Chapter 2 #2
Slipping out of the pink dress, I toss it on the bed and change into a pair of pants, sweater, and coat, before shoving everything else I can fit inside the black garbage bag I grabbed from the kitchen.
We don’t own any backpacks, and weren’t given one for our belongings because we were told there was no need. We would have everything we would need at our new homes.
New homes. Like we’re pets or something. It’s fucked up.
With the bag filled, I sit on the bed and wait.
It’s nearly midnight. Only a few more minutes until it’s time.
As soon as Lark disables the security system, we have to get out of here as fast as possible.
You know the saying a watched pot never boils? That's what it feels like, watching the hands on the clock tick by.
I do my best to distract myself, pacing around the room. I’m just about to lose my damn mind when the clock chimes, letting me know it’s a new hour.
Midnight.
“Thank fuck.” I grab my bag and head towards the door. Throwing it open, I peek down the hall and see the others doing the same.
“Ready?” Silva asks.
“More than ready.” I leave the room and head toward her. The others follow, and we slip down the back set of stairs that lead to the main floor, right next to the exit to the back garden.
“Where’s Lark?” Briar asks as we head outside.
“She said to go on without her and get to the meeting point,” Silva says.
“What if she doesn’t make it?” Luna asks, her eyes filled with panic.
“She’s gonna be just fine. She will make it. Come on. We don’t have much time,” Silva says.
I don’t waste time, I just follow after my sister. I trust her with my life and will always follow her lead.
We take off running, the darkness of the night and the trees offering us enough cover to sneak away undetected. The guards are between shift changes, and this is our best chance.
Once we make it to the property line, we look back to see Lark off in the distance.
“Thank fuck.” I blow out a breath.
“Over here,” Silva says, waving us over, deeper into the tree line.
She leads us to where she has slowly been stashing things for the past few months.
We grab as much as we can carry.
“We gotta go,” Lark pants out. “We have maybe an hour tops, before the dumbasses are done with their meeting and realize I have the video footage going on a loop.”
Lark grabs some things too, and we start our hike through the Colorado mountains.
With only a few flashlights, it’s not easy to get around. Lark was able to steal a few things, like a GPS, to help us get to where we’re going.
It feels like we’ve been walking for hours before we stop. I’m out of breath, sweating like a pig, and my legs are killing me.
“How long will it take us to get where we need to go?” Silva asks, taking a drink from one of the water bottles.
"It's about a two-day walk. Four if we stop to sleep,” Lark says.
“Fuck,” I groan, letting my head hang.
“What do you expect? It’s an abandoned town in the middle of the mountains.
Even if we did have a car or something else to get us where we need to go, we can’t risk it.
We need to stay in the forest, away from any marked trails or roads.
It would take us longer to get to them anyways.
By going this way, we’re cutting our time in half. ”
“Thank fuck we have sneakers,” I grumble. “And that it’s summer. Or we’d be dead.”
“Enough,” Lark mutters. “What’s important is we got out of there. Gideon is probably losing his mind right now, but he’s not going to find us, okay? If anything, he might think we ended up dying out here.”
“Are we?” Aries asks. “Going to die, I mean.”
“No,” Silva sighs. “We’ll be fine. We have food and water.”
“My guy brought everything we needed to get to Widows Peak. Food, water, supplies. It’s the best he could do. The town isn’t very accessible anymore. Most of the roads have been washed away or buried by fallen trees.”
“We will make do with what we have,” Silva says. “We just need to remember that we’ll be free. That's what matters.”
“Free,” I whisper. “Anything is better than being sold off to one of those fuckers,” I mutter.
“We’re going to be okay,” Silva reassures, giving my arm a squeeze as we continue on our journey.
“I know.” I give her a hopeful smile. Even though my body is exhausted, knowing that we’re about to start over, just the six of us, gives me the push I need to keep going.
This isn’t the first time we've had to run, but hopefully it will be our last.
Two days. It took us two days to get here. We’ve been running on hardly any sleep. None of us felt safe enough to stay still for too long. So we stopped to get three hours of sleep, enough to keep us from wanting to collapse to the ground, before moving on.
But we’re here, we fucking made it!
I’m dripping with sweat, there’s a cramp in my side, I’m pretty sure my feet are bleeding, and I want to drop to the ground and sleep for a year, but we made it.
“Holy fuck,” Aries whispers.
“It’s a whole damn town!” Luna gasps.
“I told you.” Lark laughs softly. “Whoever built this just upped and abandoned it. No one else wanted it.” She shrugs. “Their loss is our gain. This is our new start, girls. Our new beginning. No one owns us anymore.”
The other girls start to cheer with excitement, but I look to my sister. She’s watching me, a look of unease on her face.
I get it. She doesn’t trust this. It’s all too good to be true.
But we have a fail-safe, I just hope we don’t have to use it.
Gideon isn’t going to let this go easily; he won’t stop looking for us until he sees our cold, lifeless bodies for himself.
He lost a lot of money because of us, and people who live for money don’t like to lose it.
For now, we just need to survive. Live our lives the best we can and take it day by day.
We can’t run. We don’t have the money for that, and he’d probably find us if we did. We’d always be looking over our shoulder.
No. For now, we stay. We build. We’ll grow this town into something of our own.
“Welcome to Widows Peak, girls,” Lark says. “This is our new home.”
It’s been two weeks since we arrived at Widows Peak, and honestly, it hasn’t been all that bad.
A lot of the houses were built and finished, a few of them even furnished with some of the basics.
There’s no power or running water, but there is a place a little ways up the mountain that has fresh spring water.
We’ve been gathering what we can in jugs and boiling it for showers and to wash dishes.
Lark’s guy did another run for us, bringing us some generators and other basic things in addition to food.
