The Warrior King's Mate

Chapter 4

The wind blew in green and white waves, carrying small sprays of the sea and throwing it against the grimy deck of the ferry boat. The sun had officially broken through past the horizon and the clouds cleared the sky as if sewn on to the inky blanket of night. Clear skies ahead, I whispered in my head.

I’d left Flora’s little apartment in the small hours of the morning, leaving her snoring gently on the living room floor. I hadn’t yet succumbed to the overwhelming exhaustion that hung around my neck like a noose. I feigned sleep while Flora cried herself off, waiting until I was sure she was deep under before grabbing my shoes, my envelope of cash and leaving the small human village behind, hopefully forever. Whoever Flora said she was, and however kindly she treated me, she knew my mother. I had to leave.

The ferryman arrived less than ten minutes after I’d crossed the road and let me aboard without much interest. Within the hour, cars, vans and pedestrians pulled up on board as well, the noise of the quay moving from deathly quiet to a comforting hum. With the sky still a soft indigo, we were off. A small, laminated sign stuck to the viewing deck door told me the ferry took four hours and would arrive in the next town over by 9am. Remembering my conversation with the bored bus driver yesterday as I left Silver Shore, I then took a bus from the harbour town to the edge of the country. After that, I was going to have to walk. The thought of walking made my legs feel four times as heavy. After two days of no sleep, no shower, no clean clothes and only last night’s fish and chocolate in my stomach, I felt decidedly queasy. The ferry had a small café, and now that we were over an hour into our journey, I felt it was about time I went to see what breakfast I could find without spending too much of my mother’s money.

The cafe was right at the back of the ferry, overlooking the parked vehicles that rode underneath the seating areas. Beside it, a large set of double doors that read “men’s shower room”. I turned myself until I spotted the same style of doors on the other side of the café that, sure enough, were for females. Poking my head inside, I found a long room with three toilet cubicles, a bench with three hair dryers and three sets of electrical sockets in front of a long, slightly dirty mirror, and two shower cubicles. Inside each cubicle was a dispenser of soap, shampoo and conditioner, all from a brand called “Summer Valley”. All thoughts of hunger gone, I found a row of lockers and placed my shoes, clothes and envelope inside, taking the key with me into the first cubicle and turning on the tepid water. Summer Valley smelled strongly of artificial sweetener and strawberries, but anything was better than smelling of day-old fried fish and sweat. I furiously combed the knots from my hair using as much conditioner as I could – I was never allowed more than a simple bar of soap at home and the conditioner was harder to rinse out than I realised, especially with the water pressure being so low. Eventually, I gave up and assumed my hair would be clean enough. I had kept my hair tie, so I could put it in as neat a bun as I could manage anyway.

Getting out of the shower, I realised my mistake – no towel. Tiptoeing across the room in search of paper towels, I shook myself dry as much as I could. Finding none, I turned back to the hair dryers on the opposite wall. I’d never used one, but surely if they could dry hair, they could dry a body? Locking the inside of the shower room, I fiddled with the three sets of buttons until the hair dryer came to life. I was bone dry in no time, aside from my greasy mop of hair – the conditioner had made it oily and dull looking. I at it back angrily, annoyed at how little the shower had done to sort my appearance. Taking my clothes back out of the locker, the stale smell of myself hit me anew and my nose wrinkled.

“Well. You don’t have anything else,” I told myself, grimacing as I pulled on the dirty clothes. The overly sweet smell mixing with the dirty clothes made the sickness return with gusto and I desperately lurched to the sink to grab handfuls of cold water to sip. I looked at my reflection with disgust. Logan and his friends would love to see me now.

“Look at that disgusting little b***h,” they used to shout as I walked by. They’d hold their noses and complain that I smelled like s**t. “Like a dirty mutt. They should make it sleep outside!” The laughter would follow me all day, until taunting and name-calling weren’t enough. Waiting until they could find me alone, on the walk home from school, or in the laundry room or worse, while I used the bathroom in the omega quarters, a rotating mini pack of abusers would form. Once, my own brother ripped the small towel I used to cover myself as he and a bunch of much older boys locked me in the bathroom, laughing and pulling at my towel until Simon tore it in two. He left the room shortly after. The other boys didn’t.

Shaking the memories from my head, I threw my weight away from the sink and made my way back to the café outside. It was empty. Timidly making my way to the counter, I saw a stack of freshly made toast, small glass jars of various jams and marmalades, jugs of fresh juice, a half empty fruit bowl and a selection of miniature boxed cereals. A girl about my age poked her head out from behind a door.

“Milk is in the fridge, coffee is in that pot over there, help yourself to anything you like! I’m just about to bring out fresh muffins!”

Her voice was bright and singsong-like. I gently extricated the last banana from the fruit bowl and pondered over the different boxes of cereal. I’d never tried any of these, but they all seemed to be various flavours of the same things. I didn’t really want any of them, so I helped myself to some toast and found, to my delight, a small pot of golden honey. Taking my small plate over to a counter table with a high, wooden stool underneath. I set my breakfast down and returned with a small glass of orange juice. My first ever breakfast, a real breakfast!

