Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 63982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Every morning when the call was made to rise, she would watch her fellow Betas climb from their cots and dress in the uniform of their zone. She too wore the grey jumpsuit, she too broke bread in the mess hall with her sisters, but unlike them, she no longer had an assigned purpose.
Oversight, it seemed, believed Brenya had nothing to offer to the collective.
After a week living as a borderline pariah, after endless skewed looks and terse answers to attempted conversation, she found she could no longer choke down meals. She stopped eating. Her head ached; her stomach was always in knots. To prove herself useful, Brenya had taken to unordered janitorial work. With her good arm, she scrubbed the toilets, the floors, the walls, every surface inside her barracks. When she ran out of things to clean, she walked East Sector looking for debris on the ground.
It was two days of garbage collection before she found herself outside the gates separating the various engineering corps from the techs and central Oversight.
George would help her… it’s not like she didn’t recognize that he had been the one to save her life. He would help her earn an assignment and end this torment. But Brenya was denied entry. The Alpha guard sneered behind his helmet once she’d been scanned, her rank and designation displayed.
To her shame, she felt her lip shake. “Please.”
He looked to her sling, to the gash atop her cheekbone that would scar and remind everyone why her face was marred: an engineering grunt’s visor had broken, unit 17C had breathed contaminated air.
She was infected, even if she was not.
When she continued to stand there, waiting as if he might change his mind, the Alpha guard raised a hand to her damaged shoulder. It was not a gesture of comfort or reassurance. Instead, he used his grip to shove her away.
Before those free to come and go, before all who kept their distance, Brenya fell. Crying in earnest, she put her hand to her throbbing shoulder and cowered.
No one made a move to help, though she could see a reflection of pity in the expressions of those nearest. When she could not bear the shame another moment, she tucked her feet under her body. Brenya made herself stand no matter how dizzy she’d become. Stumbling step by step, the woman wandered like a kicked dog in the direction of her barracks.
Halfway through the journey, she was distracted by the sound of running water. Over hot and fevered, sweat beaded at her temples. Upon seeing the fountain sparkling at the center of East Sector’s square, there was a change in course.
Laziness was frowned upon, but Brenya sat there at the water’s edge, taking in the beauty of a precious piece of art installed in the Dome before the gates were sealed. This relic had once sat outside the Place de la Concorde. Who designed it, she could not say. Art history was not emphasized amongst those chosen for an engineering education. Just as she could not tell how old it was or why it was culturally important to her people.
What she could say was that dipping her hand into that cool water, wiping her feverish face felt more beautiful than any fountain might ever be. Just as she put her lips to that sparkling blue resting in her palm, a roar cut through the air. Backing away from her perch, her eyes darted around the superstructure for a sign of what ogre might have made so terrible a noise.
She heard the roar again, closer.
There was this violent sense of inevitability, the icy feeling of impending doom. She could not tell you what came over her, why that noise threw her into such a panic, but she could say that never in her life had she run so fast.
Blood was pounding behind her eyes, her legs wobbling as if under the influence of some unknown drug. She’d almost made it to her barracks—where all she wanted was to climb under the blankets and hide.
Almost…
Chapter 2
Arms came fast and rough around Brenya. No matter how she tried to dig her heels into the sidewalk, the flailing woman couldn’t plant a foot on the ground. She was being dragged, the strength of a massive body hard at her back. She wanted so badly to be free, to call for help past the hand pressed over her mouth, but frantic struggles amounted to nothing.
Hauled off the main causeway down a dead-end ventilation duct, Brenya could hardly breathe, too weak from the innate feebleness brought on by days of fasting. Before she could squirm away, her body was turned, pinioned between an unforgiving wall and the alarming presence of a colossal Alpha.
If unconditional dominance could be focused into a single creature, if it could be compressed, forced under one’s skin into the shape of a man, then Brenya was looking upon it. He had power in just one glance, the kind that exists without reason or fairness.