Page 8 of Mated By the Pack
“Hey, just calm down and try to breathe,” I whisper, trying to soothe the frightened girl.
Tansy isn’t old enough for supplements yet if she’s still in high school. She’s eighteen, but she might as well still be a kid. They kidnapped a child. Fiona and Brenna aren’t much older. But Nara’s a teacher. I’m a nurse. If anyone is going to figure a way out of this, it will be the two of us. The others are too scared—and I hate to say it, but possibly too weak, as well.
I wait until Tansy has calmed down and is no longer crying, before moving close to Nara.
“So, what’s the plan?” I whisper. “You haven’t said much. That means you’ve been thinking about something. Got any ideas?”
“We can’t do anything until they unlock the cage,” Nara replies. “I can’t bend steel. Can you?”
“No,” I relent, leaning down to press on the wood beneath us. “Ironwood. No way to break through this without tools.”
“That means we wait,” Nara whispers. “If they feed us, we eat everything, regardless of how it tastes. If they give us water, we conserve it. We have to survive. You’re a nurse. You know how to survive, right?”
“Yeah.” I nod in agreement.
I’m usually worried about the survival of my patients in my world. Nara probably shares similar sentiments about the students she teaches, even if it isn’t life or death. I motion for the others to come closer. Tansy is apprehensive but slides over. Brenna doesn’t move until Fiona tugs on her hand and whispers something. I look to Nara, hoping she’ll speak up, but when she doesn’t, I clear my throat.
“I think we’ve all had time to process this, and we understand what will happen to us if we’re sold as slaves.” I make eye contact with the three of them, and their expression confirms it, but Brenna seems to shrug it off.
“My future was the Lower District,” Brenna says. “Maybe I’ll have it better as a slave. It’ll almost be like getting chosen as a Bride, except there won’t be any babies.”
“Brides are treated like royalty, Brenna.” I narrow my eyes and shake my head.
“Maybe slaves are treated the same way,” Brenna challenges. “The men will want the same thing from us, right? Same thing the Grooms want from their Brides.”
“I-I don’t want to do that,” Tansy whimpers, shaking her head.
“It could have been your life anyway,” Brenna says. “You haven’t been tested yet, have you? You might be fertile.”
“I’m not,” Tansy sniffles, wiping her eyes. “The doctor said there would be no reason to test me when I graduated from high school.”
There could be several reasons for that, but it’s not unusual for a doctor to discover it during a routine exam. Some girls never even get a menstrual cycle. I got my first one early, and thought it was a sign. It wasn’t. All those dreams were crushed the day I got my test results. Maybe it would have been better to find out before I got my hopes up, but I stopped caring as much after I got my first cycle of supplements.
We’re quiet most of the day, listening to the sounds echoing from The Tangle. Branches snapping. Dirt being disturbed.Vines slithering around. The occasional sound of something that could be a predator, but we never actually see them.
“Halt!” Frank roars, and the cart comes to an immediate stop.
“What’s wrong?” Carl asks, looking around nervously and putting his hand on his rifle. “Trouble?”
“No,” Frank growls. “We shouldn’t go any further until sunrise. We’ll camp here for the night.”
“What? No, we’ve still got daylight for at least two hours,” Carl protests. “We can camp when it gets dark.”
“You don’t want to be in there when it gets dark,” Frank says ominously, pointing toward thick underbrush that surrounds the pieces of broken pavement ahead of us. “If you do, you’re going without me.”
Carl looks like he wants to respond, but Frank walks over and starts clearing some debris near the road. Carl finally grunts and motions for Jed and Jeb to assist. Carl leads the cart away from the campsite and secures the oxen.
“If you scream and draw attention to us, we won’t bother to save you,” Carl says, grinning and gesturing to the whip. “But if any of you survive, you’ll get acquainted with that before we head back to Haven North for replacements.”
Jed or Jeb walks closer to the cart. I can’t tell them apart, yet.
“You said we only needed four to sell, right?” he asks. “Does that mean we can take one out for ourselves tonight?”
A chill sweeps through me. Tansy whimpers and her tears return. Nara stares at them, still not showing any real emotion.Fiona tries to hold Brenna’s hand, but Brenna shrugs it off, so I reach for the girl.
“Not this time,” Carl chuckles. “I promised Haggard I’d bring him a pretty one, in exchange for letting us meet with the buyers at The Outpost. Maybe we’ll have an extra on the next run.”
“That’s a shame,” Jed or Jeb says, leaning closer to the steel bars and grinning at Tansy. “I know which one I’d pick.”