I remember once, when I was about fourteen, Hailey finding me in the dining hall dusting the floor. It was around mid-morning and the rest of the pack had already eaten and left. I crawled along the parquet floor inch by inch, meticulously sweeping everything into the small dustpan I carried. I was starving because I hadn’t had meals for a few days because of not cleaning the floors sufficiently in the drawing room and so all I was allowed to eat was whatever crumbs I could find on the floor. I don’t know how long she watched me, but Hailey screeched as she watched me lick my finger and dip it into the full dustpan, before scooping what I could into my mouth without hesitation. The hunger was so bad that it was an unignorable pain and so I would even chew on the dust, hair, grit, and food crumbs like it was manna from heaven. Her shriek frightened me, and she stormed towards me, knocking the dustpan clear across the room before shaking me, asking what the hell I thought I was doing. With my mouth still full of hair, I tried to explain that I was just hungry and that I was sorry, that Alpha Lawrence had told me I wasn’t to eat anything else. She suddenly stopped shaking me and stared at her hand closing fully around my upper arm. Letting me go to drop to the floor, she spat at me to ‘clean this mess up before anyone sees’ indicating the now empty dustpan and crunchy floor. The next morning, as I was standing at my post, feeling faint and tired as I stared blankly at the floor, waiting for everyone to leave so that I could clean, the sound of a plate smashing startled me. “Ugh, aren’t you going to pick this up? Or is that too hard for you?” My sister sneered, watching me closely as I scrambled to pick up the broken plate, and the untouched pile of French toast, berries, and thick slices of bacon. She kept a close eye on me as I bowed, took her rubbish, and swiftly took it into the kitchen to the waste food bin. When the heavy kitchen door swung closed, I took a frantic bite out of the French toast, stuffed one bacon slice and three blackberries into my mouth, chewing like my life depended on it. Later, I found her inspecting the trash and sighing in relief slightly when she found the toast, one corner missing. She met her mate three days later and I haven’t seen her since.

“Blueberry and pecan muffin?” The girl from the café held out a tray of slightly steaming muffins to me, a proud smile on her face. “They’re part of the complimentary breakfast so, help yourself!”

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My mind began to wander to my grandmother. An hour from the harbour and the reality of the situation finally began to settle on my mind – yesterday I woke up to go running before a day of hard work, abuse and starvation, planning my escape and feeling more alone than ever. Today I was now hundreds of miles from the packhouse at Silver Shore, further than my broken imagination ever let me dare to dream of. Not only that, but I was about to meet a grandmother who I had never even considered existed. Why? Did Hailey and Simon know about her? How sick was sick? Mother had said I was to stay with her until she passed away but hadn’t told me what was actually wrong with her. Maybe it was something contagious and she hoped I would contract it, then, she would finally be rid of me. She didn’t even tell me my grandmother's name. Not for the first time, my fingers traced the opening of the envelope she had handed me. I still hadn’t read her note, unsure if I wanted to.

Fear fought numbness as I looked out on the rapidly changing coastline. Long gone were the pearly white beaches near Silver Shore, hidden away in the forest. City skylines appeared, luxurious beach homes and bars playing loud music even early in the morning. These were then replaced by a vast expanse of sea. After a while, rocky shores and steep cliffs were just visible before giving way to yet more urban steel and glass. I had no idea what Moon River would be like, and no idea if I was as unwelcome there as I was at home.

There was also guilt; Flora had been so kind to me, fed me, sang me to sleep, and would have long since woken to an empty apartment and a small pile of my mother’s money to repay her for my dinner the night before. I couldn’t even summon the energy to speculate on how she knew mother’s name, as it sent a cold wave of panic into the pit of my stomach which fizzled like sparks in my fingertips. Each time, I stilled like a deer in a clearing. My mind would replay the undiluted anger mixed with that strange, electric power that I felt in the basement, and the look of absolute terror in the eyes of the woman who abandoned me. I compared it to the panic attack in Flora’s apartment, the same static energy, the same feeling of intense emotion and power. It frightened me more than anything, more than Logan, or my siblings, or my mother; more than being on my own in a strange place, more than not knowing where I was going. I’d spent my entire life afraid of the people who were meant to protect me. It had never occurred to me that it was possible to be even more afraid of myself. Maybe I was finally going mad.

Maybe my grandmother wouldn’t want a mad woman in her house. I picked absently at my greasy leggings and loose-fitting t-shirt. I self-consciously kept prodding at my over-conditioned hair and checked my cheek for swelling so often, other passengers must think I had some sort of tick. I didn’t exactly look like a sane woman. Or a very clean or healthy one, for that matter. Having seen my reflection more times in the last day than last year, I was disappointed there hadn’t been some sort of ugly duckling-esque awakening. My hair was long and unhealthy, full of split ends and knots. My sister and mother both had sleek blonde hair that fell naturally in soft waves and never once looked untidy. My brother had brown hair, both his and my father’s lighter than mine, more golden than dark, with matching gold-flecked eyes. My eyes were dull, dark and constantly surrounded by dark circles. Where Hailey and Simon were tall, athletic and narrow waisted, I was shorter, skinny and underweight, with narrow shoulders and hips which only made my bones more prominent, adding to my ugliness. Where running had made me feel stronger, it had made whatever fat I had kept from childhood melt into ropey muscles that looked closer to the body of some old crone than a young woman. Then, there were the scars; where Hailey’s softly tanned skin was unblemished and smooth, mine was peppered with burns, purple scores from silver knives, mottled and dry. I remember once Jana, a petite curly haired girl in my homeroom at school, praying to the moon goddess that if someone out there was destined to be mated to me, that he be blind. I realised, as the howls of laughter echoed around my mind, that I probably wouldn’t have to worry about ever inflicting myself on a mate - no wolf, no mate. No problem.

My fingers found the envelope again. Did it matter what the note said? I had wanted out, I thought to myself, looking around the ferry as the crisp September sun danced on the waves as we sailed onwards. Well, I’m out...

I’m never going back, no matter what happens at River Moon. Who cares what the letter says?

In a way, I’m finally free…