Born of Blood

Chapter 6

She had been in the dark for a long time.

The concrete beneath her was rough with dirt and pebbles, it bit into her side as she lay, trembling, too scared to move. The flesh of her chest had almost entirely healed, it felt bumpy against her trembling fingers, thin scabs beginning to peel leaving a rubbery, translucent, skin underneath. The air was thick, humid, and the quiet dripping some ways away never ceased. Over the days it seemed to have been getting louder, leaving a pounding behind Scarlet's tired eyes.

It had been two days in the cells. No communication, no food, no water. She breathed in the dusty, humid, air and struggled to stop her coughing as her body attempted to reject it. Her tongue was sand in her mouth and her stomach was practically eating itself; her body trembled she was so cold, no matter how tightly she balled herself in the corner of her small cell, she could never maintain warmth. She stayed near the concrete wall, it was her friend, her confidante. As she rested next to it, what little body heat she produced radiated to that small area she leaned on, and she used that as her source. Her source to keep her from freezing to death when she needed to roll over as the pebbles she lay on cut into her skin and popped into her flesh. She stared at the bars across from her. Rusty, black, the paint coating them chipping and revealing the glinting silver beneath. Her chest burned with fear.

Silver, coated in paint mixed with wolfsbane.

It would weaken the strongest wolves, and it had weakened Scarlet many, many, times before.

They threw her down here when she did things deemed extremely punishable. Nothing simple, not dropping a glass, not messing up a meal. When she did things that the Alphas feel are rebellious. Talking back, she could feel the memories touching at the edges of her mind. A child's voice, standing up for herself before she was throw against the metal until her sobs kept her from speaking. Her legs as a child running through tall grass as she attempted to flee from the territory that had condemned her to live this life, she had felt free for a moment as the wind flew through her hair, before the wolf caught her by the arm. These cells had assisted in her changing her tone, in her becoming silent, in more ways than just accidentally leaning against them. She had discovered that being at the end of any punishment was easier than being thrown down here again.

Yet, here she was.

Terror shook her body, her flesh twitched with every drop of water in the distance, she didn't understand. She had shoveled the driveway, she had delivered the meals, she had tended to the garden and the pack members, as well, at their every beck and call. What had she done to deserve to be attacked, slammed into glass containers, her flesh boiled in gravy and oil? What had she done to be thrown into the cells, cold and alone with nothing but a leaky pipe to help her keep time? Her mind was frantic with anxiety, racing through her actions the entire day before she was put in the cage.

What had she done? What had she done!

Her heart throbbed with panic, stomach turning with sickness- no longer starving, she felt she might instead throw up bile in her corner in the tiny cell she was trapped in. She had been curled in a ball for two days, waiting for someone to come down and tell her her crimes. Waiting to tell her of her stupidity and sling names at her frail body like knives. Tell her of her insubordination, assign her the skin splitting, bone breaking punishment she would have no choice but to silence herself about and receive without complaint. Tears rolled hot down her cheeks as her shaky breaths echoed in the dark building.

She had only ever seen one other person in these cells in her history in the Malkún pack. He had been old, and skinny, his flesh was smeared with dirt and a long drip of blood was dried to his side, where a thin, rubbery scar had formed. His ash colored beard reaching to his belly and long, wintery, leaf filled hair showed he had lived wild for some time. She stared at that dried blood, those some years ago, that stuck to his side before she could garner the courage to raise her watery eyes to his. His black orbs dropped her stomach to the floor and she fought her gasp before dropping her gaze.