The Beta Who Bought Me

Chapter 13 - Files

By the time Laurel finally fell asleep, it was past two o’clock in the morning. She had eventually heard Owen’s footsteps in the hallway around midnight. Her breath hitched when she thought he stopped outside her door, but when the door across the hall clicked closed instead, she surprisingly felt a twinge of disappointment.

She tossed and turned over the next few hours, thinking about the man who bought her, her mother, her pack… Wondering if anyone was looking for her and hoping that no one else would have to go through what she was right now. She finally let the tears she had been holding in drop down the sides of her face in cascading waterfalls. She cried quietly until her eyes ran dry. Her exhausted mind blacked out for several hours after that - a state where she was not really sleeping or dreaming but just existing in blackness.

She fluttered her eyes open with bright daylight filtering into her room. The clock on the nightstand showed it was after 10AM now. Still feeling exhausted, she pulled herself out of bed and stepped into the hallway. She thought perhaps her purchaser would be milling about, but the apartment was utterly quiet.

She looked timidly at the door across the hall - assuming this was probably Owen’s own room - but when she did not hear any movement, she decided to check the living room and kitchen.

Owen was nowhere to be found though. A yellow sticky note on the kitchen counter then caught her eye. “Didn’t want to wake you. There’s food in the fridge. Be home later. -Owen” was all that was scribbled on the note.

He has terrible handwriting, she giggled to herself as she deciphered his childish scrawl.

Despite being a single man’s kitchen, the fridge and pantry were surprisingly well-stocked. Laurel found a wide variety of fresh vegetables, meats, cheeses, spices, and other staple foods. Her mother was an excellent cook, and she had gleaned quite a bit from her skill over the years. Surveying her available supplies, she took out a carton of eggs and decided an omelette would be easy enough for now. She gathered the ingredients and found a frying pan hanging from a rack over the center island. The high-quality gas stove flamed to life as she set down her pan on the burner and cooked her breakfast expertly. She slid the finished omelette onto a plain white plate and sat down on one of the three tall bar stools that lined the other side of the island. She took a deep breath and tried to block out the lonely silence as she dug into her food.

After breakfast and getting dressed, Laurel decided to familiarize herself more with Owen’s apartment. It had been late when she got there last night, and he had neglected to give her any kind of tour. He didn’t say when he would be home either, just a nonspecific “later”. He had said to make herself comfortable though and hadn’t said that anywhere was off limits.

The overall apartment was not a huge space, so she had already seen the majority of it, but there were still some back rooms she had yet to explore. She first stopped in front of the room she assumed was Owen’s. Her hand hovered over the knob but her courage faltered, and she opted to check some other rooms first.

At the end of the long hallway, she found two smaller rooms. The first was a laundry room with a high-tech washer and dryer and a small table for folding clothes. A small hamper held a few dirty men’s clothes, presumably Owen’s.

Across from the laundry room was an office. On a large wooden desk was a computer monitor with a dock, but a laptop that should have belonged with it was not there. There were a few file folders stacked next to the monitor, each labeled with their contents. “Pack reports”, “Financial earnings”, and other typical work-related titles.

Except for one.

“Genetic assessment for Evans, Laurel Elizabeth”.

She stilled when she saw her full name on the tab of the plain-looking folder. She pulled it from the rest of the stack of files and flipped it over. Nothing was written on the back or the front side besides the tab. She trembled slightly as she opened the file, not sure she wanted to know what it contained, but morbid curiosity got the better of her. The first page was had her last high school year book picture with a basic personal profile listed.

Name: Laurel Elizabeth Evans;

Age: 18;

Height: 172 cm;

Hair Color: Brunette;

Skin Tone: Fair;

Eye Color: Purple;

Wolf Color: White…