by Rose Francis
“A possible case has shown up in Europe,” he began. “A woman ate the face off of a stranger. She used a pen to stab the woman’s stomach and tear it open, and then went at her intestines.” He tried not to look at Serena’s horrified face. He waited a few moments before speaking again. “By the time this is all over—and yes, it will end someday—most of us might be dead. But life goes on. No matter what.”
She remained silent.
He squeezed her shoulders, reminding her that he was there. “Who knows how long it’s going to take to clean this mess up? But have you ever seen a flower grow out of concrete?” He tenderly joined her hand with his on her stomach. “Wherever there is life, there is hope. There’s always a creature somewhere with the will or whatever it takes to survive, and enough variation among us that, as a group, we can survive pretty much anything. People have survived plane crashes, being stuck underwater for days, and even being swallowed and carried for over a hundred miles by a tornado.” He rubbed her arm. “Maybe a meteor will come and finish us off someday, and even then, maybe some unknown underground tribe will make it. As for this? An outbreak? We’ve made it through plenty of these before. We’re warriors—we’ve got this.”
He smiled, and he knew it was still early, but under the hand on her belly, he could have sworn he felt a small kick.
END
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Rose Francis likes reading—and writing—psychological fiction, particularly stories addressing difficult topics.
She has been writing from a very early age and is thrilled to have a platform that allows her to bring her tales to the public.
*Be the first to know about new releases or giveaways etc. by signing up for Rose’s newsletter here. A newsletter will be sent once a month or less, and in each one, the author will reveal a secret about herself.*
Trapped is the first story in her Bite-Sized Romance series—a series of unrelated speculative novellas.
You can find all of Rose’s books on:
AMAZON
***
The Wolf, The Witch & The Wasteland
By Jacqueline Sweet
-For Riley
Chapter 1.
You Can See Freedom From Here
Lucia’s home stood outside the city walls but she didn’t fear the raiders or the slavers or the shifting beasts that slithered across the sands like a storm of hunger. No, Lucia feared nothing so much as being stuck on that plot of land forever. The entire world was bound by the pylons marking the edges of her uncle’s holdings. Baron Lawson had the only working mine for a hundred miles around. He had riches, servants, and clean water pumped from deep underground. And clean water was a precious commodity, especially when you have the damned luck to grow up in the middle of an irradiated wasteland.
The very best place on the baron’s holdings to Lucia’s mind was the bulging hump of a hill that marked the northwest corner of the property. Centuries ago it had been a store of some sort. The plastic sign had melted and the wind had scoured the paint from the surface, but the faint words “eat well spend less” were still legible. Not that the store had anything of value in it. Scrappers and nature had seen to that. The contents of the crumbling hill weren’t what drew Lucia every night to stand atop the teetering rubble but rather the view. If she clambered onto the highest rock and stood on her tippiest toes, she could see just over the walls of the nearby town of Los Robles. She stared with wonder at the steaming landships moored in their heaving docks, the girls in their fancy dresses tittering in colorful clumps like wildflowers, and especially the handsome soldiers of the crown with their crimson armor shining like fresh blood in the sun.
The closest Lucia got to the city these days was that hill, or the rare visit from merchants on trade day.
Today was trade day, Lucia’s absolute favorite day of the month. She dressed carefully. You simply never knew what the traders would look like. Their routes around the Suzerainty could take years and were quite dangerous. It was more likely to see a new face on trade day than to not. And Lucia loved new faces. Each new face was a chance to escape her uncle, a chance to see the world.
Last trade day it so happened that Lucia had smuggled an application out with the cat-eared bent-backed merchant Yovid. The application could have secured her a place in the crown guard. Not even her uncle could stop that, she hoped. So on this day Lucia dressed not in her finest, most flattering dress—the finest that her uncle would allow her that is—but rather in clothes more serviceable. She chose worn boots, tight-fitting breeches the color of sand, and a blindingly white shirt emblazoned with the logo of the crown. If word came that the Suzerainty wanted her in the academy, she needed to be ready to run.
