Chapter 4: say your goodbyes

549’s POV

I curled up in my bed, my head heavy, my throat sore from crying.

The higher ups would punish me for not looking after myself.

But I couldn’t bring myself to care. Not when everything was crumbling around me, not when my fate had been sealed.

I hated it, hated the breeding facility, the system that subjected us to… slavery.

I hated them all.

And most of all, I hated him.

Those storm grey eyes.

They haunted me, mocked me for being powerless, for being human.

The door pushed open but I didn’t move from my spot on the bed.

“Five?” Twelve’s tender voice forced my eyes to snap open.

The room was dark, too dark for her to see.

But she didn’t turn on the light. She didn’t dare.

It was way past visiting hours.

“Are you awake?” Fifty nine asked.

A beat passed, and I let the silence stretch. Hoping that if I stayed quiet long enough, then they’d assume I was sleeping and leave.

“I could hear your sobs from my room,” Twelve stepped closer to the bed cautiously, “I know you’re awake.”

My heart tightened in my chest.

Finally, I sat up, turning to face them in the dark room.

They looked lost, just standing in the center of the room blindly.

The room was pitch black.

But somehow, I could see their silhouette clearly, I always could.

“I’ve been picked,” I finally spoke, and my voice cracked, exposing the despair I felt.

“Oh five,” Twelve sounded like she was going to crumble.

“It’s not that bad?” Fifty nine offered softly. “You got a random Alpha, you can take him. It’ll only be worse if it was the King.”

A sob caught in my throat.

It was in fact the King.

The worst of them all, the one sitting at the top of the food chain. And I wasn’t just picked, I was mated to him.

My eyes brimmed with tears again, and in that moment, I was grateful for the darkness.

“Yeah,” I whispered, doing my best to hold back the sob.

The room got quiet again, like one of the many funerals we’d attended.

Only this time, we weren’t mourning a person.

We were mourning my freedom—what little of it I had.

“Why does it have to be like this?” I whispered, hugging my knees to my chest.

This could be the last time I get to be in the same room with my friends, with the people I’d grown up with.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Twelve responded with a steel in her voice.

I peered at her through blurry, tear filled eyes.

She hesitated for a second, looking ahead in the dark room, as though she was seeing something.

“This isn’t right,” she added, her voice darkening. “Why do we get to be subjected to this simply because we’re humans?”

“It’s the way the world works,” fifty nine shrugged. “It sucks but it is what it is. Our parents and grandparents and great grandparents were subjected to the same fate.”

“And no one questioned it.”

The silence in the room was deafening.

We all knew where she was heading, but we waited for her to say it, waited for her to say those words that could make her disappear without a trace.

“Maybe the wastelands aren’t as awful as they claim—”

“Twelve,” I cut in, my heart starting to pound.

“Don’t act like you haven’t thought of it!” She snapped.

I leaned back.

She was right.

I have thought of it. Over and over again, fantasized about living alone in what was left in the world, having the sun bathe my skin, the wind blow in my face.

“I’ve been working on it,” she announced, the usual timidity on her voice gone. “I’ve made sacrifices, defiled my body in exchange of information.”

My lips parted, sweat formed on my forehead.

“What—wha—” my throat suddenly went dry, the implication of her words sounding too heavy to comprehend, too scandalous to think of.

“I’m getting out of here,” she raised her chin, and for the first time, I could make out her eyes in the dark. They were sharp as a blade. “And you two can either come with me, or don’t.”

The room wasn’t quiet this time.

It was loud, the roar of my own heartbeat echoing in my ears.

Something cold spread through me, making my finger tips tingle, my blood heat up.

“Where’ll we go?” My voice came out smaller than I’d ever heard it, foreign even to my own ears.

“To the human pack.”

“There’re no such thing!” Fifty nine argued, her eyes wide with something I couldn’t recognize.

“Oh?” Twelve’s voice was eerily calm. “But there’re are.”

I rose to my feet, my hand coming up to my hair.

This changes things.

If there really was a human pack, then it meant our whole life was a lie.

“Why did they lie to us then?” I frowned.

“Only one way to find out.” Twelve shrugged.

I stared at her, really stared at her.

And for the first time, I didn’t see she shy timid girl. I saw a survivor, a rebel. I saw fire.

And goddess help me, I felt that fire in my veins too.

“In?” She took a step forward boldly, even if she couldn’t see. She took her chance—

“or out?”

—and that was all I needed.

“In.” I breathed without hesitation.

Fifty nine hesitated, then finally, she nodded.

And for the first time that night, I recognized the tingling in my veins.

It was adrenaline and something else. Something that felt too close to hope.

An emotion I thought had long since died.

“We leave tomorrow night,” Twelve announced, walking to the door. “Say your goodbyes.”