Luminous

by Noelle Marie

  Katherine stiffened at the threat. Logically, she knew that Gerard could have demanded Bastian’s name from Melanie whenever he wanted, but the fact that it was she who had given it to him caused guilt to squeeze her heart.

  Gerard released her chin. “Clean this up,” he ordered offhandedly as he sat back in his chair. Katherine frowned at the command, but lowered herself to her knees and begrudgingly did as she was told.

  Her wet clothes clung to her body and a shiver passed through her. Soon, even her teeth were chattering, but Katherine ignored the chill. After all, no matter how cold she got on the outside, it couldn’t compare to how cold and bleak she was feeling on the inside.

  * * *

  Day nine of captivity.

  Katherine sat, curled up, in the corner of the hut like usual. Serena was mending a pair of pants near the fire, her hands working in a mechanical motion with a needle and thread, in and out of the ratty pair of jeans in her hands. In and out. In and out.

  Gerard was in the room, too, sitting on his feather-stuffed mattress and staring into the fire. That was perfectly fine with Katherine. His behavior grew more erratic with each passing day, and she was all too happy to ignore him if he was willing to pay her the same curtesy.

  Maybe she should have been paying better attention to him, though. If she had been, perhaps she’d have notice his brow furrow. For he wasn’t quite staring into the fire, like she’d assumed. In actuality, his eyes were fixated on something under the table.

  Katherine didn’t think much of him rising and stalking across the room until he suddenly flipped the slab of wood and flimsy legs that made up the table on its side. The meager stack of cracked dishes that had been sitting on top of the shabby thing hit the ground with a crash.

  Katherine nearly jumped out of her skin at the unexpectedness of his actions and the resulting noise. Serena just stared. Gerard bent over and picked something up off the ground. When he stood back up, Katherine’s heart skipped a beat when she saw what was in his hand, for pinched between his thumb and forefinger was one of the black cherries Serena had brought her to eat a few days ago. Its skin was dry and wrinkled from sitting unnoticed on the floor since then, but there was no mistaking what it was.

  She and Serena must have overlooked the tiny morsel falling from Serena’s apron pocket or possibly rolling off the table.

  Gerard directed his gaze at Serena. “What’s this?” he demanded.

  The dark-haired girl immediately stood, abandoning the jeans she was trying to fix on the floor. “I- I don’t... I mean, well, it’s...” she stuttered, tripping over her words.

  “It’s a cherry,” Katherine deadpanned, finishing Serena’s sentence for her as she got to her own feet. She hated seeing Serena so tongue-tied over something as silly as a piece of fruit.

  Gerard shot Katherine an unimpressed glare before returning his gaze to Serena. “Have you been feeding these to her?” he asked, jerking his head in Katherine’s direction. His voice was deceptively calm as he took a threatening step in her direction. “After I expressly told you not to give her anything?” he added.

  It was so ridiculous that a dark part of Katherine wanted to laugh. He could see with his own eyes that Katherine wasn’t dying of starvation, after all, and she had yet to touch the raw meat he continued to leave out for her. Did he really need physical proof to know that Serena was sneaking her food? Had he been lying in wait for said proof to reveal itself? Or was he just in a particularly bad mood that day?

  Katherine was nearly positive her second theory was closer to the truth.

  “Well?” Gerard snapped.

  Serena’s eyes flitted to the ground. “Yes,” she admitted softly.

  Gerard stared her down. “And what else have you been giving her?”

  Serena nervously licked her lips. “Just some nuts and beans,” she confessed. “A couple of rice patties the other day, too.”

  Katherine pressed her lips together in annoyance. The girl was irritatingly honest.

  “And why did you do that?” Gerard demanded. “Surely you don’t think you know better than me?”

  Serena blinked, clearly taken off guard by the accusation. “What? No! No, of course not, it’s just that...” she trailed off, her gaze darting past Gerard to Katherine. “Gerard, she’s pregnant,” she finished softly.