Thankfully, we have a few months ahead before winter, and a generator is enough to run one of the houses.
We’ve been staying together in the same place for now.
Eventually, we’ll work towards everyone moving into one of the houses on their own, but for now, this will do.
We’ve gotten along pretty well, which doesn’t surprise me, seeing that we’ve been surviving together for three years now, with only each other as a lifeline.
We’re in the living room this afternoon, enjoying the last bit of light before the sun goes down, when Lark bursts in.
“We have company!” She looks at us with wide, wild eyes.
I look to Silva as we jump to our feet.
“Is it...” Silva asks.
“It’s not Gideon, but I’m almost positive it’s his men,” Lark says, jogging upstairs. She returns a few moments later and hands each of us a handgun. “If they try to take you, shoot. Don’t hesitate. We’re not going down like this.”
My hand shakes as I look my gun over. I’ve never held a gun, let alone shot one. Fuck. I knew this was too good to be true.
“Hey,” Silva says softly. “We’re going to be fine, okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper and nod.
“Fuck,” Lark curses, looking out the front door. “Let me handle this.”
“We can’t let her go out there alone, can we?” I ask Silva.
Instead of answering me, she sighs heavily and heads out after Lark.
Aries, Luna, Briar, and I rush to the window, pulling back the curtain to peek out.
Lark stands in the driveway as three ATVs head up the road.
My stomach sinks as fear coats my body, freezing me in place.
I can’t go back. I can’t. I refuse to be owned, to be forced to be with someone sexually. I can’t survive that again. I’d rather die.
I look down at the gun in my hand, my body trembling as I contemplate what to do.
If they try to take us, I’ll fight. But if I know we can’t win, that all hope is lost for us, I’ll use the last bullet on myself.
The men get off the ATVs and raise their guns. Lark raises hers. We can’t hear what’s going on clearly, but Lark starts to yell.
Silva steps up and says something too, the girls standing side by side.
I should be out there with my sister. She’s always been there for me, fought for me. It’s time I do the same.
Yet, my body doesn’t let me go, too afraid to move.
Silva takes over, shouting at the men. They pause when Lark takes out a phone.
They look at one another, then the man in the middle takes out his phone.
I’m assuming he’s calling someone, Gideon maybe?
He nods his head a few times and holds the phone out. Silva starts talking, then Lark. The two of them go back and forth before the man hangs up and puts his phone away.
They shout at the girls, then get back on their ATVs and leave.
“They’re leaving,” Luna says shocked. “Are they really leaving?”
“It can’t be that easy,” Briar says.
Silva and Lark make their way back into the house. We’re off the couch and running to the door.
“What just happened?" Aries asks.
“Are they really gone?” Briar asks.
“We told them that if Gideon or any of his men find us, try to hurt us, or to take us back, Lark’s friend will leak everything she was able to get on Gideon’s whole operation to the authorities.
They didn’t believe us and were ready to take us by force when Lark took out her phone and demanded they call Gideon.
They were reluctant, but they did. We told Gideon all the information we had on him, and if he didn’t want to lose everything, he was to leave us alone.
Let us be in Widows Peak. We will keep what we have to ourselves, and he and his men are to leave us alone. ”
“And... he just let it go?” Luna questions, brows furrowed. “No fight? He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would do that.”
“I told him I have a man on the outside with all the information, and if he doesn’t get a text from me weekly with an updated photo, he’s to make sure the information gets out. I’m not sure if he’s going to go down that easily, but for now, Widows Peak is ours.”
“I’m sure he will be watching us. And honestly, I don’t care. As long as none of us are bothered, that’s all that matters. Plus, once we fix this place up, we’ll get better security,” Silva says. “We will find a way.”
“So, what do we do now?” I ask, my body still in shock. I feel so stupid, so useless. I hid when I should have been out there by my sister’s side.
“What we’ve been doing.” Silva looks at Lark, and she nods. “There’s a town a few hours away. We can get jobs, start over. Or... we can see what we can do with this place.”
“I want to stay here,” I tell her. “I don’t like the idea of leaving to go back out into that fucked up world for another person like Gideon to take us. There’s no safe place for Omegas like us. We’re used and abused by the Alphas of this world.”
“Then we stay here and make this place a home for us. For Omegas. And if there's anyone else who wants to join us, we welcome them.”
“No Alphas,” Luna says.
“No Alphas,” Silva agrees.
We head upstairs to our room, and I crawl into my bed, my mind racing with all kinds of thoughts.
A few hours later, I’m still awake, unable to sleep, when Silva crawls into my bed.
“You awake?”
“Yeah,” I sigh, rolling onto my back. “Is it really over?”
“I don’t know,” Silva says. “I don’t trust people like that, but it’s possible.
Gideon might have had power over us, but he’s not invincible.
He’s not a big, powerful man the world fears.
He’s just a rich man who is sick and fucked up, running an operation to match.
He’s small enough to fear losing everything he has, but big enough to send people after us if his secrets get into the wrong hands.
We hold power over him now, and he knows that.
As long as we have that leverage, he will leave us alone. ”
“But the other girls,” I whisper, closing my eyes as tears start to flow.
“I know,” she whispers, pain in her own voice. “We can’t save everyone, Lexi. We learned the hard way that the world doesn’t care about us. We need to fight for ourselves.”
I know she’s right, but it doesn’t hurt any less.
I need to focus on the fact that we’re free. After three years of being groomed to be sold, we have control over our own lives again.
It might not be much, but I’d take living in the middle of nowhere, away from society, in this small, run-down ghost town, over being sold.
If Gideon had his way, we’d have had a nice house, nice clothes, and everything we probably could ever want.
What we wouldn't have is our freedom or any control over our bodies and how we use them. Nothing in the world is worth having our control stripped from us.
My body. My choice. Never again.