Chapter 2: Ran And Caught

Eira’s POV

"Jenny, you can bring her to the exit hallway. The Alphas will receive her there," Henry’s voice pulled me sharply back to the present.

I watched as he and Paul left the room in haste, probably too impatient to claim the fortune they’d earned by selling me off.

"You’re lucky, you know," Jenny said, still fixated on the screen displaying the winner Alphas. "Not just one, but five rich and powerful Alphas. If I were a she-wolf, I’d throw myself at them. But a mere human like me can only lust after money, and survive this boring life."

While she was lost in her fantasies, I quickly grabbed a tiny syringe filled with a clear drug that had been carelessly left in the tray next to me, and slipped it beneath the hem of my flimsy, knee-length off-white gown, pressing it against my thigh.

Jenny began pushing the wheelchair down the dim, sterile hallway, the so-called exit. The passage was narrow, lit by flickering yellow lights that gave it a hollow, haunted air.

The cold air stung the bare skin of my legs as we neared the end of the hallway. Ahead, I saw the partially opened iron door.

My only way to freedom.

The moment we reached closer to the door, I tightly gripped the syringe in my trembling hand.

"Ah!" I cried out, my voice strained with fabricated agony.

As expected, Jenny stopped and asked, "What happened?"

She sounded worried, but it wasn’t for me. It was about losing money if something happened to me.

"It hurts," I whispered, barely audible, as though I were too weak to even speak. Years of enduring real pain had taught me exactly how to mimic it.

She rushed to the front of the wheelchair, her brows furrowed as she knelt in front of me. "Where? Show me."

"Here," I clutched my stomach, bending forward in pain.

Her hands reached to inspect my stomach. "Move your hands. Let me see."

I obeyed, and in the next heartbeat, I drove the syringe into the side of her neck.

Her body jerked with surprise, eyes going wide. Even I was startled by the strength my hand gathered despite the drug effect and it even hit very precisely.

Jenny let out a strangled gasp, one hand flying to the needle that now hung uselessly from her neck.

"You bitch," Her eyes locked on mine, filled with fury and disbelief. "What the hell did you do to me?"

I met her gaze with a slow, wicked smirk, my vision still hazy but my mind crystal clear. "Just giving you a taste of your own drug. I do hope it works faster on you than it did on me."

"You—"

Before she could finish, I shoved her aside. She toppled backward easily, hitting the cold floor with a dull thud. The drug worked faster and her body would be numb in seconds.

Gathering every ounce of my strength, I rose from the wheelchair and dragged myself to run out of the door.

But my body was sluggish. Numb. The drugs coursing through me were dangerously strong. My limbs ached, my vision swam. Still, I couldn’t give up now.

For years, they had fed me all kinds of drugs before delivering me to strange men like some twisted offering, that this drug feels nothing much of a trouble.

"I have to do it. I’d rather die than fall into their hands."

The cold wind slapped against my skin as I stepped outside. It was dark, but few high pole lights were casting enough glow to make it visible. Ahead was circular razor-wire fencing and then woods beyond that.

Perfect. Time to feel freedom after six long years.

Breath hitching, body screaming in protest, I limped toward the fence.

I pushed myself through the twisted mess of wire, the sharp nails tearing into my skin, drawing blood that trickled down my limbs in warm streams. My gown caught and tore. My flesh scraped and split. But I didn’t stop.

By the time I collapsed on the other side, my vision spun and my chest heaved, but I didn’t lie there.

Freedom or death. There was no third option.

I forced myself to my feet and plunged into the woods as I stepped over dry leaves and brittle branches that cracked beneath me. Thorns scratched my arms. Splinters pierced my feet. I tripped over rocks and roots, stumbled into trees, but each time I fell, I rose again with new determination.

’I am not going to them. Not now. Not ever.’

Most people in my place would pray for someone to come for their rescue, but I was praying for something else.

’Maybe there is a deep valley ahead and I just fall and die? Maybe a wild animal who is just angry or hungry? Anything, anyone will do, just make me die.’

Not sure how much time passed by, but it felt like an eternity to me. And I could already hear them following me.

"Blood. I smell blood this way," I heard a man’s distant voice. "She has gone this way."

A shiver ran down my spine. ’I am found.’

I had been bleeding since the fence and it must have been so easy for them to follow me.

"There she is!" someone shouted.

I forced my legs to move faster, dragging my feet as best I could, only to have tripped over a half buried wooden log.

I crashed face-first onto the hard, unforgiving ground. I felt dizzy and unable to move.

"Did you really think you could run away after we paid so much to buy you?"

A chill ran through my body to hear that familiar voice which I last heard six years back. I couldn’t dare move. Preferring to lie like a dead log, hoping my soul leaves my body in a moment and spares me this new hell.

"Let’s see which lucky bitch we just bought." Another voice followed, laced with cruel amusement.

In that moment, the thought that crossed my mind wasn’t fear. It wasn’t anger. It was a hollow, empty whisper: I give up.

Rough hands seized my shoulders and turned me over, forcing me onto my back. My gown clung to my wounds, and the cold wind bit at my skin.

Fingers brushed my face and pushed the mess of hair away from my eyes.

And so, I opened my eyes, only to see familiar faces painted with shock and disbelief.