  Gerard regarded Serena silently. “I see,” he finally said when the tension in the air had grown so thick it was nearly palpable. “Well, I’d hate to have this food that you so thoughtfully provided Katherine go to waste.” He dropped the shriveled cherry to the floor. “On your knees.”

  Tears filled Serena’s eyes. “Gerard-” she tried to protest.

  “I said, on your knees!” he barked, grabbing Serena by the nape of her neck and forcing her to the floor. He didn’t release her until her face was inches from the cherry. “Well,” he demanded, “what are you waiting for? Eat.”

  Anger at the way Gerard was treating Serena burned beneath Katherine’s skin. Her fury was evidence by the way a hot flush bloomed across her cheeks... and by the thoughtless words that escaped her mouth.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Katherine snapped, springing to her feet as fast as her pregnant belly allowed. “How can you treat the one person who doesn’t actively despise you like such utter crap? For God’s sake, that cherry is as rotten as you are. You ought to-”

  Before Katherine could tell him what he ought to do – she wasn’t exactly sure what was going to come out of her mouth, but she was fairly certain it would have been a violent suggestion with a cuss word or two thrown in for good measure – Gerard took two strides towards her and yanked hard enough on her hair that her neck was forced backward at an angle so sever she could barely breathe. “Eat the damn thing, Serena,” Gerard repeated, “or I’ll make Katherine do it instead.”

  That was all it took. With tears swimming in her eyes, Serena lowered herself the rest of the way to the ground and ate the cherry from the floor. When she tried to swallow the spoiled piece of fruit, however, she gagged. After a moment of attempting to get it down her throat, she wound up spitting it back up on the floor.

  “I’m sorry,” Serena sniffled.

  Gerard snorted in disgust. “Pathetic,” he muttered, but released Katherine, shoving her away from him. “Clean that shit up before I make you eat that too.”

  Without further ado, he breezed out of the hut.

  Katherine hesitated only a moment before approaching Serena. She kneeled down next to the girl sitting quietly on the floor, fingers clenched in her lap. Katherine laid what she hoped was a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  It wasn’t the first time that Katherine had seen Gerard’s rage directed at someone other than herself, but it was first time she’d seen him target Serena.

  The girl nodded. “It’s just... it’s the full moon. It drives us all a little crazy,” she mumbled, attempting to somehow justify Gerard’s behavior.

  Katherine stared, in shock for a moment. It was the flimsiest excuse she’d ever heard. She wanted to call Serena out on it, too – surely she had to know that the words coming from her mouth were absolute bull – but by the way her eyes refused to meet Katherine’s, she figured the girl already knew.

  There was no point in Katherine pointing out something Serena was already well aware of. “How many days away is it?” she eventually asked instead. “The full moon?”

  If Bastian hadn’t arrived by then, Katherine had already resolved to attempt an escape. Gerard and Serena would have to leave her alone when they transformed into their wolf forms, after all. She didn’t know how close to camp they planned to stay throughout the night, but she was counting on them liking to run wild through the woods as much as she and her pack did on full moons. She figured she could search the couple dozen huts that made up camp while they were occupied until she found a decent pair of shoes and a coat. Then she’d make a break for it.

  She knew it was a poorly thought out, danger-fill
ed plan, especially with wolves lurking around, but Katherine didn’t know what other choice she had.

  “Three days,” Serena answered her softly.

  Katherine nodded. Three days.

  * * *

  .

  Day eleven of captivity.

  “I made this for you.”

  Katherine stared uncomprehendingly at the scrap of cloth Serena held out for her before hesitantly reaching forward and taking it. Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t a scrap of cloth at all, but a tiny, homemade baby gown. It was a patchworked mess of mismatched fabrics, heavily featuring faded green and burnt orange. Tears sprang into Katherine’s eyes at the sight of it.

  “I’m sorry,” Serena blurted when she saw the suspicious wetness, “I know it’s not the prettiest thing.”

  It was hideous, but that wasn’t why Katherine was holding back tears.

  “I had to make do with the fabric I had available. It’s warm, at least, and soft.”

  They weren’t tears of happiness, either, despite Serena’s sweet intentions.

