The girl had to be peeled off his chest. She had her eyes shut as tight as she could get them. William pried her hands off him and walked away. She cried out into her self imposed darkness, “NO!! Don’t leave me! I don’t want to die!” he eyes flew open and she practically dove back into William’s chest.
He looked helplessly at Katherine. Her bright green eyes looked back at him. “If this girl was about ten years younger, I might have something funny to say.”
The girl who wrapped herself around William’s torso might have heard and may even have understood that Katherine was insulting her, but the girl showed no sign of loosening her grip. Thankfully, a strong hand ripped in between William’s shirt and the girls arm and forcefully and quickly pried the girl loose from him. William saw that it was Ansuya who had saved him and she was now standing over the girl. The girl was sitting on the ground where she fell, looking up at the beautiful elder.
“The least you can do is show a little dignity, whether you have any or not.” The elder said harshly. Her dark brown eyes bored into the girl’s own pale blue ones. The girl tried to look away but the elder gripped her chin and held her head in place. “I have lived over six decades and four of those have been spent here. In all that time I have never met such a sniveling scared child as the one that faces me now.” She threw the girls head aside in disgust. The girl lay on the floor like she had just been beaten.
William did feel something for the girl. It wasn’t pity…or maybe it was. How could he feel anything less for such a wretched excuse for a sentient person? She had just been thrown into a world that she never knew existed, where monsters were real and nightmares could and often did kill you. The weakness of the girl in front of him made him appreciate the strength of Katherine, Achelois, Aceso and all the other people of the City under the Mountain far more than he thought he had. This girl was in for a rough ride.
Ansuya was staring down at the girl, “Get up.” She said with deathly quietness.
The girl obeyed and slowly stood up. She was gripping her midsection with one arm as the other arm trailed down to rest in front of her crotch covering what the transparent fabric of her outfit was unable to. She let her Chestnut brown hair hang in front of her face. One of her eyes peered out from behind the strands. She looked over the thirteen of them that surrounded her. The human born were all clothed and looking at her with various degrees of disgust or sympathy. There was very little sympathy for the girl in this group. The wolves all looked at her with their golden eyes. He very much doubted that she understood what was happening or what was going to happen to her. His own disapproval was rising in his throat like bile.
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Ansuya didn’t say another word. She spun on her heels and walked off down the black obsidian stone paved street. The rest of the group followed after her. William had not been relieved of his charge yet and so he had to stay behind. The girl stood there not moving clutching at her nearly naked body.
William reached out and grabbed her arm, not ungently, but she yanked herself free of him with the first sign of life she had shown since being ripped free of his chest. She looked at him with pleading eyes, “I wanna go home.”
He wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. “If you’re lucky, you’ll get past today. Then you might have a chance to see home…some day.” He fully expected the girl to run off again. But she let him take her hand and guide her down the street following after the group of shape shifters.
The girl may as well have been completely comatose. She stumbled just behind William with a heavy thudding of her naked feet. Something about this whole thing just felt wrong. He remembered his first day here. He had never once acted anything at all like this girl was acting. Amanda certainly never showed any aptitude for this kind of behavior. He felt like he was leading a five year by the hand to see her parents because she had gotten into some kind of trouble at school. He hated himself for having to do this, but what was worse was that this girl had behaved worse than a child, and he was starting to think of this girl as something less than a person. He was even mentally referring to her as ‘girl’. What kind of person did that? He didn’t want to be callous toward her.
“What’s your name?” he asked politely.
“Lacey.” The girl replied quietly.
He knew that that wasn’t her real name. What kind of a person used her real name as her stripper title? He tried again. “No, I mean what’s your real name?”
The girl stopped and looked at him. Her eyes met his. She didn’t answer his question but asked one of her own. “Are you going to kill me?”
William didn’t bother hiding the shock on his face. He gaped at the girl silently asking her what kind of a messed up question was that. He shook his head in the negative and gestured to the polished black buildings around them. “Do you have any idea where you are right now?” The girl shook her head. William lifted his gaze toward the ceiling of the underground cavern. The ceiling crystals were shining dimly for the early morning starlight they simulated. He heard a gasp from the girl as she had her head upturned toward the hundreds of lights shining down on her.
William swept his arms out to the buildings around him. The girl seemed to be seeing them for the first time. “This place was built thousands of years ago.” He wasn’t sure how much information he should give her, but if she was here she was going to be here for a very long time. “For many hundreds of years, the Shape shifters have lived, worked, grown, and loved here in these buildings.” The girl was at least looking at the buildings.