No Take Backs, My Dear Alpha

Chapter 2: The Voices

Living in a basement for the past 10 years of her life made Calypso wonder if she had gone mad. It didn’t help that she was hearing voices every day.

For as long as she could remember, mysterious voices had kept her company. They had no tone, but they did not sound the same, and they only ever spoke to her at night.

At first, Calypso ignored them because she did not want to accept that she was slowly losing her grip on her sanity. As time passed, however, they began to sound more and more real, to the point she could even have a full conversation with them.

Eventually, they became her only companions in the world because they were the only ones who sympathized with her. As strange as it sounded, the voices were the ones that kept her sane until that moment.

“Don’t be sad, it will get better,” the voices encouraged.

“You guys always say that, it’s all you’ve been saying for the past 10 years, and it never gets better,” she replied with great frustration.

“It’s only a matter of time; the moon hasn’t forgotten you.”

“I’m finding that hard to believe. If she hasn’t, then why am I still here?”

“Just a little longer, trust me.”

Calypso looked out the only small window that brought light into the dark basement and saw the moon. It wasn’t even fully complete, and yet it brightened the night’s darkness.

As she stared at the moon, she wondered what the voices meant when they said the moon hadn’t forgotten her. How could a divine being pay her, an outcast, any attention? Of what importance was she to be remembered by the moon?

Shaking her head, Calypso turned away from the window and fixed her gaze on the darkness of the room.

“Thanks, but I think you and I can both see that I’m destined to die in this hellhole, and that’s okay. I came to terms with this a long time ago.”

A long silence passed after her response, and the voices said nothing. Calypso became worried that she had chased them away with her negativity, but they spoke to her once again.

“Calypso’s destiny isn’t to die; Calypso will live long because she has a lot to do.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

They said nothing else after. The voices left Calypso with her many thoughts.

Lying on the hard ground, she curled herself up into a ball for warmth. She could not use her wolf because she was banned from using it again.

With the conversation still lingering in her mind, Calypso asked herself several questions until sleep finally caught up with her. And when it did, she happily embraced it.

~*~

The night had passed, and morning arrived, but it hardly looked like it did. Thick gray clouds blanketed the sky, and the snow blinded anyone stupid enough to go outside.

Calypso woke up shivering; the drastic drop in temperature inside the basement was too serious to ignore. The ground became unbearably cold to sleep on; it was practically ice. Seeing as she couldn’t sleep anymore, she got to her feet.

As she stood stiff in the middle of the room, hugging herself tightly for warmth, Calypso felt like she was going to die. The cold air she inhaled threatened to collapse her lungs at any moment, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Just as she was in the middle of accepting her fate, the upstairs door opened. A man whom Calypso had never seen before walked down the steps; he had long dark hair that was tied into a ponytail and mysterious green eyes.

The man reached the bottom step, and there he stood quietly with his gaze fixed on her. Calypso returned the man’s gaze, and soon they engaged in a staring contest. No one said a word; they merely stared at one another.

A few moments later, the two were joined by a man Calypso knew; he was one of her captors, the one usually tasked with waking her up in the morning.

Calypso looked at the two men, and dread immediately rose within her. She did not know what to expect, but she was sure she wouldn’t like it. The gaze of both men fell upon her, and she wanted nothing more than to be invisible at that moment; she hated every second of it.

“So...”, the unfamiliar man spoke, his voice was deep yet subtle, “This is the... witch?”

“Yes, that’s her.”

“She doesn’t look like one.” His green eyes seized her up.

“Oh, don’t be fooled, she may not look like much, but this woman brings bad luck; nothing goes right when she’s around.”

Calypso hated how they talked about her in her presence, but she knew they didn’t care, and that was exactly why they did it so casually.

A brief moment of silence passed, then the strange man spoke again.

“If you say she’s the one, then I’ll believe you, but you better not be lying, or my Alpha will be angry, and you don’t want that,” he warned

“We wouldn’t dare, we are nothing if not honest.”

“Hmm”

With their conversation concluded, the two men ascended the stairs, but the unfamiliar man stopped to look down at Calypso once again.

“Are you trying to sell us damaged goods? Give her a blanket before she dies from the cold,” he ordered, shocking her.

After the two men left, Calypso let out a breath of cold air. She was confused and wanted to know more about what had just happened, but she was freezing to death and hoped she would actually receive a blanket.

Not too long after he had left, Calypso’s captor returned, but only for a moment. From atop the stairs, he threw down a blanket and then disappeared once again. Without a second thought, she rushed to pick up the thick material and quickly wrapped herself in it.

The warmth of the material slowly seeped into her skin, giving relief from the cold. Though it was nowhere near enough to give her the warmth she needed, it was better than being completely bare and at the mercy of the harsh weather.

With her major issue taken care of, Calypso could focus on the second major issue at hand: who that man was. Too afraid to even attempt to sit on the floor again, she paced the floor as she thought.

Much of what the mysterious man said had to be dissected, but what stood out to her the most was his comment about ‘selling damaged goods’. It didn’t take a genius to understand that she was the ‘damaged goods’, but what she didn’t understand was the selling part.

A feeling of great unease crept up Calypso’s spine. If she was indeed being sold, to whom was she being sold?

~*~

Calypso had spent her entire morning thinking and worrying. The fear of the unknown grew with each passing second until she became a nervous wreck.

The anxiety forced her to glue her eyes to the door as she waited for something to happen, but as time passed, nothing did. It wasn’t until much later in the day that something happened; she received a visit from the ginger-haired man.

Calypso watched as the man descended the stairs. The closer he got, the more anxious she felt. Just looking at him made every muscle in her body tense; she did not forget how he had strangled her.

“Did you meet my new acquaintance?” he immediately asked, getting straight to the point

Calypso nodded in response

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know what to think; I don’t know who he is.”

“You don’t need to, but what you do need to know is that today is the last time we’re ever going to see each other, and it’s all thanks to that man.”

Calypso’s fears were basically confirmed: she was being sold. At that moment, a thought suddenly popped into her mind: Was this what the voices were talking about?