  Katherine had tried not to think about it – mostly because she was determined to be hundreds of miles away from this hut by the time her baby came – but heaven forbid she still was there when she went into labor, this outfit was all her baby had to its name.

  Besides love, the shabby one-piece in her hands was all she had to offer him. She couldn’t even promise her baby something as simple as safety.

  Serena fretted over Katherine’s teary reaction to her gift and tried to snatch the outfit back. “Maybe I can try to put together something else-”

  “No!” Katherine shouted, startling even herself as she hugged the little gown to her chest. “No. It’s perfect, Serena, really. Thank you.”

  It was hard to see against Serena’s tan skin, but Katherine could swear she saw pink creep up the girl’s neck at the praise. “Oh. Well, it was nothing, really. I was glad to do it. Maybe I can trade for some more fabric to make something for when the baby starts to grow out of it-”

  “Get out.”

  Katherine stiffened at Gerard’s sudden interference. He’d been watching the scene contemplatively from his place near the simmering fire, but he hadn’t interrupted them until now.

  Serena frowned at the order clearly directed at her. “But-”

  “I said leave, Serena, or are you deaf?”

  The girl bit her lip at the reprimand, and tucked her head to her chest in a submissive pose before obeying Gerard’s command and ducking out of the hut. She shot Katherine a singular concerned glance over her shoulder before she disappeared behind the animal skin door.

  The night of the full moon was looming ever nearer, and with Gerard’s behavior as unpredictable as ever, Katherine remained perfectly still as he approached her. He nodded at her belly. “When are you due?”

  It was the first real interest he’d shown in her pregnancy, and that fact had Katherine on edge. She set down the outfit Serena had given her and wrapped her arms protectively around her middle. “I don’t know for sure,” she answered slowly. It was the truth. “I imagine I’ll give birth sometime in the next month.”

  That fact scared her, and part of the reason she was determined to act against Gerard soon. She didn’t want to be anywhere near him or his stupid hut when the time came.

  “Let me see,” he demanded, gesturing at her stomach.

  Katherine didn’t think she ever wanted to say “no” more in her life. She knew that wasn’t a viable option, however, so she slowly got to her feet. She recoiled, but didn’t make a move to stop Gerard as he lifted her shirt. He stared at her rounded belly. She sucked in a breath when he had the nerve to thumb her slightly protruding bellybutton. “Not very big, are you?”

  She felt her defenses rise at the comment. “Yeah, well, I haven’t exactly been on the most optimal of diets the past few weeks, have I?” she shot back.

  Gerard smirked, but ignored the retort. “It’s probably a runt. I doubt it’ll survive childbirth, let alone its first winter.” He palmed her belly with both hands.

  Rage rang in Katherine’s ears at his nerve. Fear of retaliation was the only thing that held her back from shoving him away from her.

  But then the baby in her belly kicked, pushing with what felt like a foot at Gerard’s right hand. Katherine liked to think the little one was showing his revulsion at the man’s prodding, but Gerard’s grin only widened at the sensation. “Then again, perhaps it’ll surprise me. If he’s strong enough, maybe I’ll even claim him as my own.”

  That was it.

  Katherine’s fury reached a boiling point. She’d been trying to minimize her anger all throughout captivity in an attempt at self-preservation. It had simmered under her skin, like lava lying dormant in a volcano, but at least it’d been under control barring a minor flare-up or two. But with the audacity of Gerard’s words repeating on loop in her ears, combined with the knowledge that Bastian had never got to feel his baby move, but the asshole in front of her had... that volcano erupted.

  She was enraged, and before she could quell the impulse... smack.

  Katherine slapped Gerard clean across the face.

  Time froze. For a long moment, Gerard’s head remained fixed in the direction it had snapped when she’d hit him. Then he slowly turned to face her.

  It was the first time Katherine had dared to physically retaliate against the man, and despite the fear that blossomed in her chest, she couldn’t help but feel a smidgeon of satisfaction when a tiny drop of red trickled from his mouth. She’d made him bleed.

  Good.

  But that sense of satisfaction didn’t last long.

