Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 65094 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65094 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
My lips curve into a joyless smile as I turn to face her one last time. “I’m glad you still have hope, Noah. Hold on to it for as long as you can because when it’s gone, you might as well be dead.”
Chapter
Eight
JAMIE
Ishut out the cries of my sister and parents. I’ve hurt them but it couldn’t be help. It’s better this way. There was a time when I would have longed for my mother’s warm embrace and the positive affirmations my father used to say to me. I wanted desperately to laugh with my sister. I’d even missed our playful banter where sometimes she teased me relentlessly when we were kids.
There was a time when I would have given anything to have those moments back. But those were simply the silly dreams of a young girl who had lived in a world that was just an illusion. I’d learned reality was way grimmer for a regular homo sapien like myself.
I’m glad that my family had gained some level of peace, I really am. But their happiness can only last as long as Magnus stays strong. If he’s challenged and killed by someone stronger than him, that person would be the new Sector 2 Leader. And then what? They’d most likely be reassigned, killed, or maybe even worse…
I unfortunately knew there were far worse things than death. As far as my current situation goes, the best I could do is keep my head down and make my mind wonder when he’s on top of me.
At least he’s not horrible to look at. My shoulders shiver when I think of the master I was last assigned to. I didn’t think it was possible for a superious to be so bloated and out of shape, but I suppose it happened when one lived in luxury and benefited from what was basically slave labor.
The buttery leather seats on the interior of the Sector Leader’s vehicle is so soft, I almost want to sink into it and relax but I hold myself upright, tense, awaiting before him to start barking instructions but he doesn’t.
In fact he pulls out a handheld device and pushes a couple of buttons making a holographic screen pop up. It appears to be paperwork of some sort and he proceeds to put his full attention into whatever those documents are, ignoring me.
Good, the less attention he pays to me the better, although I’m curious as to why he was so eager to collect me if this is how he intends to treat me. When he’d grabbed my wrist back at the manor, something had happened.
A jolt? A shock? I can’t quite explain it but it had sent something akin to an electric current through my body. From the widening of his blue eyes, I thought he’d felt it too but perhaps I’d only imagined it.
Besides the brief commands he’d spoken to me to follow him, he hasn’t said a word to me. It’s probably for the best.
A pain twinges in my lower back from sitting so erect in my seat, but I don’t want to give him a reason to scold me. If I close my eyes for just a bit and allow my mind to go blank I can ignore that ache and the stiffness forming in my neck. I’ll just close my eyes for a minute…
This is my first night in a new environment and I’m so scared I can barely move. As soon as I arrived at this grand house, I was ushered into a bathing room and thrown into a shower that was so hot, I screamed when the water touched my skin. The maid who’d refused to tell me her name had laughed and said that she had to make sure I was clean to get the stench off me.
She eventually adjusted the water to make it slightly more bearable but my humiliation had only begun. The maid, a woman nearly twice my size got into the shower with me and proceeded to scrub me from head to toe, not missing a single inch of me with a brush. It was almost as if she was trying to take several layers of skin off in the process. The more I tried to resist, the rougher she became.
I didn’t have the strength to fight back because I’d barely eaten for the last several days. The maid seemed to take pleasure in my discomfort, and I couldn’t understand why she was being so cruel. Wasn’t she homo sapien just like me?
My humiliation was far from over when she attempted to fix my hair. She took no care at all, roughly running the brush through my tangles and cursing me for having such course and unmanageable hair. It was a blow to my pride because I’d always taken great care with my hair. It was thick and curly and if I let it dry naturally, it raised to the sun like a crown. If I stretch it out into the braids I favored, it rested just below my shoulder blades.