The Slave That I Am | 18+✔

Book 1⌇12. The Best-Laid Plans

 Chapter 12 ∣  The Best-Laid Plans

-Annika

My mind is numb as I lazily stir my spoon in the bowl of tomato soup. Emily, Carly, and I sit at a small round wooden table in the corner of the lavish kitchen. I hold my left hand in my lap, trying hard not to accidentally bump it as the pain is still there even though it's dull.

"So," Carly clears her throat and shatters the rather peaceful silence. My eyes glance up from the soup and meet with hers.

"Is everything okay?" The hint in Carly's voice appears to be sincere, her dark hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, forming cascading ringlets down her back. There is just something else hidden in her tone that makes me believe that she's merely asking for formality sake as neither Emily nor Carly appear to be that interested in becoming friends with me. I don't want friends though...

"Yes," I reply shortly, not wanting to go into the details of my punishment. Her eyebrows raise, and she takes a mouthful of soup into her mouth. Emily, on the other hand, appears to have her nose stuck up in the air, her perfect posture shadowing ours. Her long blonde hair is tied up into her usual two ponytails, falling down her chest like two waterfalls. She has two white ribbons weaved into them for an accent today.

Carly prods again, "Are you sure? You seem...not yourself."

"Really?" I spit at her, "What do you really know about me to make that presumptuous remark?"

Neither of these girls knows the first thing about me or how I usually act. What they have been observing, is the flight or fight response of a hunter being forced into a situation that part of the time sickens me...

Carly goes to open her mouth, though I beat her to it, knowing the one answer she can offer me.

"Besides the fact that I'm a hunter," I add, rolling my eyes at her when she sits back into her chair with a slight slump in her shoulders.

Carly says nothing, once again, I hurt her without meaning to...

However, the last thing I want to do is talk about my heated encounter and the game Locaine, and I had played. It's not something to be shared among these girls...especially the way I've already said the horrible things to Carly when I'd been chained up.

She admires me, and I completely let her down in the way she sees me as a hunter...

"You know, Annika," Emily speaks for the first time, her eyes shooting in my direction, "you don't have to be such a bitch. We are all in the same situation here." She stirs her soup with a delicate touch, brings the spoon to her lips and drinks the soup.

I clench the handle of my spoon in sudden anger, knowing neither of them has had to endure the number of broken bones and attack that I have. The only reason I can withstand some of the things Locaine does is in fact because I am a hunter and possess the blood magic trait...any normal human...have fun healing weeks at a time with the broken bones you receive. At least even with the Lovenox, I can slightly heal, even if it's nothing to brag about, it's still much better than a human's.

I speak very carefully, "I do not know the two of you. You are not my friends. You are not my family. You are humans, who keep trying to pry things from me when I clearly try and avoid it."

"See!" Carly drops her spoon into the soup and throws her hands in the air while accusing me once again, "You are just like them!"

"What are you talking about?!" My voice rises, slightly angry now that she's begun an attack on me. I didn't understand it the first time she had said this to me either, now she is repeating it?