Animals ✔

Chapter 3

            I hate the colour orange. 

            It's all I see when I close my eyes and all I see when I open them. The window is small and looking out it means looking at the massive wolf sitting guard outside it. 

        I'd much rather have the pale orange colour of the walls seared beneath my eyelids. 

        The lacy white duvet is thick and my entire body feels just a little too warm. But it's easier to fake sleep than it is to listen to Jon ramble out apologies that quickly turn into frustrated warnings. 

        My backpack is at the foot of my bed, in the same spot it was in the first time I woke up here, but my lighter is missing. They decided they would hold on to it until I was feeling more "compliant." Even the thought of it makes me snort. 

        Yeah, right.           

            For what it's worth, I've gotten lucky. None of them seem to realize who I am. I'm free to roam the house if I choose—I'm just not able to leave it—so instead I've gone on a hunger strike.

             The last two days I've refused to leave the room, the bed even, with the exception of a few brief bathroom breaks, and I feel as though I'm going to lose my mind. But I'm certainly not going to give into them. You can't just lock someone up and expect her to bend to your will. That's not how life works and it's not in me to just sit back and let someone else take over my life. 

            As far as it goes, the hunger hasn't even started to bother me. Jon, on the other hand, looks worse and worse every time he enters the room—call me a sadist, but that brings me a welcome kind of satisfaction. 

            The wolf outside doesn't move. In all the time he's been out there, I doubt he has even blinked.  To be honest, it's a bit eerie.  The fur on his back and snout is a deep black that blends into the dark at night, but his belly and forepaws are white. He's, somehow, bigger than both the wolves I encountered in the woods. If I stood next to him he'd probably stand just taller than my elbows, made up of thick, strong muscles. 

            The first time I tried to flee out the window it was dark; my first night trapped in this house and he was laying down, disguised by the dark. That is, until I got my leg over the window ledge and he started snarling. Just the sight of his teeth had me scrambling back into the room. He took to sitting after that.

            I try to avoid looking at him now; his teeth remind me of too many things I would rather not think about. Avoiding him, however, gives me nothing else to do but stare at the dull orange walls or pick at the lace on my blankets. 

            The boredom might be what does me in. But I've been bored before and it'll take at least a few more days until I crack. Hopefully by then I'll already be free.           

            The knock on the door startles me out of my thoughts and I throw myself backwards on the bed, yanking the duvet up and over my head. Jon's voice rings out before I've settled beneath the covers and I groan loudly as they are slowly pulled away. 

            "Really Clara? Twenty years old and you're acting like a child?" I guess he's no longer in the mood to apologize. Jerk. 

            I glare back, "Really Jon? Abducting your baby cousin? Don't you have better things to do?" 

            Jon sighs, running a hand down his face as I cross my arms across my chest. "Look Clara, no one is forcing you to stay in here. Punishing yourself is not going to help any." He crinkles his nose and frowns, "it wouldn't kill you to take a shower, would it?"