Alpha Girl (31 page)

I was terrified. What if they shot him? What if he died? I wouldn’t be able to live with myself, knowing that it was my fault. All of these thoughts, and more ran through my head the day of the transformation. My mother and I were moving to the city in two days, and all of my belongings had already been packed into the car.

‘Are you ready, sweetheart?’ my mother asked.

‘Yes.’

She took my wrists and slipped the restraints over them so I couldn’t move. ‘This is so much better than running wild in the forest,’ she said, tightening them until it was painful. I disagreed with her, but said nothing.

‘Two minutes,’ said my father, checking his watch.

My mother pushed my sweaty hair from my face and kissed my forehead before leaving the basement with my father. They bolted the door closed behind them.

His name left my mouth in a continuous slur of words. ‘
Tom, Tom, Tom
.’

I stared at the grimy ceiling as the pain took over my body. I writhed against the bed, begging for mercy.

‘
Tom, Tom, Tom.’
I didn’t allow him to leave my thoughts.

Crack, crack, crack!

My bones snapped and I screamed. Everything went black.

Monday – 29 days to go

Everything ached. My eyes felt as if they were glued shut. I couldn’t swallow; my throat was too dry. I felt hung over from a night of hard drugs and alcohol.

I opened my eyes, blinking several times. Everything was a blur, and it took a while for my vision to clear.

I sat up, my head spinning. It was clear my mother and father had unshackled me in the early hours of the morning. Deep cuts were around my wrists and ankles from the restraints that had bound me to the bed.

Suddenly, the realization of today dawned upon me.

‘
Tom
.’ 

I jumped up from the bed and sprinted up the basement steps, wrenching the door open. I quickly found my mother and father in the kitchen, eating breakfast.

‘Have you checked the news?’ I demanded at once.

‘Yes,’ said my father, folding his newspaper and looking at me. ‘There’s nothing.’

‘Nothing?’ I repeated.

‘It’s only been fifteen hours since the transformation began, Rose.’

Heart pounding, I perched myself upon the kitchen stool. Maybe no news was good news. Isn’t that what everyone always said?

That evening I sat in my room, catching up on the homework I’d neglected over the last few weeks. It had piled up, but to be honest, I really didn’t give a shit about it. It all seemed so pointless.

Suddenly, I heard my name being called.

‘Rose!’ my mother bellowed at the top of her lungs. ‘ROSE! QUICK!’

I jumped up from my bed and wrenched my door open, sprinting down the hall to find my mother perched in front of the television.

‘He’s on the news!’ she said, turning the volume as high as it would go.

Fear gripped me. Mr. Stone’s mug shot was on the television.

No
.

The news reporter was already half way through the piece.

‘-Search for escaped inmate Thomas Stone is underway. Mr. Stone was found guilty of sexual assault in the first degree a month ago by the local court after having sex with a student, and sentenced to eight years in prison. It is unclear how he managed to escape from the prison, and anyone with any information regarding his whereabouts is urged to come forward to police. There have been no reported sightings as of yet.’

I stared at the television, numb.

‘He … he escaped,’ I breathed.

‘Oh my goodness,’ my mother clapped her hands to her mouth. ‘What if he comes
here
?’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ said my father. ‘He’s going to do a runner, of course. We’ll never see him again.’

That night, police and detectives came by the house, asking a lot of stupid questions. They seemed to think we might know where Tom had gone. As if I’d tell them anything.

I was a mix of emotions. I didn’t know if Mr. Stone was okay, which scared the hell out of me. On the other hand, I was ecstatic that he had escaped.

By the time the police left, it was late, and I was emotionally exhausted. I retired to my bedroom at the same time as my parents, dreading tomorrow.

Moving day.

Tuesday – 28 days to go

Tap, tap, tap.

I groaned and rolled over, checking the clock on my bedside table. It read two o’clock in the morning. What the hell had woken me up at this hour?

Tap, tap, tap.

I sat up, listening hard.

Someone was throwing rocks at my window.

I leapt out of bed, as quiet as a cat, and tiptoed to my window. I pried it open as silent as I could and poked my head out.

It was him.

He stood there, looking up at my bedroom window, a grin on his face.

I’d never been so speechless in my entire life.

‘What are you doing here?’ I hissed down to him.

‘Hello, Rose,’ he said sheepishly.

‘You’re going to get caught,’ I said. His appearance here was utterly illogical. Did he want to be arrested again?

‘That’s why I need to be quick,’ he said. ‘Rose, there’s something I need to say-’

I thought I knew what it was going to be.

He’d come to say goodbye.

‘Don’t say it,’ I said. I refused to believe it was the end.

‘Rose, I don’t want you to give up your whole life for me,’ he said. ‘You’ve got so much ahead of you … so much to look forward to-’

‘No,’ I said, panic rising in my chest. ‘Don’t talk like that.’

‘You can’t know how you’ll feel about me in the future. You might wake up one morning and roll over to find an old man in bed with you, who can barely put a roof over your head. You deserve so much more than that. I don’t want to be selfish. I mean … you have school, and family.’ Mr. Stone took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

This was it.
The end
. He’d leave and I’d never see him again.

I didn’t know what I could say to make him change his mind.

‘But Rose … I am selfish, and that’s why I’m asking you to give up everything for me,’ he said. ‘I can’t promise much, but I promise I’ll love you more than anything in this world.’

I stopped breathing.

He wasn’t leaving me. He was asking me to flee with him.

‘
You
are everything,’ I breathed.

‘Will you run with me?’ he whispered. It seemed the simple act of asking me to do such a thing caused him physical pain.

‘Of course I’ll run with you. We’re a pack.’

It all happened so fast after that.

I got dressed, donned a hoodie, grabbed my keys, and jumped out of my bedroom window, with Mr. Stone breaking my fall. Together we got into the car, which was already packed with all of my belongings for the big move to the city with my mother.

We drove - just drove until the sun had risen, and we were hundreds of miles away from Halfway – the town where people stopped between visits.

‘How did you escape?’ I asked as the sun crested the hills.

‘I told you,’ he said with a devilish smile. ‘Cages don’t stop me. I always wake up in the forest after the full moon.’

I grinned. ‘Now you’ll be waking up next to me.’

‘I wouldn’t have it any other way.’