CHAPTER FOUR

SERAPHINA 

For three weeks, the routine never changed. Every morning started with the burning sting of syringes filled with wolfsbane, followed by the whip, and then hours of swinging heavy pickaxes in the freezing, pitch-black mines. 

I tried my best to do all the heavy lifting. I stole my mom's pickaxe whenever the guards weren't looking, forcing my own shredded arms to move until my muscles tore, just so she wouldn't get beaten for falling behind.

But I couldn't stop the hunger, and I couldn't stop the sickness rotting her from the inside out.

On the twenty-second morning, I woke up on the freezing stone floor of our cell. The cell felt unusually quiet. I turned over, my bones aching, and reached out to touch my mom’s shoulder to wake her up before the guards arrived.

She didn't move.

"Mom?" I whispered, my voice sounding small in the dark room.

I pulled myself closer and laid my hand against her cheek. 

My stomach instantly dropped into a bottomless pit. She was completely cold. Her skin felt like ice. There was no rising and falling in her chest. Her eyes were slightly open, staring blankly at the dark ceiling, her face pale and sunken.

She was gone. 

The suffering had finally broken her body, and she had passed away in the middle of the night while I was asleep right next to her.

No. She can't be. She can't leave me all alone in this cruel world.

"No, no, no... Mom, please. Wake up," I choked out, my chest tightening so hard I could barely breathe. I grabbed her scarred shoulders and began to shake her gently. 

"Mom, look at me. It's Phina. I'm right here. Please don't leave me alone. You can't leave me alone here."

Hot tears streamed down my face, against my cold cheeks, dripping onto her lifeless skin. I collapsed over her chest, burying my face into her neck, sobbing so hard my whole body trembled. 

She was the only reason I was still breathing, the only reason I hadn't given up in this dark tunnel. Now, I was completely alone in this hellhole.

The iron door swung open with a loud screech. Two guards walked in, their boots clicking against the stone.

"Get up, traitor. Shift starts now," one of them barked.

"She's dead," I whispered, not moving from her body. "My mom is dead. Please, just leave us alone for a minute."

One of the guards sighed in annoyance, walking over and roughly grabbing my mom's foot to drag her out of the cell.

Something inside me completely snapped. The grief turned into a wild rage. I lunged forward like an animal, throwing myself at the guard, scratching and biting his leg. "Don't touch her! Don't touch my mom! Leave her alone, you monsters!"

"Get off me, you crazy bitch!" the guard roared. He kicked me hard in the ribs, sending me crashing against the stone wall.

They didn't show an ounce of mercy. 

Both guards stepped over and began to beat me with their heavy boots and fists. They punched my face and kicked my stomach until I was coughing up pools of blood, my vision turning dark and blurry. 

Through the gaps in my swollen eyelids, I watched them drag my mom’s lifeless body out of the cell by her ankles, her head bumping against the rough dirt floor.

I couldn't even reach out to hold her hand one last time. How cruel can they be?

From that day on, the punishment doubled. Because my mom wasn't there to do her share of the work, the guards made me do the quota for two people. They whipped me twice as much. They starved me even longer.

But I didn't scream anymore. When the whip tore my back apart, I just stared at the wall, completely numb. When they injected the wolfsbane, I welcomed the burn. They thought they were breaking me, but they weren't. The happy, weak Omega girl named Seraphina died on the floor next to her mother.

Now, the only thing keeping my heart beating in this dark dungeon was a cold, burning hunger for revenge, and the promise to clear our names.

♤♤♤♤

Four months passed in that dark hole. I lost track of the days, only counting the cycles of the full moon by the way the guards' behavior changed outside my cell. 

My body was covered in a map of ugly scars that never healed properly because of the constant wolfsbane. I had gotten so thin my ribs pressed hard against my skin.

Amidst all of these, my happiness remains at the fact that I haven't been sexually abused by any of the guards. A lot of girls who were brought down to this place had stories to tell about the guards sexually abusing them.

Then, at midnight on a night when the dungeon was completely quiet, the iron door creaked open.

I didn't even bother to look up from the corner. I figured it was just another guard coming to give me an extra whipping for entertainment.

"Seraphina."

The voice made my blood run cold. 

I lifted my head slowly. Standing in the doorway, holding a dim lantern, was none other than Beta Harold. He didn't have his guards with him. He was completely alone, looking around the dark hallway nervously before stepping into my cell and locking the door behind him.

I just stared at him with my dead, numb eyes. I didn't have the energy to rage anymore.

"Listen to me carefully," Harold whispered, leaning down toward me. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key, grabbing my wrists and unlocking the cuffs. 

The sudden freedom made my hands drop heavily into the dirt. "I am letting you go. There is a secret passage at the back of the mines that leads past the pack borders. You need to leave right now and never come back."

I rubbed my bleeding wrists, looking up at the man who had caused my mother to die in this very dirt. "Why?" I rasped, my throat dry and cracking. "Why are you helping me? Why are you helping me after framing me?”

Beta Harold put on a fake expression of pity, though his eyes were still cold. 

"The Alpha has ordered your execution on the fourth full moon night, which is in two days. I am only doing this because I lied about you, okay? I feel guilty. But you cannot stay here. If you stay, you die."

A bitter laugh escaped my lips. 

"Guilty? You don't feel guilty. You just want me gone so your secret stays buried." I pushed myself up against the wall, forcing my shaky legs to stand. 

I looked him dead in the eye. "I'm not leaving, Harold. I will stay right here in this dungeon until Alpha Kai realizes what a fool he is, and I will clear my name and my mother’s name."

Harold’s face completely changed. The fake pity vanished, and he let out a mocking laugh, stepping right into my space.

"Clear your name?" he sneered, pointing a mocking finger at me. "Look at yourself. You are a broken, starving Omega in a hole. It is my word against yours, girl. I am the Beta, loved by everyone in the Pack. No one in a million years will the Pack ever believe a piece of trash like you over me. If you stay, Kai will cut your head off. If I were you, I'd seize this opportunity.”

My wolf, who had been completely silent and suppressed under the wolfsbane for months, suddenly stirred in the back of my mind. 

Her voice was weak, as she whispered to me: ‘Phina, please. He is right. If we stay here and die, Harold wins forever. We have to survive to get our revenge. For you. For mom.’

My jaw clenched so hard it ached. I looked at Harold, my chest burning with hatred so deep it felt like it was keeping my heart beating all on its own.

"I'm going," I said, my voice dropping into a cold, dangerous whisper. "But remember this face, Harold. Because I will survive this, and I will make sure I have my revenge on you and your entire bloodline."

Harold just laughed again, completely unfazed, and gestured toward the open door. "Good luck with that, Omega. Now move before I change my mind."

I stumbled out of the cell, my legs trembling with every step I took through the dark tunnels of the mines. I found the hidden path he told me about, crawling through the mud and sharp rocks until the air finally changed. The scent of fresh wind hit my face. I had crossed the pack border.

Cold rain started pouring down, soaking through my thin, tattered rags. My fever from the wolfsbane was spiking violently, and my vision began to spin. 

My body couldn't hold on anymore. I took three more shaky steps forward before my knees completely gave out.

As I fell face-first into the mud, losing consciousness, my final thought was of my mother's cold hand in the dungeon. 

“I will survive, Mom,” I promised into the dark. “I will survive. And Beta Harold and his household will pay.”