Jane |18+| ✔️

21. The time I decide to get the hell out of Dodge

Jane

The hours pass as I'm left alone to my own devices. It turns out I'm in lockdown. I'm not allowed to leave my tiny flat unless I'm collected. Collected. My temper continues to simmer as I read over the schedule developed for me. Beginning tomorrow, I will commence the daunting task of interviewing many shifters varying in age and rank. All will be escorted to me here, where I will ask the set questions and document their answers through video footage and shorthand. Once I'm finished for the day, I will compile the information – assembling a synopsis – and ready it for the Alpha to overview as I move on to the next day.

It's all very ridiculous. The questions and format laid out before me are bogus and pointless. Slamming the clipboard down, I glare toward the window and the fading light of the day. I've tried to leave, but my door is locked from the outside and armed with an alarm. I tried the windows, but they're bolted tight. The hidden staircase in the closet was futile as well. The door it leads to is locked again from the outside. I'm trapped. Imprisoned. Even my damn phone has been rid of any service.

The realization led to another—aren't my parents and friends wondering where I am? Why haven't they reached out? I know the shifters are capable of the miasma, but it's been weeks, months since I've left. The rogue tear slides down my cheek as I turn my sights back to the desk in front of me. No sense in questioning the why's, who's, when, where and hows—it's time to focus on my out.

Making my own notes and scribbling up a few questions of my own, I study the videography aspect and camera mechanics, playing around with the remote and tripod. Next, I set up an area in the corner of my cozy apartment, where I leave stationary for the caravan of interviewees that will begin at the crack of dawn tomorrow. It's well past midnight when I'm confident enough to let my mind rest. To let it go to places I refused to visit since waking and finding out about Reeva and her return.

Heading to the bathroom, I close and lock the door – checking it twice for good measure – before fetching a couple of soft, fluffy warm towels from the adjoining closet. Shutting the door behind me, I lay the bath sheets down on the nearby vanity before starting the free-standing soaker tub.

It's nowhere as fancy as Silas's, but it's luxurious all the same from its crisp white finish and deep-set basin. The table next to it already holds my favourite scented bath milk and soaps, leaving me to grab a razor from the drawer containing all my necessities like Q-tips, toothbrushes and paste, floss, hair scrunches and a variety of hairbrushes.

Pulling the blade from its spot, I flick up a scrunchy and set both down on the table. Striping out of my pyjamas from earlier is next. My body is scared in new places as I slowly peel the cotton fabric away. All faded but left for my eyes to scrutinize nonetheless. Running my fingers over the left side of my ribs has me hissing, although there is no pain. The report said that my third rib bone was impacted so fiercely that it split in two, puncturing my skin from the inside out. Fragments from the damage also pierced my lung, flooding it with blood and eventually collapsing. I see no real evidence of that—aside from the faintest of silvery scars with a blushed outline.

My fingers trail to my chest. No indication is left behind where my sternum was also fractured from the CPR the Beta performed. It could have been worse, the good doctor said. The Beta could have easily crushed the bones throwing me into cardiac arrest. Instead, he saved me and has been back many times over the course of the last nine weeks to check on my recovery. I find it funny that he would. After all, I'm nothing more than a mere mortal—an ugly girl that got caught up in an ugly world.

My eyes focus on my face as they harden. The scar above my left eye remains no more. Completely faded and hidden by my astronomical amount of freckling. What's not surprising is all the bruising and bite marks that once covered my body along with all blood—are long gone. The evidence of the mate consummation, fatal beating, and car accident has all but been wiped clean physically from my body but nowhere near forgotten.