Chapter 41: Helena

Chapter 41: Helena
To her surprise, Helena had not been confined at all when they got to the compound. Troy took off her blindfold and bindings as soon as Daniel parked the van, spreading his arms when she climbed out of the back as if he was displaying the property to her. He looked like a real estate agent playing it up for a prospective buyer, not a criminal holding her hostage for nefarious and perverted reasons.
“Quite a spot we’ve got here, huh?” he said, and Helena nearly laughed at the pride in his voice. He wanted her to be impressed. He wanted her to ask about the acreage and the square footage of the main house like she was a guest to him.
“Middle of nowhere,” Daniel added from behind her. “Forest on all sides except, of course, for the cliffs.”
Troy put an arm on Helena’s shoulder as if he was going to hug her but instead just held her in place. “Perfect home to properly raise a pack.”
Helena stared wordlessly back at him. Troy’s dark eyes were expectant as if he was waiting for her to gush over the sight of it all; to run in breathless wonder through the house and swoon over all the space, all the potential, all the ways she could bring her feminine touches to it. Her silence came less from defiance in the face of her abductor and more from complete confusion as to what he wanted from her.
Full darkness had settled over the coastal mountains, and Helena couldn’t see much of the view that Troy had pointed out but she could see that the far end of the property came to an abrupt stop at a bluff. Her ability to find her way through the woods was nil, especially being tracked by creatures with a sense of smell like a wolf, but she thought for a split second that if she could see water, she at least knew which way to head. I’ll be able to know for sure in the morning, she thought. If the plan looks like it’s going sideways, I’ll just head for the beach. Like a true Californian.
Troy sank his fingers into her arm and yanked it towards the main house. “Let’s go meet some of the other pack members, shall we?” He was grinning at her, all his teeth bared and lupine. In the half light spilling out from the windows, he appeared like a little kid trying to smile naturally in a photo and coming across forced at best.
Helena stumbled along beside him. Worse than Troy touching her, she could feel Daniel’s eyes on her back, tracing the lines of her body. The baggie taped between her thighs was still firmly in place but she didn’t like how often she was being visually examined, how carefully sharp visioned men were inspecting every inch of her.
Inside the house were several young children that seemed to Helena to be only a few steps above feral. The youngest of them were only in diapers with their hair mussed around their heads and mystery stains all over their faces. A few of the older ones watched her as she was jerked inside, unashamed of how long their wide, sunken eyes settled on her.
Past the living room was a lightless hallway. Troy motioned towards it, muttering something about where Helena would be sleeping then he dragged her towards the kitchen where two painfully skinny women were preparing a vast quantity of food.
“Mia, Isla,” Troy said, presenting Helena to them, “this is Helena. She’s Tom’s daughter and for the time being, she’s our…” He let the sentence trail off as he turned his head to Helena, dragging his focus from her head to her toes. “Our guest.”
One of the women swallowed hard and allowed herself a gentle smile in Helena’s direction. Helena could see how pretty the woman was aside from the fact that it looked like she was having the life sucked out of her, the very energy in her body being sapped by the people around her.
“What in the hell are you doing with Tom’s daughter, Troy?” the other woman asked. Her face was stone, not a hint of a smile at either Helena or Troy. “Are you out of your damn mind?”
“Don’t talk to me like that, Mia,” Troy warned, his voice staying even and calm, the calculated tone of someone used to getting what they want.
“You’re going to get us all killed,” Mia said but it sounded like a sigh, an exasperated burst of words born from having seen too much.
Troy shoved Helena forward. She stumbled over her own feet but was steadied by Mia before she could fall. “Take care of her,” Troy ordered. “Make sure she’s comfortable. We’ve got some business to attend to.”
“This is a stupid idea,” Mia said to his back as he exited the kitchen. She met Helena’s eyes, no softness in the gaze but not animosity either. If anything, she just looked tired.
The other woman Isla took Helena by the arm and rubbed her hand in a gentle, almost maternal way. Mia went back to what she was doing. Helena heard her sigh loudly as she put a baking sheet into the oven.
“I can show her where she’ll be staying, Mia,” Isla said. “You can just finish up here.”
Mia raised a hand over her shoulder in agreement but said nothing. Isla motioned with her head for Helena to follow her. They went through the living room again, past the feral children, and down the lightless hallway until they got to the end of it. Isla opened a door to a windowless room, and Helena stepped inside, feeling like she was moving into another layer of hell as she did.
“The good news,” Isla started, “is that you’ll have your own space.” She flipped the light on so Helena could see where she’d be sleeping. It was about the size of a big closet with nothing in it but a bare mattress on the floor. “It’s tight, I know, but if you wanted to stay in one of the other rooms, you’d have to deal with the kids.”
“No, this is fine,” Helena answered. Everything about what was happening felt off-kilter to her. She thought she might be more comfortable if she was still bound and blindfolded, kept under lock and key, being treated like a prisoner instead of a causal houseguest.
