Three
Present Day
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to the tiny creature writhing in my hand.
I shoved the crawler through one of the gaps in my muzzle, using my fingers to push it all the way into my mouth. It wriggled on my lips, its wispy legs brushing against my skin like strands of hair.
I bit down hard and chewed fast.
I didn’t want it to suffer. It was only trying to survive, like me. It just wandered into the wrong place at the wrong time.
It didn’t taste like much of anything, not this time. My throat was so dry it took three attempts to swallow to get it all down, but it did nothing to fill me. Instead, guilt settled heavily in the pit of my stomach while hunger curled around it.
I told myself I wouldn’t eat them anymore, but I was just sohungry.
I wiped away my tears, then cleared my throat.
“Are you crying, Three?”
My heart raced as I sat there and didn’t move. Didn’t answer.
“He ain’t gonna answer you, Two. I dunno why you keep tryin’,” Twelve shouted from down the row.
“I just ain’t ever seen him cry before, mind your own damn business, Twelve.”
“Fuck you.” Twelve’s deep voice echoed in the large space, the angry tone of it pounding into my skull over and over again.
Two muttered something under his breath, and then it was quiet again.
I wished our cells weren’t bars on three sides, that solid wall was there instead to separate us all. Then maybe they wouldn’t keep trying to talk to me. I wouldn’t have to listen to them argue and cry and scream. This part of the prison was just one long room with twelve cages on either side and three in the back and there was no escaping the other hounds.
It was better than the single cage they kept us in years ago, though.
My stomach gurgled, breaking the silence.
It had been three days since they last fed us.
Two days since Five corrupted.
One day since Seven killed himself.
I wondered where he’d gone. If it was better than here. If he’d even gone anywhere at all. Maybe he’d just…disappeared.
He didn’t exist anymore. Anywhere. He was nothing.
Part of me was jealous that he didn’t have to suffer with the rest of us any longer.Iwanted to be gone from here, to never have to smell Hunter’s sour breath or hear Hayes’s cruel laugh as he beat one of us to a bloody pulp.
Part of me thought he was lucky.
I wanted to know how he’d done it.
If Hunter and Hayes were never coming back, then I would do the same.
Then there was the other part…
The other part had a vicious will to escape this wretched place, even if I was only free for a day, an hour, a minute.
I wanted to befree.