“Lucia!” her uncle’s voice rang out across the battered yard. “Confound it girl. Where are you?” He was in a temper again. The Baron Lawson reacted to market day as if he was going to war, as if the merchants were his sworn enemies.
The baron was not fond of people, save those who owed him or those whose leashes he tugged.
Lucia leapt down from her favorite hillock and tore across the fields, dodging the bulging pipes and clanking machines that served as the backbone of her uncle’s operation. The baron’s mine was the envy of the wasteland, or at least of the sargasso dunes. Without him, there’d be no civilization out here. Lucia tested herself, running quickly towards the man-sized pipes and hurling herself bodily over them, twisting in mid air to land on her feet. If anyone had been watching they would have assumed she was showing off. But to Lucia, it was practice. The Suzerain’s academy took only the best shifters for their guardian force—the red jackets, everyone called them. She lacked the hulking size or the natural weapons that others sported. Her quickness, nimbleness and wits were her greatest assets. They needed to be nurtured if she was to ever leave this godforsaken place.
Darting around a steaming apparatus the size of a small house, Lucia caught sight of the merchant’s sandship. She recognized it, distantly. Had she seen it on her uncle’s land before, or just witnessed its comings and goings through the city gate, from atop her lonely little mountain?
The ship was a motley collection of rags and junk, painted a blinding white. A low slung saucer formed the base and it met the ground on three sharp blades that each ran the length of the craft. Above the saucer a domed cabin stood towards the rear of the ship—the aft? Lucia had never been good with the names of sandships, though they fascinated her. Each ship was free to come and go. To maneuver the terrible broken wastes at their own peril. A bent mast protruded whiplike from the center of the ship, on which hung the ragged sail.
Truth be told, the ship did not look like much. The sand blades showed wear and scour from their trips across the desert, but otherwise it could have been the work of children at play, lashing junk together to pretend to be sand pirates.
“What a piece of junk,” Lucia said aloud.
“She gets the job done,” said a voice behind her. Lucia spun. In the shade of the steaming apparatus—a purifier, if she remembered correctly—huddled her uncle, a gaggle of merchants, and a smirking captain. He’d been the one who talked. She’d insulted his ship. Lucia blushed furiously, cursed herself for a fool. He wouldn’t smuggle her out now, no matter what she did.
“Leave the girl alone, Farid. Do not speak to her at all. My niece is off limits to you and your charms.”
The pirate bowed low, smiling ironically at the baron. “As you wish, your baronship.”
The sand captain wore loose fitting red trousers that billowed about his legs. A golden sash wrapped about his muscled waist. He wore no shirt, but a harness wrapped his chest covered in pockets and hanging tools. He had arms that showed the work of spending a lifetime hauling on a ship’s ropes. A hooded scarf covered his head in the same shade of red as his pants. Thick goggles protected his eyes. His smirking mouth lay exposed, a challenge to the entire world.
“You watch that tongue, Farid.” Her uncle sputtered and jammed a finger into the p
irate’s broad chest. “This escort trip doesn’t even cover the interest on your debts to me.”
The merchants shifted nervously. Lucia stared at her feet. They weren’t meant to hear this.
“Relax, baron. I’ll get the money. I have some scores lined up. I just need more time.”
“Get back to your ship,” her uncle growled, showing his fangs. “Stay out of my sight until we are done transacting our business.”
“As you wish, your baron-ness.” The pirate again bowed low, pretending at obsequiousness while grinning sarcastically. He was either very foolish or very brave. Lucia didn’t care for him at all. Sand pirates should be serious and imposing. They should show more of the shift in them. This man—this Farid—she couldn’t even tell what kind of shifter he was. He lacked the pointed ears of the fox people, the bunched shoulders and flattened forehead of the cat shifters, or even the patchwork characteristics of the lowborn mutts. For her part, Lucia had the prominent mouth of a wolf shifter, just like her uncle. And maybe like her parents. Fine silver fur glistened with sweat at her collarbone, along the underside of her arms, up the back of her neck.
