Feral Wolf by Caroline Peckham

I'd managed to use the pipes to cross the gym, but the Lunar Brotherhood had returned before I could make any attempt to climb down and exit through the room. I'd stayed suspended there for as long as I could, but when some of them started sleeping and the rest descended into various orgies, I'd had to admit defeat.

There was something about watching a Wolf sex party that got me very on edge. They were so loud and virile, so free with their attentions moving from one pack member to the next. It gave me the wet willies. What was wrong with dim lighting and a single, sweet girl becoming the entire focus of your world?

And when I watched one dude move from deep throating a guy to sticking his Rodger rocket in another girl's back door, I decided I needed to move. I couldn't die here in this place. What would my mother think if she heard I was beaten to death during a sex party?

No.

No, no, no.

I'd decided to take my chances on the floor above and had moved on as swiftly as I could manage without drawing the pack's attention to me up on the pipes.

There was a little access space where the pipes met the roof and I pushed myself up and into it with much wriggling and cursing. My shirt tore down the back as it snagged on the brickwork and I damn near cut my tongue off as I had to bite down on it to stop myself from coughing at the dust.

I made it into the maintenance space up on level four and began army crawling alongside the pipes in the confined space.

It was dark in here, the press of the bricks crushing me from all sides as I focused on moving forward inch by inch and tried to drive out any thoughts to do with claustrophobia or mental images of me getting trapped here and dying all alone in the dark.

There was a hint of light up ahead and I kept going towards it, my entire focus on that little ray of freedom, twinkling before me.

As I got closer, the sound of a voice came to me, the lilt of it following a song though I couldn't make out the words.

I shuffled closer in the dark space and suddenly I could hear them more clearly.

"Don't be afraid of the dark. It's nice and warm in there," Plunger cooed and I shuddered at the thought of being found by that particular inmate. He'd tricked me into giving him far too many cavity searches during my time here and I just knew he'd be so much worse to deal with without restraints keeping him in check.

I dragged myself closer to the light source, spotting a metal grille up ahead just as I heard the sound of running water.

"Oh-ho you like it wet do you, you little pickle? I bet you do," Plunger purred and despite my better instincts, I pulled myself closer to the grille and peered out from within it.

I was level with the floor of the shower units and I could see Plunger standing butt naked before the sinks as he leaned back and shook his ass from side to side.

"Just gonna limber up for you," he said and I strained my neck to see who he was talking to, but there didn't appear to be anyone else in the room with him.

As I looked back at him, I found him holding onto the sink as he dropped down into a squat while humming a tune.

I frowned, wanting to look away from the sight of his parted ass cheeks while somehow frozen in place as curiosity fought a battle with my disgust.

He got lower and lower, closing in on the tiled floor and I suddenly noticed something sitting there, right beneath his ass.

Is that...a potato?

I barely had a moment to decided that yes, it was a potato, before Plunger's ass dropped down over the lumpy brown vegetable and he squealed like an excited little kid.

"That's it, Gerty, get in deep with your brothers. It is my meth-od," Plunger said, scooting his ass back and forward before standing up straight again with a grunt of discomfort. "My, my, you are a big fella."

I looked back to the floor beneath him and my frown deepened. Where’s the potato?

Plunger started humming as he did a weird half waddle towards the exit and my eyes almost bugged out of my face as I watched him go.

Where.

Is.

The.

Potato???

My heart thrashed with a mixture of fear for my life and sympathy for a root vegetable as I tried not to let my thoughts linger on its location for too long. What horrors it had seen. What a destiny for an innocent carb.

I hesitated there for several long moments. On the one hand, I was safe in here, no one knew where I was and no one had any reason to hunt for me either. On the other, I was trapped in a confined space and couldn't stay here indefinitely. I had to move. Had to.

With a pounding heart, I reached out for the metal grille and slammed my hands against it, panic sweeping through me for a moment as it popped out of position and clattered onto the tiles.

But no one appeared. There were no cries of Fae hungering for my death. So I scrambled out like a fish finding land and flopped onto the damp tiles right where Plunger had been standing a moment ago, my cheek slapping down hard on the spot where the potato had met with its cruel fate.

I swore as I shoved myself upright, my pulse racing as I glanced at the mirror.

My eyes were haunted with the sights of what I'd witnessed while hiding in this hell from the monsters who occupied it and my blonde hair was sticking to my forehead as well as stained by the dust from the crawl space I'd just escaped.

My black shirt was torn to shit from the pipes and I tugged the remnants off of me quickly, deciding that a guard’s uniform was no good thing in here anyway.

My gaze fell on an orange jumpsuit which had been tossed across the sinks and I snatched it, yanking it on over my trousers and shoving my arms into the sleeves. It was too small to fasten over my broad chest, but as I looked back into the mirror again, I was pleased to see that between that and the state of my hair, I looked nothing like my former self.

I made a move towards the exit then paused as I noticed something sticking to my cheek in the reflection.

I gagged as I focused on the curly grey hair, knowing in my soul that it had come from Plunger while he ass bagged that potato.

I slapped it from my face and set the taps flowing, scrubbing water over the skin too as I scrambled around in the hunt for some soap.

The doors banged open behind me and I froze as the sound of inmates moving into the space filled the room.

"Do you think it's true?" a girl whispered.

"Our Alpha and Shadowbrook?" another replied. "Can't be...can it?"

I didn't know what they were talking about but I did know that I couldn't stand here pretending to wash my face for however long it took them to have that conversation, so I began to side step towards the door.

Their whispered conversation continued as they thankfully paid me no attention and I hurried towards the door with my head lowered, breathing a sigh of relief as I managed to make it out into the corridor without them looking my way.

I glanced towards the stairwell at the far end of the corridor, but a booming voice from the cell block closest to my position drew my attention before I could make a run for it.

"Your so-called Alpha has betrayed our trust!" a girl shouted, her voice familiar to me as I crept closer to the door, curiosity getting the better of me. "She's been sleeping with the enemy - fucking Ethan Shadowbrook of all people! And now, when we've risen up and taken control of this place, she's nowhere to be seen! I say she's no Alpha at all."

A round of boos and jeers sounded and as I peered into the cell block, I spotted Amira standing on something in the centre of the Oscura pack, her teeth bared in fury as she went on with her speech.

"I'm telling you plainly that she betrayed you - if you don't like it then come at me. Any of you who thinks you can take me out are more than welcome to try. But if you can't then I'm reasserting my position at the head of this pack. And if you can't beat me, then you're going to have to join me!"

More than a few Wolves surged forward to take her up on that challenge and I took that as my cue to run. Run, run and fucking run.

I needed to get the hell out of here. I needed to get to those stairs and race right the way down to Maintenance where my safety lay. If I could just get up into that secret access tunnel then I'd be safe. Or at least, safer than I was now. Back with the rest of the guards. Back in my room. Far, far away from this horror show filled with psychos. And then I was going to give some serious thought to my life choices because I really wasn't sure this was the right job for me.