Bo and the Beast (Book #1) (Completed)

8. Beastly

A bird's call woke Bo from her sleep to a gray morning. She blinked, frozen by the newness of her surroundings. She hadn't heard a bird that wasn't a crow or vulture in so long that she'd forgotten just how long it was. The gray air was like looking into water compared to the harsh and orange lighting she was accustomed too. If she didn't know better, she'd think she was in a wonderful dream. However, her knee and aching body made sure she knew full well that she was cursedly awake.

Her moment of respite over, Bo shifted her position and rubbed her eyes. She'd fallen asleep with her back against the wall. Her neck felt like lead and every muscle screamed as she flexed them and tried to work out the kinks.

She glanced over to her father's cell, and saw he was just a bundle in the back of his cell. He didn't move, even when she whispered his name. Still asleep. She turned back to her knee and slowly bent it. It hurt like nothing else, but she screwed up her face and forced herself to her feet.

To warm up her muscles, Bo made circuits of her cell, trying to keep her sharp intakes of breath over her aching knee as quiet as she could. In order to keep her full weight off her knee, she gripped the iron bars of the cell, circling around back to the solid wall where she'd spent the night. Looking up, she saw a small window, barely tall enough to fit an arm through, and not wide enough to accommodate even her head. The tips of grass from outside just barely showed through the glass. Bo struck it off the meager list of possible escape routes. She'd have to take weeks, maybe even months, to carve out enough of the mortar around the bricks to make the window large enough to fit through. If the alien kept good on his promise to forget her down here, she wouldn't be able to survive that long with no food.

Going back to look out in the hallway, Bo leaned against the bars and waited for the sun to rise enough to see through the gloom on the other side of her cell door. First to come into focus was the far wall, which boasted a bulletin board that Bo hadn't noticed the day before. A few papers, faded with age, still hung to the cork, pinned in place by rusting pieces of metal. Bo leaned closer, squinting until she could pick out a few words on the closest one.

Atten i o : prisoners m st be kep secur d until transfer c b comple ed.

Bo scrunched her nose and pushed away from the bars. It was impossible to get any sense out of the papers, and her head hurt with trying. Dragging herself back to the wall, she eased to the ground and unwrapped her crimson jacket from around her knee. She gently bent her leg to try and get a better look at the damage. The bleeding looked to have generally stopped, mostly due to her jacket, but the pain was still fresh. She prodded it a few times, wishing she hadn't been stupid enough to injure herself.

"Bo!" Her father's familiar voice. Bo quickly wrapped her leg back up with her jacket, trying to pretend there was nothing to see.

"Are you all right?" her dad asked, seeing through her feeble attempts to hide her leg. "You're injured?"

"Flew off my hopper," she muttered.

Her dad shuffled to the bars that separated them, peering through the two empty cells to hers. He opened his mouth to say something more, but his words were abruptly cut short when he fell into a bought of coughing. Bo pricked to attention, the hollow and wet sound of her father's lungs jolting anxiety into her tired limbs.

"What about you, Dad? Did the alien hurt you?" she asked, hauling to her feet. She had noticed his limp arm earlier, but she wasn't sure if there were any more serious injuries she hadn't been able to see in the dark.