h4Chapter 52: Chapter 52/h4

    I didn’t know when exactly I fell asleep. One moment, I was lying stiff as a board in the psycho Alpha’s iron grip, my dder screaming and my brain muttering insults at him in silence, and the next, morning light was sneaking in through the curtains. For a blissful second, I thought it had all been a nightmare. My arms moved freely. No death grip crushing my ribs. No heavy body pinning me down like a human paperweight. I turned my head, blinking into the emptiness beside me. The Alpha was gone.

    I shot upright, gasping.

    "Oh my goddess... he evaporated? Did the Moon Goddess finally answer my prayers? Did someone stab him with a silver fork in his sleep?"

    I scrambled off the bed like a rabbit escaping a wolf, half-expecting him to pop out of the wardrobe and yell "Gotcha, little omega!"

    But no. The room was silent.

    I should’ve celebrated. Thrown a little parade for my ribs that were no longer being crushed. But instead, my paranoia started chewing at me. If he was gone, that meant he was... doing something. And with him, "something" usually tranted to "violence," "blood," or "Ellie’s new nightmare."

    Still, I had omega duties to do, so I pushed down the dread. I washed, tidied, and tried to pretend I was a normal omega in a normal pack, not living with a psycho Alpha who treated me like his favorite squeaky toy. By the time I was scrubbing clothes by the river, my brain finally rxed a little. I dunked one of his shirts into the water, squeezed it, and nearly shrieked.

    "Blood! Oh for crying out loud, it’s always blood! Does he even know soap exists? Does he think shirts just eat stains on their own?"

    The crimson stains swirled in the water like tiny ghosts, and I muttered to myself, "I’m going to get trauma just from doingundry. This is not what my mother meant when she said hard work builds character."

    While I wrestled with his bloody shirt, voices drifted over from the other omegas gathered nearby.

    "Did you hear?" one of them whispered. "The Alpha and the warriors brought back a girlst night."

    My ears perked up immediately. I tried not to look like I was listening, but of course I tilted my head so far I nearly fell face-first into the river.

    "They tied her up in chains," another omega whispered, "and locked her in the dungeon."

    "Chains?" I mouthed silently.

    "They say the Alpha told Elizabeth not to feed her at all."

    My jaw dropped. Not feed her? Who was this poor girl, and why was she suddenly starring in the Alpha’s next horror movie?

    One omega sighed dramatically. "Imagine being chained in the dungeon, starving."

    Another snickered. "Better her than me."

    I froze. My hands kept scrubbing the bloody shirt, but my brain was sprinting in circles. A chained-up mystery girl. In his dungeon. And he specifically said not to feed her.

    I nced down at the shirt in my hands.

    "Oh God. This blood isn’t justundry. This is a warning. This is Exhibit A in my future obituary."

    The omegas kept whispering, but my imagination was already painting the scariest pictures possible. What if the girl was some kind of witch? What if she was foaming at the mouth, waiting to eat the next idiot who wandered close? What if she was cursed and would bite me and turn me into a dungeon goblin? I shook my head. "Nope, nope, nope. Ellie, mind your business. Pretend you didn’t hear anything. Finish scrubbing Psycho Alpha’s horror stains and go home."

    But of course, my curiosity had other ns. It was crawling all over me like fleas. The words "chained in the dungeon" echoed in my skull.

    I whispered to myself, "What if she’s another omega? What if she needs help? What if I’m supposed to save her?"

    Then my survival instinct pped me across the face.

    "Or what if you ’save’ her, and the Alpha finds out, and then you end up as Dungeon Girl #2? Think, Ellie, think!"

    But still the thought of a girl starving in the dungeon made my stomach twist. And knowing the psycho Alpha, he probably enjoyed watching her suffer, just like he enjoyed squeezing me in bed until my lungs squeaked. As I wrung out the shirt, I identally said out loud, "I should sneak her food."

    The omegas around me gasped and stared like I’d grown a second head.

    I pped a hand over my mouth. "Kidding! Kidding. Haha. Just a joke. Totally not nning to do anything heroic. Nope. Not me. I’m too fragile for heroism."

    They kept staring until I muttered, "Fine, mind your business," and scurried off with the damp shirt like a roon with stolen trash.

    But inside, the argument raged. Curiosity versus survival. Compassion versusmon sense. One thing was certain: the dungeon girl wasn’t just her problem anymore. Somehow, some way, she was about to be mine too. And knowing my luck? She was probably ten times scarier than the psycho Alpha himself.

    I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Really, or why I felt sad for her. I had every reason in the world to stay away from that dungeon. The psycho Alpha had already given his order: don’t feed the girl. And everybody in this pack knows what happens when people ignore the psycho Alpha’s orders. Spoiler: it usually involves teeth, ws, and the sound of bones cracking like dry twigs. But of course, my stupid, squishy heart decided it wanted to be a hero. So that night, when the packhouse grew quiet, when warriors had finished their patrols and the omegas were curled up in their sleeping mats, I tiptoed down the hallway, hugging the shadows like a thief.

