The Hole
Chapter ten
From time to time, a slot in the door would slide open with a painful screech and a plate would be shoved through.
If I didn't grab it right away, the guard would let go and the plastic plate would topple to the ground, dumping the small amount of food onto the dirty floor.
That only happened twice in the beginning.
After that, I held my hands under the slot when I heard the footsteps in the hall outside.
The food was nothing like what the cafeteria served.
I swore it was made up of whatever leftovers omegas didn't eat.
Drying mashed potatoes, stale bread with a smear of peanut butter that had obviously been out so long it was crusted over, and limp, lukewarm vegetables that tasted like they'd been reheated multiple times.
I couldn't prove it, but I figured the guard came roughly once a day, judging by how hungry I was by the time that plate of food came through the slot.
The lights in the hall were always the same, so there was no good way to tell and the one time I asked, my food was thrust so violently at me that it fell into the drain.
Even with my stomach rumbling, I wasn't brave enough to eat it after that.
With nothing else to do, I spent a lot of my time lost in the bonds.
They were fainter now, but I could feel the men's happiness.
They didn't seem to worry one bit about the omega they'd so callously thrown away.
Instead, I felt the warmth and love they should have shown me, but directed at another.
Sleep was another escape. I drifted in and out of dreams, some of them good, most of them bad, until it became my preferred method of checking out.
Until the day when the entire door was pulled open and the hall lights blinded me.
"Back to work, bitch." A guard grabbed my arm and hauled me up.
My legs wobbled, despite my attempts to pace my tiny cell for the first while. Then I'd given up. The fact that I could barely stand made me wonder if my punishment had been longer than anticipated.
"Stop acting weak and get moving." He jabbed me in the back with a familiar rod and my entire body spasmed from the electrical shock.
By the time we made it up the stairs to my room, I was tripping over every step and getting a tongue lashing from the guard.
"Clean yourself up, you have an alpha in half an hour," he sneered, shoving me into the room and pulling the door shut.
For a long minute, I just sat on the floor, trying to process the abrupt change from darkness to light, from dank, musty air to the freshly cleaned scent in my room. When my head stopped spinning, I scrambled to my feet and staggered into the bathroom.
The old, smelly robe went straight into the laundry and I stepped under the hot water, luxuriating in how nice it felt.
But time was limited and I had to hurry and scrub myself from head to toe, shampooing my hair twice to get it fully clean.
When I was satisfied that I no longer smelled like the dungeon, I dried off and donned the fresh, new robe hanging on the back of the door.
I was just in time to step out of the bathroom and meet the alpha who was walking through the door. He was followed by another and I shuddered. Two at once reminded me too much of my own pack, but I had no say here.
The two alphas were just as into each other as they were into being with me and I almost didn't mind when one warmed the other up with a heavy blow job before he leaned me over the bed and pressed gently into me.
The other alpha grabbed the lube and a moment later, I felt a jerk as he slid into the man inside me.
The threesome wasn't nearly as bad as I'd expected as a welcome-back party and I was grateful it hadn't been more aggressive when they thanked me and left.
Another quick shower and I was falling asleep. Since no one waited in the room this time, I climbed into bed and fell asleep, waking up only when the guard came to take me to dinner.
A couple of the other omegas gave me wide-eyed looks as I moved to my table, the tray of food in my hands looking like a five-star meal after the food in the hole. Had they heard about my attempted escape? How did that work? No one talked, so rumors seemed hard to spread.
Once I was seated, another omega sitting at the same table scooted closer, sliding her tray over to me. "Did you really get outside the walls?" she whispered, so low that I had to strain to hear her voice.
"Mmhmm." I took a big bite of baked potato with cheese and nearly moaned at how good it was.
"How?"
"Doesn't matter, I got caught," I muttered quietly. "How long was I down there?"
"In the hole? A month, I think."
Fuck. I'd lost far more time than I'd realized. Double the punishment, and for what? Not catching my food tray on time? I didn't even know how to interpret the sentence I'd been given, but it was over now and I wouldn't do anything to trigger the hole punishment again.
We were hustled back to our rooms for the night. I noticed the other omega who had spoken was just two doors down from me. She gave me a grin as she veered off into her room and I felt my face twitching to smile back.
A rough shove on my back had me stumbling through the doorway before the guard slammed the door.
It locked immediately, which I'd expected.
Ignoring the door, I dragged myself into the bathroom to brush my teeth before I climbed into bed and let my weary, achy body finally sink into the soft mattress.
I pulled the thin blanket up to my chin, too glad to have even this scrap of cloth after the nights in the hole.
As I drifted to sleep, I smelled something new in the room, a faint sandalwood scent that made my mouth water.
It wasn't from any of the three alphas from earlier, but it hung in the air like someone had recently walked through the room.
It was a safe scent, something that made me feel like I was all wrapped up in a cozy blanket with someone watching over me.
Snuggling down into the simple mattress, I fell asleep and dreamed of dark eyes watching me, the scent of sandalwood and cinnamon swirling around me like there were alphas in the room. Yet somehow that didn't scare me at all. If only I could bottle this scent and save it.
The next morning, when I returned to my room after a light breakfast, the scent was gone.
Sadly, it had vanished when the cleaners came through.
Everything was overlaid with a nice, simple scent neutralizer.
My heart dropped, but I hurried to put on a fresh robe and prepare for the first alpha of the day.
All day, alpha after alpha streamed through the door. I let them position me any way they wanted and take what they wanted, using my lube liberally. Thankfully, there were multiple tubes for this exact occasion, and I didn't even have to ask the beta guard for more.
After everything I'd been through in the hole, I didn't want to go back there. Every time a guard told me to do something, I raced to do it, determined not to end up in that horrible place again. I might never have a pack again, but I wouldn't let them put me back in there.