Blood Bound

Chapter 1

Part 1

"For it would be better to die all at once than all my days be evil."

Aeschylus, 430 B.C.E.

Metis

The rush of dark, red blood was immediate as she pulled the knife swiftly across the throat of the stunned goat, taking special care to sever both carotid arteries. "Good girl, Bessa," Metis said as she tipped the beast's head forward to hurry the bleeding out.

She had spent the last twenty minutes calming the animal so that her stress hormones wouldn't stiffen the meat, or make it bitter. Then she shot the goat in the head with a captive bolt pistol, rendering the animal insensible to pain before slitting it's throat over a grate in the floor.

She wiped the snot from her nose with her sleeve as Carol expertly tied the animal's legs together so she'd be easier to move once the rigor was over. Nona would have twenty-four hours to butcher the beast. Until then, the freezing temperature of the slaughterhouse would keep the meat fresh.

As she helped Carol position the bloody brown goat over a grate in the floor, she wondered if this was what other 18-year -olds were doing. She had no way of knowing, of course, because she'd been on the farm for as long as she could remember.

Normal 18-year-olds were a constant source of fascination for Metis. She studied other young women in town, watching what they wore, trying to pick up on their idioms and style. 

Bloody overalls and boots covered in goat shit did not seem to be envogue.

She washed up in the sink in the barn, excited to be allowed out on her own today, especially after sneaking out a few weeks ago. Normal teenagers definitely snuck out. But probably not to sit in a coffee shop pretending to read, listening to other people's conversations. Normal teenagers had friends, parents, and lives. People knew they existed.

Metis was safest on the farm, but she was desperate to be normal. She was desperate for a friend.

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Metis spent a few hours shopping—and a few hundred dollars of her birth mother's money—and then decided to treat herself to lunch. The pizza place at the end of the block accepted cash and was Nona-approved. It was big and there were booths in the back, where she requested to be seated.

After she ordered, she got up to go to the bathroom. As she finished peeing, she spied something just out of reach in the stall next to her. She quickly finished up and darted out of the stall to snatch it up—a print copy of the New York Times. It was three days old, but she'd take it. They had plenty of access to news on their teleglass, but a hard copy of an actual paper was a rarity, even for people who weren't in hiding.

Everyone knew that the news online and on TV was strictly monitored by the U.S. Bureau of Communications, and therefore said basically whatever the government wanted it to say. Actual newspapers were harder to track, and therefore were full of conspiracy theories, political intrigue, outlandish rumors – the really good stuff. The Bureau, and BodyTechNews, were constantly trying to squash the papers, but they hadn't yet. For now, underground subscriptions were limited, and the farm certainly didn't have one, so she'd be a hero when she got home tonight. Everyone, save Nona, would be excited to read what the New York Times 'really thought,' as Tiller would say.

She munched on her pizza and fries, always silently thankful that the Apex enzyme kept her so thin. She paged through the paper and found her horoscope; she finished the crossword and then neatly folded the paper back up, ready to take it home to the family. . "For Richer or Poorer? The Truth Behind Your Apex Score." Apex conspiracy theories were a favorite topic of print journalism, she knew. She tucked the paper into her handbag.