Bonnie
Chapter Three
Mother returned the next morning with a bag of breakfast sandwiches and a smile. A smile that faded when she saw me sitting in the straight-backed chair facing the door.
I hadn’t slept all night. The flickerings of awareness that this life could not continue forever had blazed to life at some point after I finished my soup.
Building up the fire in the wood stove, I sat there, staring at the flames and considering what options I had.
Mother meant well, but her good intentions had resulted in my imprisonment.
I had no money, no job, no mate, no friends, and the only possessions I could claim were used clothes and books.
Even the books were turned back in for credit after I read them. The computer belonged to Mother.
As the night hours rolled past, I recognized that if nothing changed, I’d still be here in this broken-down cabin with an outhouse, no running water, and limited electricity.
And none of those other things that made the lives I saw online look worth living.
Mother was not young when I came along, and that meant she’d likely pass when I was still relatively young. Leaving me here with nothing.
Somehow, until that night, the idea of leaving had only been a vague dream.
A thought that maybe one day, whatever was so dangerous would pass and Mother and I could rejoin society.
And then, like a flash of lightning, I realized she was in society.
Sure she lived in less-than-optimum circumstances, but several times a week, she left me there and went to see other people.
She cared for pregnant women, delivered their babies, went to the grocery and hardware store.
And who knew where else. While I stayed here alone, for my own protection.
She froze in the doorway, the shadows under her eyes showing how long she’d stayed awake with that mother-to-be. Any other time, I’d have thanked her for the sandwiches and hustled to help her get comfortable after her long work time. But now?
“What, exactly, are you protecting me from?”
She started to use the same lines she always had, vaguery to the nth degree, but something about my expression or my body language must have told her the lies were over because she let her medical bag slide to the floor, dropped her jacket on top of it, and trudged over to our table with one shorter leg that made it wobble.
“You might as well come and have breakfast while we talk. This is going to take a while.”
I didn’t want to be hungry, but having had nothing but a bowl of watery soup since breakfast the day before led my body to insist that I eat. So, I sat down opposite my mother and waited to hear what she had to say.
“Are you sure you want to hear all of this? It’s an ugly story and knowing the details will not improve your life going forward.”
“I’m an adult, ready to make my own decisions, and I’m ready for the truth, Mother.”
“Umm, about that.” She flushed crimson, her gaze fixed on the splintered wood of the tabletop. “I’m not exactly your mother.”
“What?” I’d run over all the possibilities while waiting for her return, or thought they were all of them. But, in fact, this came out of the blue. “Then who are you? My aunt? My grandmother?” That would make sense due to our age difference. Older sister seemed unlikely.
“No.”
I flexed my hands, telling myself that strangling this woman who was apparently not a relative would make it impossible for her to tell me the facts I needed now more than ever. “Then who?”
“I delivered you.”
“Oh, of course. But given that you haven’t kidnapped any of the other babies you delivered and brought them here, there must be more to the story.” Reaching for one of the sandwiches, I waved with my other hand. “So, go on.”
“All right. Once, long ago, I was traveling and visiting with relatives some distance from here. Two males from a nearby pack brought word that a female was in labor and in distress. They begged me to come and help before they lost both mother and baby.”
Peeling the paper away, I found a croissant sandwich, my favorite, but I could not allow myself to soften.
No matter this female had reared me from birth, she had done so only by virtue of having kidnapped me.
Still, the sandwich was good. “Hunger makes a great sauce,” as my mother said.
Oh, not my mother! “Okay, so you went and delivered a baby, presumably me?”
“Yes, you. The female was indeed in distress, but I was able to stabilize her and bring you safely into the world.” She picked up her own sandwich and took a bite, chewed, and swallowed.
“And then?” Strangling wasn’t a bad option. She was, by her own admission, a kidnapper of an innocent baby, after all. “Moth—I don’t know what to call you.”
She ignored that comment, while it occurred to me that I didn’t even know her name.
“And then, I carried you over to a table by the window to clean and check you over. While I was doing that, voices carried on the wind chilled my blood. I really wish you didn’t insist I tell you all this. It’s cruel.”
“What is cruel, is being told to be afraid but not knowing who or what to be afraid of. Mo—What is your name, please? I can’t call you Mother anymore but I have to call you something.”
“Marie.” She blinked fast, but two tears slipped down her cheeks. “You can call me Marie.”
“Okay, Marie. Please tell me everything. I’m not a child anymore, and I need to make decisions for myself.”
“Very well. As I bathed you and counted your fingers and toes, voices…well, I told you that part.”
“Yes, but not why they chilled your blood.” At this rate, I’d die of old age before I learned why I lived in this shitty cabin. “M-Marie, please.”
“Okay, but don’t blame me for how this makes you feel. I heard a group of betas talking about how they prided themselves on breeding only alphas in the pack, and how the woman giving birth—”
“My real mother,” I cut in.
“Yes. She’d had two previous pregnancies. One still birth and another who died very young and who was believed to be an omega. If this babe was not an alpha, they said ‘measures’ might be taken.”
“What do you mean ‘measures’? You can’t…not a baby. They wouldn’t hurt a little baby. Did you think that was what they meant?”
“I thought it enough that I wrapped you in a blanket, tucked you in my bag, walked out, and never returned.”
“But, they might not have hurt the other children, and ‘measures’ is so vague.”
Her eyes held pity. “I couldn’t take that chance. I’ve never delivered a child only to leave it in hands I believed would harm it.”
“But…you were visiting family. They could have been forced to tell where you took me. Wouldn’t it have been safer to leave me at an orphanage?”
“As a shifter baby? Oh no. I couldn’t do that. I’ve seen what happens to shifter children in the human system.”
“Better that than having them find me here at your home.”
“Oh, little girl, do you really think this is my home? This run-down excuse for a shed? This was just where I landed when I stopped running. I don’t own this place; I don’t know who if anyone does. My house is a hundred miles from here, rented out now.”
“I don’t even know who I am.” And I couldn’t go home. Even if I wanted to, it wasn’t safe. After breakfast, Marie got another call to a confinement, and she left, begging me not to go anywhere until she got back and we could talk some more.
I didn’t promise, too angry at Marie for making so many decisions for me, taking me without giving my mother a say, and forcing me to live in this tumbledown cabin all these years.
While she actually had a real house rented out.
With plumbing! Not that I’d ever experienced it, but it sure looked good online.
Definitely time to leave, but how? I had no money and since I’d been kidnapped at birth, no proof it ever happened. No ID, which all the world seemed to require. Marie planned to keep me hidden forever.
I went to the laptop and brought it up with some vague idea of finding my family.
But what if they traced me? Then a popup ad covered the bottom of the screen, trying to sell me miniatures.
Like the ones I did. I used to do bigger art, but the cabin began to fill up and I had to go smaller.
The prices were really good, but with no identity, even if I could sell them online, I’d have no way to set up a site or a way to be paid.
More research provided some brick and mortars including The Coop.
It was not far away and seemed to be on the bus route. Would they care about ID?
I could sneak away and see if I could make it work.