Beasts and Savages (The Beastly Series Book 1) (2 page)

I thanked Nana before I left to shut myself in my room for the night.

***

That night I had a nightmare. It started out the same as every nightmare I've had since Lucille's death. In it, I walked into Lucille's house and up her stairs. I hesitated and called her name before I opened her bedroom door. When I walked in the room, she hung by a rope from the ceiling's cross beam, swaying by her neck. In every dream before, this was where I screamed myself awake, but tonight the scream caught in my throat. I placed my hands around my neck, frantically trying to release my shrieks. I tripped into the hanging body and Lucille's head jerked up, her eyes solid red and full of warning. A throaty voice called out, “I killed for nothing! Nothing!” My scream finally escaped, drowning out the voice and waking me up.

The overhead light in my bedroom flicked on and I shielded my eyes from its brightness. I sat up, sweating and shivering. My mother padded across the room and handed me a glass of water, and I gulped it down, shivering as the coldness soothed my burning throat. I squeaked a "thank you" to her and took another gulp.

She brushed my hair out of my face. “Another nightmare? I thought you were over them. It's been a few weeks since your last.” She sat on the bed, wrapping her arm around me. The aroma of cocoa butter and lavender hung in the air around her. I nestled into her embrace.

“You're shaking! Are you okay? Was this something different?”

I had told my mother about the nightmares after Lucille died. I didn’t have a choice after my screaming woke up everyone in the house. She was understanding and explained they were a part of my healing process, and reassured me that I was normal and that no child should see her best friend dead, much less hanging from a jump rope. But I wasn't going to tell her about the change in the dream. I couldn't understand or describe it. Lucille was kind, and gentle. She was depressed, but she wasn't violent. I shook my head.

“Maybe it's because I'm beginning my changing.” I drank the last of the water and handed her the cup.

“It probably is. Your hormones will be out of whack for a while until your body gets regulated.” Mom cupped my chin in her hand and turned my face to hers. “Sweetie.” She pulled me close, until her pale blue eyes met mine. “Don't think you will end up like Lucille. You are not her. You are stronger, wiser. And you have me to help you through anything, even if you, you...”

“Have a boy,” I mumbled softly. I looked down at my arms now crossed over my folded knees, and pulled my knees even closer. Mother never had serious conversations with me. She would always refer me to Nana or tell me that I would understand someday. I thought back to the conversation at dinner. It had been the most serious conversation ever held at our table.

“Yes, even that. There are worse things, you know.” She gave my shoulder a final squeeze and stood to leave.

When she was halfway to the door I called out, “Mom? You had a boy before me, didn't you?”

She walked to the door, looked in both directions, and then closed it. When she got back to my bed, she knelt down and took my hands. “I did- I,” she started, stopped and started again, “I had a boy after my first hunt. But it was nothing like Lucille's ordeal.”

I gave her my best please-don’t-sugar-coat-this-for-me look. She gave me a stern look back.

“Really. I had him and he was healthy, everything was okay, and he went to live in the man-tribe with all the other boys. There were no multiples left in the nursery to adopt, so I was back on the hunt list before they had the chance to give me the surgery that stops the changings. They even let me hunt the second time six months early. I suspect your grandmother had something to do with that.”

She sighed, and then continued, “At that time, many women who had boys could hunt again, provided there were no complications with their first pregnancy. A few women had requisitioned, and hunted a third time. My situation was nothing special. Honestly, I feel as if I have gotten to contribute to society twice. A boy who will be hunted and sacrifice himself to another to create a child, and you, who will hunt and produce a child.”

My mother leaned in and a tear glistened on her cheek. She whispered, “Your grandmother was so upset when I had a boy. She thought it brought embarrassment to the Corre family name. Let's not mention that you know, okay?”

As she turned off my light, I thought about how I had always wished I looked more like her. My mother's tall, slender and graceful body was one of a dancer's. Her gold-flecked blue eyes reminded me of the midday sun reflecting on the ocean. Beauty and confidence seemed to radiate off of her. I tried to picture her as a young girl, tall and gangly, changing and going on a hunt. I could picture her laughing, playing, and running with her long raven hair flowing with the wind behind her, but I couldn't picture her changing. Or hunting. The image just wouldn't come.