Lucia had never properly shifted—but who could these days? The alphas were all gone, and without them the blood just failed to stir. She’d seen only one shift in her entire life—her uncle. He’d been taken by a deep rage after her aunt had been caught freeing two of the house slaves. The man’s hands—already overly large and still possessed of the strength gained from working his machines—splayed and cracked, forming claws. Black fur sprouted from his hands like night falling. His eyes lost their muddy color and became blazing sparks in his skull. That was the night Lucia’s aunt Elierra had lost her life. Or rather, when her uncle stole it away with fingers like daggers. Lucia had watched the events unfold from atop the staircase in the center of the house. She had keen eyes—one of her shifter gifts—and couldn’t tear herself away from the sight, witnessed through a half-closed doorway, of her uncle’s rage finally being unleashed.
If she was being truthful, Lucia feared the shift. She hoped it would never come to her. To lose your mind to the beast within—who could ever want that?
Lucia shivered, lost in the grip of memories until her uncle’s barking pulled her out. “Lucia, you damned lazybones, help me inspect the merchandise. If you’re to take over for me one day, you’ll need to know every aspect of the business.” The pirate captain had left, sauntered back to his ship like he didn’t have a care in the world, like her uncle wasn’t already planning a dozen ways to kill him. The baron was even more annoyed than usual.
“I was hoping to go to the city tonight,” Lucia tried. “I could hitch a ride with the merchants and return before moonrise?” Or return never, she added silently.
“We can talk later, girl. There’s work to be done. Even now these pitiful ratmen bring forth their bedraggled cargo, cleaned and fed recently, but who knows their true state? The ratmen have arts known to them to mask the health of a slave. Just last year I purchased a lot from these same traders and within a fortnight they’d all passed from disease.”
The merchants were all rat shifters, a desert-dwelling clan. Their bodies were thinner than seemed possible and their fingers spasmed when they spoke like they were choking the life from their words. From the rear of the pirate’s sandship, four ratlings armed with spears and stunners prodded a group of slaves to the baron’s feet. Lucia stood behind her uncle, letting his shadow hide her from the dizzying sun.
“Already more bodies do you need?” the leader of the ratlings was a woman with skin so gnarled and pink she looked like a finger plucked fresh from a bath. “More bodies we have for you. Come! Come!” She excitedly gestured the baron forward and took Lucia’s elbow in hers, as if they were strolling on the veranda and not finding more lives to sacrifice to her uncle’s empire.
More than a dozen slaves stood on wobbling legs, blinking their eyes in the sun. They’d been locked up for some time, Lucia noted. Every kind of shifter was represented, and one hulking mutt, his body an uneasy alliance of wolf and bear and snake.
“I need no brute labor,” her uncle barked. “But rather skilled workers this time. A myriad carried off my last master mechanic and my interpreter fell ill with fever and perished.”
The slaves showed no notice of the words being spoken. Control bands on their heads dimmed their thoughts, the green circuitry looking like verdigris on their temples.
The rat woman stalked up and down her line of slaves. Tapping two with the stick sword she carried. A hint of silver gleamed at the tip. It was a lethal weapon. Lucia swallowed hard at the sight of it.
“This one and this one, my lord.” The rat woman’s voice was a breathy squeak.
“I buy nothing uninspected, vermin.” Her uncle had long since lost his way with people. He’d always been an angry man, but ever since her aunt’s passing it was like he couldn’t be anything but angry. There were days when Lucia wondered if he had ever really returned after his violent, murderous shift. “Deactivate your foul machines and let me speak with them.”
“As you wish.” The rat woman snapped her fingers and her fellow slavers flew into action, producing tools and removing the slave bands from the indicated slaves.
As soon as the bands were off, life animated their faces. The first was the interpreter, a thin fox shifter, painfully tall. He stood stiffly, as if at attention. His face immediately became a soup of worry and fear. “Oh my,” he said in a reedy voice, “are we to be sold already?”
