But I can see it, Mr. Sebastian doesn’t believe me.
His fingers dig into my cheeks so hard a whimper leaves me.
“But you did do something,” he spits, shoving my face away.
“I didn’t do that,” I repeat, slumping forward in the handler’s hold, tears pricking at the backs of my eyes. But I don’t let them fall. My coppery hair falls between us like a curtain as I rack my brain to try to figure outwhat to do.
One reason I hate Mr. Sebastian is because he seems to like making the girls cry. So, I won’t give him the satisfaction.
“Fuck this bullshit,” he mutters under his breath.
Those three words make my blood run cold. The girls here always say I’m a good listener, mostly because I can make people feel better when they talk to me. But I think I’m a good listener in a different way, too.
I know it before he says another word.
He’s going to make an example of me.
“We have the rules here for a reason,” he says. Even though his words are seemingly directed at me, he’s projecting loud enough for the entire room to hear. “And if you’re going to choose tobreak them, then you have no place here.”
With a wave of his hand, the handler drags me towards the door.
“This facility has done an excellent job taking care of each and every one of you, and you, Mirabelle, have taken that for granted,” he says.
“Wh—what! What do you mean?” I cry out, my slippers sliding on the cold tile floors as I’m dragged backwards.
“There are much worse places than here, Mirabelle, and you’ve earned yourself a place in one,” Mr. Sebastian says with a terrifying, sadistic glint in his eye.
Gasps and a couple of sobs from some girls carry through the room.
Once a girl has been brought to the facility, she never leaves. Ever.
Mr. Sebastian follows the handler as I’m dragged out of the cafeteria. The last thing I see before the thick metal doors close behind us are Gwen’s wide, terrified eyes.
“Where—where are you sending me!” I ask, the sound of the cafeteria door slamming shut behind us snapping me back into my body.
Punishments are natural consequences of breaking the rules,but I still struggle against the handler’s hold. Something tells me that wherever I’m being sent, I won’t like it.
This isn’t the normal punishment that we’re given for breaking the rules.
Mr. Sebastian glances at me with that same, smug, terrifying look as he remains silent.
I’m quickly overcome by a bone-chilling terror as the handler continues to drag me down what feels like an endless path of hallways I’ve never seen, following Mr. Sebastian to a thick metal door with a red security panel.
I’ve never been through this door. None of the girls have been. One of the biggest rules here was never to go through doors with the red security panels, and I’m about to be dragged right through one.
Mr. Sebastian scans something, and the door buzzes open, sliding back to reveal an elevator.
“Please—where—where are you taking me?” My voice trembles just as much as I’m trembling as the elevator doors slide shut.
I feel my stomach get lodged in my throat as the elevator rises. I don’t know how long we’re in there for, but it feels endless.
The elevator doors open, revealing the backs of two alphas in expensive suits that match Mr. Sebastian’s. They step aside, giving him a nod.
I take a couple of shuffling steps forward into the room like a puppet.
There’s old, dusty-looking carpet. It’s faded in certain spots on the floor, right beside the windows.
My eyes go wide.
