Chapter 29: Chapter Twenty-Nine
Saffron slipped out of her bed slowly, arranging her pillow and quilt so they resembled a human form before tiptoeing towards the door, careful not to wake up her roommate, as she poked her head into the hallway.
It was eerily quiet and dark with no soul in sight.
Still, she could hear sounds coming from the other rooms, but there were no doors slamming or people walking about, as was usual with the slave quarters. Every single slave was in their respective rooms, obeying the Alpha’s order to not be found outside their rooms or wandering the island at night.
Except for her.
She needed to get answers about the last two weeks, and she needed to get them fast before the Alpha decided that she was more of a liability to him than an asset and ended her life for good.
She pulled the door wider and stepped outside, freezing when it made a grating sound as the old iron hinges rubbed against each other.
Pulse racing and heart jumping into her throat, Saffron waited, certain that Kiera would wake up, or that Lydia would decide to step out of her room at that moment and catch her in the act of breaking the Alpha’s rules.
But all there was nothing more than the harsh pounding of her heart, the sound of it drowning out everything else.
She needed to get to the island’s archive building undetected. She was half certain that whatever had happened to her, she could find some sort of information there.
Lydia had once told her that all information regarding the islanders and the island itself was stored there, so she was praying to all hell that there was a file lying around there somewhere with her name on it, referencing back to the last two weeks.
It was a long shot, one she was willing to take. She knew the Alpha wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave such information lying around, especially when he too was uncertain about the altercation between her, his second-in-command, and the so-called Alaric Vaughn, who she still had no idea who he was or what role he played during her second kidnapping.
Because that was what it was: a kidnapping. She refused to believe it was anything other than that since she had not consented to be taken away for fourteen days and having her memories of that time missing.
Sucking in a deep breath, she inched the door closed behind her, praying that it didn’t make any more sounds.
She froze in place, as if waiting for someone to come out and yell at her to go back to her room, or as was the case now, report her to Lydia instead of caution her to not break the rules.
No one came out, and with a relieved sigh, she crept towards the end of the hall, walked past the slave’s common room, and into the kitchen.
Her slippers clapped against the wooden floors, the sound echoing through the silent hallway, but that didn’t stop her.
She forged on, her heart leaping into her throat as she made her way into the area that linked the slave quarters to the store-room which the whole island used, grateful that she hadn’t met a single soul on her way.
It was eerily silent, as she finally made it to the door that was going to lead her outside, unease settling in her gut when she found it locked from the inside.
If she were to go out now, then she knew it was only a matter of time before someone wandered in here, found the door open, raised an alarm, and had the slaves wake up, just to find her missing, again.
She could abandon her sleuthing for another day, but the thought of living without knowing what had happened to her had her pushing the door open and stepping into the empty courtyard.
Keeping close to the trees, ducking low so no one would be able to spot her if they were to look out of their windows, Saffron made it all the way to the other side of the courtyard without raising any sort of alarm or bumping into anyone.
Crouching low on the ground, she took stock of the party-goers dancing around a campfire while swapping drinks and laughs with each other.
And for a moment there, Saffron wondered what it would feel like to be surrounded by friends and just enjoy a party with them without thoughts of scary mafia me, and their leader who called himself Alpha.
A strange whiff of nostalgia hit her, as she thought about a night similar to this months ago—the last week of summer, right before senior year had started.
It felt so surreal now as if it had happened ages ago when compared to her life now.
It was like an old forgotten memory from a time long-lived, instead of the short months that had gone by.
She hadn’t let herself think about her old life in a long time because doing so only caused her pain.
She had come a long way from just being a teenage girl full of dreams and hopes with the responsibility of taking care of herself and her deadbeat parent.
Now, she had no idea who she was or what she was going to do if she were ever able to find herself free of the Blood Moon mafia.
The thought of freedom was fast slipping away from her mind as she got dragged further and further into the island affairs.
And from the little that she knew about the Alpha, she was certain the only way that she would be free of him would be if she was dead.
Saffron liked being alive way too much now to even consider ending her life or having someone end it for her.
She blinked herself out of the mental stupor, narrowing her eyes at the teenagers until she was certain that no one was looking her way.
As she turned her gaze away, Saffron could have sworn that she had seen the silhouette of a dog-like creature transforming into a woman.
‘It must just be a trick of the light,’ she mused, refusing to believe that any human being could have the ability to turn into a dog-like creature at will and back to human again.
It was just impossible.
Sucking in a deep breath, she darted towards the cabin that held the archives, sticking to the shadows as she approached the gate that would lead her inside.
The small metal gate made a loud screeching sound as it swung open, making Saffron’s heart thud loudly in her chest, as she cursed her luck.
Any second now, she was sure that someone would find her sneaking into the cabin—a cabin forbidden to every slave except those tasked with cleaning it—in the dead of the night.
Saffron whipped her head around, towards the drunken teenagers, but no one had turned. And quite possibly, no one had heard.
Not for the first time since her forced stay on the island, Saffron was glad that she was invisible.
Closing the gate slowly, praying it didn’t make any more unwanted sounds and draw attention to her, Saffron dragged her feet towards the door, her hand closing over its brass handles.
‘This is it,’ she thought as she tried the handles and found it unlocked.
She let out a squeak of happiness, not believing her luck today, before remembering that she wasn’t supposed to make any sounds.
She whipped her head around, heart racing in her throat, before she raised a hand to cover her mouth, but someone else had beaten her to it.
“Got you,” a voice rasped in her ear, making her freeze in place.