Guest Suite, My Ass
1632 Words
Roslynn paced her cell.
They called it a “guest suite,” but even the rats wouldn’t buy it. Converted storage room, maybe. The cot was the kind they used for unconscious drunks in ERs. A battered metal chair doubled as a nightstand and table, its seat pitted with decades of chemical stains. They’d bothered with a fresh coat of pale blue paint on the cinder block walls. Still, the cracks in the ceiling were original, and the only window was a slit up near the ceiling, just big enough to let in a blade of afternoon sun and the occasional stench of boiled cabbage from the mess hall.
She’d tried to rip the cot out of its bolts twice already. Her left palm still sported a neat half-moon of blood where she’d slipped and caught it on a jag of metal. That, at least, felt familiar—a pain she could own.
The rest of it? The mark, the invisible chains, the way her body felt wrong when she sat too long in the same spot; she didn’t know what to do with that.
She was mid-pace, gnawing on the inside of her cheek, when it hit: a jolt so sharp she dropped to her knees. It started at the scar on her collarbone, then shot straight to her wrist, like someone had poured liquid metal under her skin.
She bit her tongue to keep from screaming. The taste of copper was instant, flooding her mouth as the pain arced up her arm and seared every nerve ending. Her vision went white for a second. Then, as suddenly as it started, the pain vanished, leaving a throbbing afterglow that made her ears ring.
She looked down.
For a second, she saw them: silver lines, hair-fine, crawling beneath the surface of her wrist. Like someone had injected mercury into her veins, they faded as she watched, leaving nothing but the old, familiar scars and a new, raw fear.
She scrambled to her feet, bracing herself against the cold wall. Her breath came in short, ragged bursts.
“What the f**k,” she whispered. “What the actual fuck.”
A shadow fell across her door. Heavy footsteps, the kind that said: “Don’t try anything.” The lock scraped, and the door creaked inward.
Blaze.
He looked worse than before, with his shirt wrinkled, hair damp at the temples, silver shadowing his jaw, and eyes that glowed faintly even in daylight. For a split second, she almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
“What did you do to me?” she demanded. She shoved her wrist at him, half-expecting the veins to reappear on cue. “Is this part of your kidnapping package, or just a fun side effect?”
Blaze didn’t flinch. He closed the door behind him, then leaned his back against it. He didn’t move closer. Maybe he was learning. Maybe he knew she’d try to shiv him with a plastic spoon if he gave her the chance.
“It’s not intentional,” he said.
“Oh, so the magical branding was accidental. That’s so much better.” She paced a tight semicircle, keeping distance between them. “You said I’d be safe here. You didn’t say I’d be turning into a goddamn Lite-Brite.”
He watched her, unreadable. “The pain—how bad?”
“Bad enough to make me wish you’d left me for the smoke monsters or whatever the f**k they are.”
He nodded once, as if cataloging data. “It’ll get worse before it gets better.”
Her jaw dropped. “You are terrible at comfort, you know that?”
He didn’t deny it.
She pressed both hands to her temples, trying to squeeze the memory of pain out of her skull. “I want answers, Blaze. Real ones. None of this cryptic Alpha bullshit. What is happening to me?”
He hesitated, unsure of how to answer the question that was plaguing him as well.
She saw it; the war on his face between keeping secrets and… what? Protecting her? Protecting himself? She wasn’t sure. Maybe the line didn’t exist for people like him.
He took a step forward as she braced herself, ready to launch the chair if necessary.
“You’re not dying,” he said quietly. “But you’re not just human anymore.”
She laughed. “Yeah, that’s what all the cult recruiters say.”
He held out his hands, palms up. “You want proof?”
“Sure. Hit me with your best shot, Joan Jett.”
He glanced around, then crossed to the window ledge, where someone had abandoned a spider plant. He cupped it gently between his hands. For a moment, nothing happened. Then he closed his eyes, brow furrowing in concentration.