  She grimaced in disgust when Gerard licked the droplet of blood from the corner of his mouth. Then he bared his teeth at her – she could see more blood pooling in the cracks – and grabbed her by the arm. “You uppity, little bitch! That’s what I get for taking such good care of you?”

  Katherine stared in disbelief. “You had me kidnapped and are holding me hostage in some shack, threatening to rape me every other day. You’re using the safety of my unborn child as leverage against me to get me to behave. What part of that sounds nice to you?”

  “You’re alive, aren’t you?” he spat back in retaliation, shaking her. “Relatively unharmed?” A maniacal grin overtook his face. “Well, at least you were.”

  Before she could react to that suggestive statement, he used his grip on her arm to begin dragging her towards the fire pit. There were no active flames, just smoke, but a sense of foreboding befell Katherine, dread pooling in her gut.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded shrilly, trying to yank herself out of Gerard’s grasp, but failing. He was twice her size, after all.

  “Reminding you of your place,” he spat. Without further warning, he forced her arm into the fire pit, mashing the palm of her hand against the smoldering remains of the fire and holding it there.

  Katherine screamed.

  Pain engulfed her arm – it engulfed her entire being – and she was only half aware of Serena rushing in the hut at the noise.

  Gerard kept her hand pressed against the embers for just a few seconds, but to Katherine, it felt more like a few hours. When he released her, she immediately jerked her hand out of the pit, cradling it delicately to her chest. Tears blurred her vision, and Katherine didn’t want to look at it, but she forced herself to glance down at her hand anyway. Her entire palm was beat red, the delicate skin there already beginning to blister. She choked on a sob at the sight.

  “Maybe that will teach you to keep your hands to yourself. I’d say it would teach you to keep your mouth shut as well, but I know better than to hope anything other than divine intervention could be capable of that.” He snorted in twisted amusement at his own “joke” before leaving the hut.

  Serena wasted no time rushing over to Katherine in his absence. She took Katherine carefully by the elbow of her injured arm, looking at the angry burn on her hand. She sucked in a breath through her teeth
at the sight. “You shouldn’t provoke him,” she scolded gently.

  Katherine stiffened. Serena hadn’t even been in the room when she’d slapped him – a slap Gerard had earned a hundred times over the past eleven days. “What? So it’s my fault that your cousin’s a raging psychopath?”

  Serena’s brown eyes widened to the size of saucers. “Of course, not. No, Katherine, I swear I didn’t mean-” she rushed to explain.

  Katherine tore her arm free from the girl’s grasp. “Just leave me alone, Serena. I’ll tend to the wound – you know, the one that I apparently deserve – by myself.”

  Serena looked like she wanted to argue, but her shoulders drooped when Katherine directed a glare her way, and she backed away from her, retreating to a corner of the room. Katherine braced herself before dunking her hand in the basin of cool water sitting near the fire pit. She forced down a wail that wanted to escape at the sensation.

  After all, the way her entire hand throbbed in pain was nothing compared to how her insides twisted into knots whenever she thought about the fact that she hadn’t seen Bastian in nearly two weeks. She had no idea how he was doing. If he was okay or not (she was betting not). Why he had yet to show up and save her from this hell. The full moon was tomorrow night, after all. She hadn’t given up on the man – Katherine would never give up on him, but... hope dwindled.

  The next morning, Bastian still hadn’t come.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Please, take it.”

  Katherine pursed her lips at the jar of salve that Serena held out to her. She’d been ignoring the girl since the evening before when Gerard had seen fit to burn a layer of skin off her hand, and Serena’s immediate response hadn’t been to denounce his actions.

  As irate as she was with Serena, however, she was in no position to turn down help – no matter the form it came in. Thus, she begrudgingly reached forward with her good hand and accepted the jar of goop. Unfortunately, with her right hand – her dominant hand – currently useless, there was no way Katherine could twist open the jar’s lid – at least not in any dignified manner. She was determined to try, though, and unraveled the plain white t-shirt Serena had wrapped around the wound yesterday evening in an effort to protect it from outside irritants and hasten its healing.