Unclaimed

Chapter Thirty-Seven - Invite Only

Cassie

Things couldn't be going better. I stared at myself in the mirror as I straightened the purple shirt I wore, shimmying into my jeans, then stomping into my sneakers. I tie my dirty blonde hair in a ponytail as I grab a quick cup of coffee from Beau's kitchen.

She surely wouldn't mind me using her place until she comes back, and I just couldn't help myself but raid the bookshelf in Yazmin's room.

I set out for the day and head to the houses. Checking on all the teams, everyone sweating in the color coordinated uniforms. But it was work well done.

The auction went so smoothly, I couldn't believe the bid that was put in! I felt prideful, happy, my ego was happily fed and I was walking on air.

Beau had seen a real beta in me. My family were beta's before, but it was usually my brothers that got all the attention. My father getting old and realizing he couldn't contribute as much, I left with him and we came here. It felt so new.

I remember meeting Beau.

We were both kids no older than nine and she clung to Thomas like a spider monkey. Always on his back, or his hip, or hanging from his shoulders. Her hands always wrapped around his torso everywhere they went. I was the same with my own father.

Beau wouldn't talk to me at first.

She wouldn't talk to anyone. But we would always hear her talking. Always asking Thomas a question or debating on one thing or another.

She noticed things that I as a kid didn't, and made a point of asking Thomas all the complicated questions a normal child couldn't fathom asking. Even the questions parents desperately wish their children would avoid.

You could hear everyone trying not to laugh the day nine year old Beau flat out asked Thomas how children were made. He nearly choked on his food and was silent for the rest of the day. But Beau's persistent questioning left the whole town in shambles, laughing at the overly inquisitive child that couldn't pick up on social cues.

I guess she thought we were laughing at her. As after the fact she made no move to even acknowledge the rest of the town. Thomas almost having to force her to talk to people, starting with me.

He pushed her to me and egged her on to try and make friends with me.

I knew our relationship wouldn't be normal, when she looked back at Thomas and said, "She'll probably die trying to play with me."

Most of our days consisted of me following her around the woods as she scavenged for mushrooms. Beau had unknowingly found psychedelic mushrooms and had been eating them every afternoon since she found them. She had persuaded me to eat one and we had laid in the forrest for hours.

Thomas might have figured her prolonged stay in the woods was just her natural behavior, but I didn't follow such patterns as a child. My father ran into the woods looking for me and saw me lying on the ground with Beau.

Bodies completely opposite to each other as we laid on the ground gazing up at the sky, tripping off what ever drug was coursing through us. I remember the sheer panic on my fathers face, but the utter bliss I felt in what Beau had shown me.

I don't even remember most of the trip, I just remember feeling alleviated.

And after that, everyday in secret, I would follow Beau into the woods and we would eat mushrooms together, hallucinating and giggling. Colors and patterns warping our vision. Our minds caught in a prophetic frenzy, worshiping a god who's name we didn't know, and who's face we couldn't see. It was beautiful.