Roslynn’s mark blazed with heat. She bit her tongue, waiting.
The plant blackened. The leaves wilted, collapsing in on themselves with a hiss, as if the moisture had been sucked out in an instant. Within seconds, the whole thing was a tangle of ash and charred stems.
Blaze dropped his hands. The heat in Roslynn’s mark faded.
He turned to her, something bleak in his eyes.
“This is what should have happened to you,” he said. “Instead—” He raised his own wrist, pulled up the sleeve. Silver veins crawled up his forearm, pulsing gently. “Instead, you marked me.”
She stared. The sarcasm died on her tongue.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, but her voice sounded weak even to herself.
He shrugged, as if conceding the point.
“Why me?” she demanded. “I’m not special. I’m not even—” She broke off, hating the wobble in her voice. “I’m not even good at being human most days.”
Blaze’s mouth twitched, almost a smile. “You saved my life. You didn’t have to. That matters.”
She paced again, the motion helping her think.
“So what now?” she asked. “You gonna keep me in here forever? Wait for me to sprout fangs and howl at the moon?”
“You’re safe here,” Blaze repeated. “Safer than anywhere else.”
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t get to decide what ‘safe’ means for me.”
He nodded, just once. “But I will.”
She stared at him, mouth open. She was so furious, she wanted to throw something, break something, to see if it would get through to him. But there was nothing in the room that wasn’t bolted down or dull-edged by design.
So she did the next best thing.
She sat, crossed her legs on the cot, and glared at him with every ounce of stubbornness she had left.
“Fine,” she said. “If I’m stuck, then you’re explaining everything. Start with the curse.”
Blaze looked out the window, as if searching for the right words in the trees.
“The curse is old,” he began. “Older than the pack, older than the mountain. Every Alpha inherits it. It’s a leash and a torch at the same time.”
Roslynn frowned. “A leash?”
“Means I can’t run. Can’t quit. If I let go, everyone in the pack dies,” he said.
“And the torch?”
“If I ever lose control, it burns out everything. Friend, foe, doesn’t matter.”
She absorbed that. “That’s why you’re all so… tightly wound.”
He almost smiled. “You have no idea.”
They sat in silence for a minute. She studied him, searching for cracks. The veins on his wrists had faded, but she could see the tension in his jaw, the way his fingers flexed and curled on his thighs.
“So why doesn’t it kill me?” she pressed.
He hesitated again. “I don’t know. That’s never happened before.”
She scoffed. “So I’m Patient Zero for your magical rabies?”
“Something like that.”
Another beat of silence.
She looked down at her hands. “When the pain hit, I saw the mark. The lines were moving.”
Blaze’s eyes sharpened. “Like how?”
She shrugged, embarrassed. “Like… like it was alive. Like it was trying to write something.”
He leaned forward. “Next time it happens, tell me what it says.”
She met his gaze, surprised by the urgency in his voice. “You think it’s a message?”
He nodded. “Or a warning.”
She rubbed her wrist, still tender. “I liked it better when my only problems were student loans and angry Chihuahuas.”
He didn’t say anything, but there was something close to understanding in his eyes.
She broke the silence. “Is there a way to fix this?”
He shook his head. “If there is, no one’s found it.”
“Great,” she said, and collapsed back onto the cot. “Well, I hope you like having a roommate, because I’m not dying here.”
He stood, watching her for a moment longer. “You won’t,” he said.
She snorted. “You don’t know that.”
He turned for the door. “Yes, I do.”
The lock clicked behind him.
Roslynn rolled onto her side, staring at the window.
She traced the outline of the mark with her finger, memorizing the shape, the feel of it. She wondered if it would ever stop hurting. She wondered if Blaze was watching her through the walls, the way she sometimes felt herself watching him.
She wondered how long she could keep fighting, and what would happen if she ever stopped.
She closed her eyes, and for the first time since the alley, she slept.
- Writer