“I am a man of business,” her uncle began in a blustering tone. “I require an assistant who knows numbers and bookkeeping, and can speak with the clans of the wastes.”
The thin fox shifter nodded quickly. “Yes, my lord. I am called Triptongue. I previously served as a court translator in the principality of Sierren, before my present circumstances. All common languages are known to me.” He half-bowed, lowering his eyes in obeisance.
“Fine. Fine.” The baron snapped his fingers at Lucia. She darted forward to give payment to the slavers and to sign the documents marking the fox shifter’s soul as theirs.
The second slave was the mutt. He was gorgeous to behold. His body was immense and muscled in the manner of the bears, but fine sand-colored scales covered his arms and legs while his face had an unmistakable lupine quality. Gazing upon him took Lucia’s breath away. Whenever she met his blue eyes her belly tightened and her knees trembled.
“This the mechanic?” Her uncle growled, stepping so close to the slave that his great belly forced the man back off his post.
“Yes, my lord.” The rat women soothed. “He has a quickness to his mind that is rare amongst the mutts. This man-“
“He’s no man,” her uncle spat.
“This one,” the rat woman continued, “ran an illegal mining operation single handedly up in the hills. He has quite the talent with machines. Ancient devices that hadn’t been awakened since the catastrophe—he had them humming as they chewed upon the very rock.”
“If he’s so clever, why is he here?”
The rat woman chuckled darkly. “Even a clever thing like this needs to sleep, my lord. And in the still of the dark we waited.”
“Next time, build some defenses first, you fool.” The baron growled.
The slave kept smiling, but didn’t say a word.
Lucia’s skin prickled. Something was wrong. For a moment she could see within the mutt, saw clouds of illness within him, green and roiling.
“Get back, Uncle. This man is sick.” Lucia warned.
The baron stepped back just in time for the man to cough forth a foul foaming froth.
“Plagued!” Her uncle swore. “And you trying to pass him off as hale!” He drew the stun baton hidden within his robes and held it aloft as if to strike the rat woman down.
The wind blew hot on Lucia’s face. Across the fields the sand pirate sat on the bow of his ship, one foot dangling on the precipice. She longed to be away from her uncle’s brutality,
from this filthy world she was trapped in.
“Sir, please. We did not know.” The rat woman bowed at the waist, but kept her eyes on the baron’s. She retreated with a slow shuffling step, preparing to run if he should strike.
“Perhaps I could be of use, sirs?” Triptongue peeped. “If you are seeking a mechanic, why that servant there on the end is excellent. I know her from many years of shared indenture.”
The rat woman flinched. “Why yes, that one is an excellent choice, sir. Perhaps I shall give her to you freely? To show that there are no hard feelings and that any disease was wholly unintentional?”
The baron nodded. “Bring her forth.” He lashed out and grabbed the rat woman in his thick hands. He lifted her close and whispered in her ear. “You’ll have to try harder than that to kill me off, Wynonne. If I see another plagued slave from you I will fill your village with such pain that the gods themselves will return to see what the ruckus is.”
The other rat men busied themselves undoing the slave band on the mechanic. When the device was removed the woman’s placid expression squinched up into a face of permanent disdain. She was older than any slave Lucia had ever seen, thick at the waist and ankle. Lucia had never seen her grandmother, the baron’s mother, but from the descriptions this woman was of her type. She was a fox shifter, too, just like Triptongue, with oversized red ears pointing straight up from her head and a thick bushy tail swishing behind her. She wore a simple dress covered in pockets and loops, where tools could hang for quick access. Her gray hair was pulled back in a severe bun.
“What’s your name?” The baron tossed the rat woman several yards through the air. She tumbled across the broken rocky yard with a hiss.
The fox shifter arranged her shoulders defiantly. “Call me Foxtail.” Her voice was deep and crackled, as if she never used it.
