily, but we take our best guess as we pass it back and forth between bites. I fill Nara in on what I learned from Frank. Everything except the part that brought his emotions out. That… seems too personal to share.
“Wemade them?” Nara questions. “They don’t mean us, obviously. Nobody that lives in Haven North. He’s talking about people who are practically our ancestors.”
“Yeah, over two hundred years ago,” I whisper, remembering the lessons from history class. “Back when the area Haven North is built on was just a small part of an enormous city called New York.”
“It got bombed in the Great War,” Nara continues, her knowledge as a teacher shining for a moment. “Devastated, really. Then the solar flare and the heat storms came. The hybrids became a threat after that, when people were banding together, forming tribes, and trying to rebuild.”
“When we realized we were no longer the apex predator?” I sigh, a chill sweeping through me.
“Exactly,” Nara says. “But if scientists were creatinghybrids, they only left books about things like that in the fiction section of the library.”
“At least he isn’t taking it out on us,” I mutter, stuffing the last bite of my rations into my mouth. “I don’t think we’re going to get any food or water after he lets Carl or Jed take over the next watch.”
“Frank probably pities us,” Nara sighs. “The only person here treating us like a human being isn’t even one.”
“I don’t think he pities us.” I stare into the darkness where Frank disappeared. “I think… I think he was in a cage once, too.”
“Had to be pretty strong to hold him.” Nara clears her throat and takes a sip of water.
“Not all of them have bars,” I mutter, glancing in the general direction of Haven North. “I think I’m beginning to see that now.”
“Haven North wasn’t a cage, Calla. It was home.” Nara narrows her eyes for a moment. “We should wake the others so they can eat and drink some water.”
We wake them one by one. Fiona first, just so I can comfort her some before Tansy inevitably cries or Brenna tries to glamorize our fate, like we’re Brides instead of slaves. Once everyone has had food and the canteen is dry, I put it outside our cage. Frank retrieves it a short while later, not even looking at us as he does.
Then Jed takes watch.
“I’ll stay up,” Nara offers. “I don’t feel like going back to sleep. The rest of you get what you can.”
“Thank you,” I whisper. “But if there’s any trouble…”
“I’ll scream loud enough for the wolves to come back.” She forces a half-smile and motions for me to lie down.
I scoot toward the edge of the cage. Fiona lies against my back. I feel her trembling for a while before she finally falls asleep. My eyes get hazy as the first flicker of sleep nudges in. Then I see something moving and it clears my gaze for a moment. It’s a vine—weirdly, it looks like the one from earlier, but it’s coiling. My eyes get wider, but then it stops. I don’t even draw a breath.