“Dinner’s almost ready too so we can get you fed.” Isla smiled. It barely touched the dimmed hollows of her eyes. “If you’re hungry, that is.”
“Thank you. I am.”
Helena sat on the mattress as Isla lingered in the doorway for another moment. They both regarded each other awkwardly before Isla left, and Helena listened to her footsteps disappearing down the lightless hallway. When she was sure Isla was out of range, she closed the bedroom door and slipped off her jeans. The bag of powder was secure but there wasn’t anywhere to hide it aside from under the mattress. Helena found a tear in the fabric that she could dig her fingers into and make it just big enough for the baggie to fit snugly inside. With that side resting on the floor, she hoped that would do it until it was time to use the bag’s contents.
She put the jeans pack on and balled the tape up until it was a sticky mass of shiny plastic. That too got shoved under the mattress since she thought the sight of it might alert one of these pack members of something. When she laid down on the makeshift bed, Helena could feel where the tape was, where the bag was. Even if she couldn’t in reality, her mind knew they were there, either her saviors or her damnation.
The two women left her alone for what seemed like a long time. Not that Helena could tell the difference anyway. Time was a squishy blur for her; the earlier part of the day where Ryan pressed his lips to her inner thigh miles was from where she was at the moment. When the knock sounded at the door, Helena startled.
Isla entered without waiting for an invitation. After all, Helena thought to herself, why should she? I’m not part of the pack, I’m not an honored guest. I’m a prisoner. A fucking bartering chip.
“Dinner’s ready,” Isla told her. “Troy and Daniel are still gone with some of the men so it should be pretty quiet. Just us and the kids.”
“Sounds nice,” Helena responded. She kept her tone as blank as she could.
Isla disappeared down the hall again and after a few seconds, Helena followed her. In the dining room off the kitchen, a few older men were sitting at the far end of the table. They were already eating and stopped to watch Helena walk in. There was no round of introductions or hellos, no smiles sad or otherwise like when she met Isla and Mia. Just hard locked eyes and masticating jaws, still moving in long lazy chews as she sat down.
“It’s nothing fancy,” Mia said, dropping a plate in front of Helena. “If you’re Tom’s daughter, I assume you’re used to better fare than this but it’s what we got.”
“Mia, give her a break,” Isla whispered but Mia just made a grumbling noise in the back of her throat and returned to the kitchen.
“This is fine, thank you,” Helena said to no one in particular. She stabbed a piece of roasted broccoli with her fork. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I smelled the food.”
Isla sat next to her and began to eat as well. The children joined, grabbing at their plate with unwashed hands. Helena noticed that no one bothered to even give them forks.
“Tom’s daughter, huh?” one of the men at the end of the table barked suddenly. “Is that how Troy’s gonna get the money out of him?”
Helena didn’t answer. She felt Isla’s nervous stare on the side of her face.
“Hell, I hope Tom doesn’t pay up and she gets to stay here,” one of the other men added to a chorus of laughter. Helena’s only response was to silently eat her meal.
“We don’t need anyone else taking up space around here,” Mia snapped as she exited the kitchen. “Unless one of you freeloaders would like to actually do some work for a change.”
The men roared with laughter, and Mia’s drawn face tightened. Her eyes narrowed, her brow caved in on itself.
“Our work is done, little lady,” the first man said. “We’re retired.”
They finished eating and got up from the table without a thank you. One of them stared at Helena for a long beat before following the others out.
“Mia, don’t say stuff like that to them,” Isla told her once the women were alone with the children. “Especially since…you know.”
“Just because I can’t breed anymore, you think I’m going to let them treat me like shit?” Mia snapped at her.
Isla shifted her eyes to Helena then down to her plate. “We were pretty sure Troy was on the hunt for a new mate but usually non shifter women can’t give birth to shifters.”
“Like the babies come out as humans or they can’t conceive at all?” Helena asked.
Isla didn’t meet her eyes. A silence settled in the room until Mia broke it. “Nonshifter women usually die in childbirth,” she said. It was the first time Helena heard any softness in her. “That is if they don’t die during the gestation period.”
Helena’s stomach tied itself into a cramped tangle of bile and nerves. What little appetite she had dispersed completely, and she dropped her fork onto her plate then got up and went directly to her room.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” she heard Isla admonish Mia from behind her but she was too far away to hear if Mia responded.
Helena lay flat on the mattress in the tiny room, the lump of the baggie directly under her right shoulder blade. She closed her eyes, pictured Ryan creeping through the woods outside, watching for her signal, waiting to make his move. She still wasn’t sure when she’d have a chance to start the plan or how she was going to let them know that the contents of the baggie had been used but the clock had started ticking the minute she was put into Troy’s hands and now, more than ever, she felt that time was running out.