Hunted(24)

The light allowed her to see that her cell was roughly square in shape, a bit longer than she was tall. There were no windows, only a solid timber door bound with iron and a thick lock. In the corner adjacent to the one where she was chained was a wooden hatch, no more than half a foot square. Though she could smell nothing, Yeva assumed she was meant to relieve herself there. The room was otherwise empty but for Yeva, her light, and the tray of uneaten, raw tubers.

She considered trying to roast the tubers over the oil lamp, but after a few halfhearted attempts decided that the flame was not hot enough. Whoever had left her food had merely taken the supplies from her pack and deposited them on the tray, with no thought for whether they were actually edible uncooked.

The lamp gave off a tiny amount of heat, and so she drew it in close to her body, trying to ignore the monstrous shadows she cast on the four walls of her tiny cell. The shadows reminded her far too much of the creature in the clearing before it had struck.

Yeva took in a deep breath, stirring the air enough to make the flame flicker across the walls. “I know you can hear me,” she said, voice sounding much more certain than she felt. “I don’t know who you are, or why you’re helping me. But I need medicines from the pack I brought with me. The willow bark was good but it is not enough.”

She waited, but there was only silence.

Yeva glanced her fingers over her ribs again, wincing at the pain but unable to leave it alone. “I need the salve from the small red pot. It will help me heal. Please.” She strained to listen, ears ringing with the quiet. There came a light scrape as of fabric or leather on stone, so faint she would have dismissed the sound, if it hadn’t been followed by a voice.

“You will have to put out your light.”

The voice was a rumbling bass, heavy and musical and rich. Yeva shivered in spite of herself—if anything she had expected a meek, gentle voice. Someone sympathetic enough to help but too weak to actually set her free. Everything about this voice spoke of strength, and very little of compassion.

“But it is the only light I have,” she replied, her free hand moving instinctively to the lamp. “I have no way of lighting it again.”

“I will leave you flint and tinder,” said the voice. The swish of leather or skin or cloth on stone came again, as though someone was shifting, unseen in the small cell. “But you must put it out.”

“Why?”

“No questions.”

Yeva shivered. The thought of being left alone in the dark again was enough to make her eyes sting, but she had no reason to distrust her benefactor. He would not leave her a light only to take it from her again.

“Very well,” she whispered, and turned the wick down, the light shrinking and quivering. Yeva almost didn’t see it go out, afterimages dancing before her eyes and blinding her.

The door squealed open, the noise of rusty hinges shredding the quiet. Yeva clapped a hand over her ears, grimacing. Then came that tiny sound, a footfall. The person, whoever it was, was wearing the softest of shoes. Or else they were barefoot, like she was.

“Are you a captive too?” she asked the darkness.

The voice didn’t answer right away. There came a quiet clatter as something was placed down on the tray of food. “Yes,” said the voice then, the word emerging like a sigh.

“And yet you are free to move around and see other prisoners?”

“I said no questions.”

There was a growl to the voice, a hint of anger that made Yeva want to scramble backward. She held her ground, calling on hours spent waiting outside rabbit dens to aid her in keeping still. “Thank you for helping me,” she said softly. She could not afford to alienate the one person who could give her aid.

“I wish you to get well.” Though the words were kind, the voice was not.

Yeva swallowed. “These roots. They must be cooked before I can eat them.”

“I care not,” said the voice. The door slammed shut with a screech of angry hinges, leaving her, once again, in silence.

Yeva’s breath left her in a gasp, her heart pounding. She crawled toward the tray, ignoring the pain in her side, and retrieved the salve. Then she felt around the tray’s surface until her fingers found what they were looking for: a pair of flints and a braided strip of wool for tinder. Yeva tightened her hand around them, not caring how the stones dug into her palm. At least she would not be left in the dark.





BEAST


We had no intention of hurting the female, but the bodies of humans are fragile. Even broken, she will serve. We will keep her alive until a hunter comes to retrieve her, and then we will take him to serve our purpose.

We stand often outside her door, listening to her breathe and learning the scent of her. This way if she tries to run we will be able to hunt her down. The light in the room is no more than a sliver along the bottom of the door. Very rarely it flickers as she passes between it and the door, a shadow of movement.

“Thank you,” she whispers when we leave her things.

We do not understand this gratitude—we are her captor. We will be her death. We are beast and she is as fragile as the other one was. We should show her our face and let her scream until she breaks. They will come for her whether she has her mind or not.

We do not do this. We ask her to put out the light when we open the door so she will not see our face.