    My brain whispered frantically:

    "Ellie, stop. Turn back. This is how idiots die in horror stories. You’re going to be that character who says, ’What’s that noise?’ and then gets dragged into the dark by some creature with glowing eyes."

    But my feet kept moving anyway. The stairs to the dungeon creaked under me like they were trying to snitch. I froze at every sound, clutching the smallntern I’d stolen from theundry room. Shadows leapt across the walls, flickering like they were alive. The deeper I went, the colder it got. The air grew heavy with damp stone and something else something sharp, metallic. Blood. I wrinkled my nose, whispering, "Great. Just great. My life smells like a butcher’s nightmare."

    At the bottom of the stairs, a massive iron door waited. Its hinges were ckened with rust, and the small barred window in the middle leaked only the faintest glow of torchlight from inside. My hands shook as I lifted thentern higher. My voice came out in a nervous squeak. "Hello? Anybody in there? Please don’t say ’boo.’"

    I swallowed. "Okay... Ellie, you can do this. You’re brave. You survived the Alpha cuddling you to near-death in bed. You can survive this."

    I pushed the door. It groaned like the spirit of every murdered soul in the packhouse was trapped inside. The dungeon stretched out in front of me, a long, damp corridor lined with cells. Water dripped steadily from the ceiling, each drop echoing like a ticking clock. The smell of rot was stronger here, crawling into my lungs.

    And then I saw her there. I stopped breathing. The girl was chained against the far wall, her body hanging like a broken puppet. Heavy iron shackles cut into her wrists and ankles, the chains biting into raw, torn flesh. Blood streaked her arms and legs, dripping down into small, dark pools on the floor. Her face was a map of cuts and bruises. One eye was swollen shut. The other... oh goddess, the other was wide open and staring at me. Part of her hair had been shaved off in uneven clumps, leaving her scalp raw and ugly. The rest of it hung in matted strands, sticky with blood.

    I nearly dropped thentern. "Holy... oh God-oh no no no

    My knees wobbled. My stomach flipped. I pressed a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. She wasn’t just tied up. She wasn’t just bleeding. She looked like she’d been dragged through hell and left there to rot. I stumbled forward, whispering, "What did he do to you?"

    Her one good eye followed me. It was wide and unblinking, glittering in thentern light like a predator’s.

    For a terrifying second, I thought she wasn’t human. She looked more monster than girl, with all those cuts and that blood. My heart thudded so loud I swore it would wake the entire packhouse. Then her lips moved. Barely. Cracked, bleeding lips forming a single word.

    "Water."

    My chest clenched. She was alive. Somehow, impossibly, she was alive.

    I looked around frantically. "Water... water, um hold on, I’ll... I’ll find something—"

    But I hadn’t brought water. I hadn’t brought food. I’d been too scared to even think straight. My hands trembled. "I—I’m sorry, I didn’t—Oh goddess, I’m useless! This is why people don’t invite me on rescue missions. I don’t evene prepared." Her chains rattled as she shifted, the sound scraping against the silence like nails on bone.

    That eye fixed on me again. Desperate. Hungry. I felt my knees weaken. "Don’t look at me like that. Please don’t look at me like that."

    I took a shaky step back, my back hitting the bars of the opposite cell. The cold iron rattled, making me yelp.

    She flinched at the sound, her body jerking against the chains. Blood smeared down the wall behind her. I almost copsed. My whole body was trembling, sweat prickling my skin even in the dungeon’s icy air.

    "I shouldn’t be here," I whispered. "If he finds me here! But then I thought about the Alpha’s words: don’t feed her. And I thought about the way this girl’s lips had cracked just to say water.

    My chest twisted. I crept closer again, whispering like a guilty child, "Okay, okay, fine. I’ll help you. But you have to promise not to, you know, lunge at me like a starving wolf."

    Her eye blinked slowly, as if mocking me.I ced thentern down carefully on the floor, pulling the hem of my dress to wipe her bleeding mouth. My hands shook so badly I nearly dropped the fabric. The moment the cloth touched her lips, she let out a sound low, raw, like an animal’s growl mixed with a sob. It sent goosebumps racing across my skin. Then I froze. Because footsteps echoed faintly above. I jerked upright, my heart climbing into my throat. The psycho Alpha. I knew it, I knew it. My bad luck was a curse. He wasing. I scrambled back, nearly tripping over thentern. My mind screamed at me to run, but my feet stuck to the ground. The girl’s chains rattled again, louder this time. She lifted her head, and for a brief, horrifying moment, I thought she was smiling. Bloody lips curling. One eye glinting and smiling.

    At me.

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