Chapter 3 #2
She'd have to leave Dover's End to Merrick's leadership for a few days, a risky proposition. Even leaving for a half-day at the market felt dangerous.
The first time she left with Silas, Patrick, and Lilla on their weekly supply run, Sasha had returned at dusk to find four naked beta women dancing on tables in the main bar room. Merrick liked to have surprises for Sasha whenever she returned.
Hours yet from first light, she gathered supplies.
It kept her hands and swirling thoughts busy, to slink downstairs and avoid notice while males were drinking up the potent gin of Dover's End.
It sounded like there was still a crowd in the main room, which must have pleased Merrick, if they were the paying kind of customer.
He sometimes thought an exchange of favors paid the bills just as well as credits.
Maybe she could go and come back in three days—two for travel, one for convincing. Maybe. Doubtful. She'd never been farther than the market. The need to stay safe had always outweighed any of her curiosities. Child or not, females did not go anywhere alone. Ever.
She'd dress like a drone, camouflage herself, take food and water, and use the mead money for public transport once she was out of Sector 10. Since Merrick expected market day, she’d go with the drones in the donkey wagon. She’d be on her own after that.
The old donkeys were strong enough to pack goods in and out for market, not so good for speed and escaping an alpha. She’d go by foot. Take a transport. She would have a good part of the day before Merrick would notice she was gone. A good part of the day to get where he couldn't find her.
And he wouldn't be able to find her, because Sasha had no idea where she was going. She had a name. That was all. A name she remembered hearing her father mention again and again with his friends gathered around the card table.
A name Merrick had reminded her of.
After sneaking out of the main building, Sasha found Silas sleeping on his pallet in the still house. Like Lilla and Lanny, he had been a part of her life as long as she could remember. The old man had often watched out for her, hiding her from Maura when her father traveled for pub business.
He was in his late sixties now, thin and strong, crowned with a short, wiry beard and silver hair. Joints knotted from arthritis, his weathered features and curved spine told the story of a hard life.
Once a property owner in a better sector, when his wife and son died from an infection, he lost his desire for civilized living.
A shine addiction had brought him to the slums. Servitude and poverty made the drug unobtainable, and he'd gained back some of himself—if not his life—helping to run the still and fill the gin bottles for Sasha's father.
Sasha rested a hand lightly on his arm. Sometimes she thought she could feel his bone eating arthritis and she imagined drawing it out of him, calling it to herself where it could do no harm.
It was a silly fantasy, but it felt natural and she did it anyway, picturing his pain as black mold and demanding it come to her.
In the dark her eyesight was better than the old man's. She saw his lids move, blinking awake.
"Silas," she whispered. "I've decided that tomorrow I have to get away. Will you help me? I need to leave the sector, go find help."
"Child? What are you saying?" he croaked, rousing too slowly to understand.
She patted his arm. "It's the only way. Maura and Merrick have set up a plan to give Merrick Dover's End and trap me.
Trap all of us. He's no good, Silas. I thought I'd be free of that man when Maura died. I’d planned to pick a good husband from the Selection.
I never thought he'd want me. Look at me.
I don't look like a woman you marry, do I? "
"You still have growing to do, I think. But… What are you telling me?" He rubbed at his face, trying to wake himself. "What are you telling me?"
"Tomorrow I was going to get the honey for the mead, but instead I’m going to the border to catch the bus. There should be a bus, right?"
"Oh, aye. One damn bus that comes in from the other sectors. Administrator Ebbon Blaze here is so blasted obstinate. Only the bare essentials in exchange for his right to govern as shittily as he sees fit."
Sasha giggled. "Silas, don't talk bad about the Administration or an alpha. You could get in so much trouble."
"And who is to be awake at this hour but breeder girls with crazy plans? What are you telling me? You are running away, alone? Going to another sector? Why?”
"Maura told me she and Merrick have a plan. I think they have bribed an official. He will force me to marry him. I can’t let that happen.
I have to find a stronger alpha, someone Merrick can’t bribe or defeat.
I don’t know anyone like that here and I don’t think it’s safe to wait for the Selection. "
"Sounds like all you’re going to find is some trouble.
That’s what it sounds like. Go to market and then run away?
You can't go alone. You know that, right?
That Merrick and the rest of them are slime, but you are known here.
Protected. What if some stranger gets the sight and smell of you?
You'll be raped in the street, that you will. "
He heaved himself up with a creaking of bones and Sasha reached out again to touch him, knowing it must hurt.
"I don't smell like a breeder yet, Silas. It'll be fine. I'll wear Lanny's clothes. No one will pay attention to me. But I don't know where I'm going. I need a map or a guide."
"There are maps at the public transport stops, unless all that's changed in ten years, which I doubt."
"Oh. Really?"
"Yes. Really."
"And can I cross sectors?"
"As far as I know, there will be street checkpoints. How are you going to cross a street checkpoint? They will want your number."
Sasha hung her head. Silas eyed her, challenging her grand plan. "I'll look like a drone. Just stay with the daily work herd. Not all drones have numbers, and breed guards don't pay as close attention."
"It takes one, girl. One to notice you. Then he'll look up your number, contact Merrick, or keep you for himself. There are all kinds of things you don't want happening."
"But the law!"
"Shit law. You just said Merrick and your mother have found a way around the breeder law. Do you think they are the only ones? Think, child. It's in the nature of males to challenge laws, especially if something sweet is dangled right before their eyes.
"Which is where I am right now."
He made his old man hacking noise and spat in response to her mention of Merrick.
Sasha drew a circle on the cold floor, puzzling out the issue of crossing checkpoints. Silas was right; it would only take one.
"Where you going, anyway? I think we should go now to the Administration for the Selection. That’s what we should do. I’ll take you there. They'll fight for the right to a girl like you, missy. Just see if they don't line up to shed blood to get into your nest."
Silas had protected her in the past but been reduced to a puddle of fear when he was hit so hard with tremors from breed pheromones that he could barely crawl out of a room. Now he spoke about her like he could understand what she was, what it meant to be an omega.
He had no clue.
How could he? Even Sasha didn’t know. "I don't think anyone in Sector 10 is strong enough to take on Merrick. He might be young, but you have seen how he fights. And, anyone of them could already be in on this plan he has with Maura. They could just report back."
"Fights dirty, that one."
"I need an honorable male. One who can beat him. I heard him talking. He has an enemy—someone named Alpha Warlord Constantine Kane. He must be strong, to have a name like that. Have you heard that name?"
Silas whistled. "Your father, girl. You know that male was your father's enemy too."
"Do you know why?"
"They always talk about him getting in the way. That he has too much power, needs to be taken down a peg. I think your father may have had some run ins with that Kane during his soldier days."
"But my father didn't take him down, and Merrick's friends say he can't be beat. Do you know where he is?"
"I think Sector 7. I bet if you get there, you could ask some drones. Some of your breed alphas have lived five drone lifetimes. If he’s been around for a while, someone will know."
"How far is Sector 7?"
"Girl, I don't like this. It's not safe. Not safe at all."
She gave Silas her most determined, resolute expression. He needed to see it in her eyes and the set of her mouth. "Doing nothing isn't safe."
He inhaled deep, taking in the scent she knew swirled around her. "Alright then, child. Alright."