When I was twelve years old, I was short, stocky, and clumsy. I had my mother's dark hair, but it didn't complement my olive complexion. My eyes were brown and boring. I was never a fast runner, and I hated climbing. If I'd hunted when I was twelve, I was pretty sure the only thing I would have accomplished was hurting myself.

As I drifted off, my mind wandered to the boy Mom had before me. I didn’t know what a boy looked like, but wondered if he had her eyes, her graceful stature. I sighed. It really didn’t matter; he was older than me and mostly likely had already been hunted.

CHAPTER 2

~ Breeding Class ~

In homeroom, Ms. Wright called me to her desk and handed me a slip of paper.

“Congratulations, Lea,” she called out as I walked back to my desk. “You'll love being in Ms. Dawning's class. She was my breeding teacher, you know.”

The class broke out into applause. Girls who had never spoken to me before smiled and congratulated me, exclaiming they were in the class too and would see me there. This happened to every student, but it didn't stop the embarrassment. Heat rose in my cheeks as I sat down and opened the slip: 

Lea Corre

Breeding Class- Ms. Dawning

Morning-Rm 303

If you weren't changing, you weren’t allowed in the stairwell that led above the main floors of the school. I didn't understand that. Every girl endured one change and either prepared to hunt or skipped breeding and chose the mandated surgery early. Still, there was a shroud of secrecy around the event. Though I doubted the accuracy of the conversations, almost all information I received was from gossip.

When the bell rang, I gathered my belongings and headed for my new class. As I ascended, a large poster loomed in front of me:

NOTICE:

Classrooms 301-310 for breeding classes only. Non-breeding students are not permitted on the third floor. Please use caution when approaching a classroom and never enter a room with a closed door. Thank you.

“Are you supposed to be up here?” A girl of about twelve blocked my path, her arms crossed. She wore a coral tunic that hung loose on her frame over navy leggings. The mint beads of her bracelets clicked against each other as her wrists moved. Barrettes held tufts of her curly black hair away from her face. She was adorable, yet feral, like a baby wildcat. The girl held my gaze, narrowing her dark eyes.

“Yes, I’m going to Ms. Dawning’s class. Are you supposed to be up here?” I crossed my arms and narrowed my eyes back at her.

“Ms. Dawning! I have her too,” the girl gushed. Any doubts she had melted away. She put her hands on my elbows, digging her coral painted nails into my skin. I took a step back from her eager movement.

“I'm Rally. It's so great you're in our class. I heard that there were two classes starting this week.” She pulled me up the rest of the stairs. “You only missed yesterday and that was mostly taking attendance and Ms. Dawning worrying over not having a full class on the first day. You’ll love her. Oh! I have an empty seat beside me. Maybe you can sit there?”

Rally didn't stop talking until we had reached the door. When we stepped inside, she ducked her head and headed straight for her seat. The other girls seemed too distracted to pay her any attention. I saw another girl, small and blond, standing timidly at the front of the room. She was a girl of maybe thirteen or fourteen with waves of hair flowing down her back and scared blue eyes. I wondered if she knew any more about breeding than I did.

A stout woman with short gray hair stood behind a desk. She smiled warmly at me as I took my place next to the blonde girl, who flinched when our arms brushed momentarily.

“Class.” Ms. Dawning rapped on the board behind her with a pointer. “Listen up! We have two new students: Lea and May. Everyone welcome them.” She paused for murmurs of welcome. “Lea, May, I have arranged for you to stay with me the rest of the day. Now our class is full. We have all thirty, and we can move on to more important things than attendance.” She studied the students in front of her. “This means we officially begin, ladies, and I have much to teach you!”

Rally waved to me while bouncing up and down in her chair calling, “Come sit by me, Lea!”

I gave her a small smile and walked toward the empty desk beside her. She bounced even harder, making stray curls poof out from behind her ears. As I walked down the aisle, I glanced at the other students. I recognized a few of them. I noticed a set of twins sitting next to each other whispering back and forth. I wondered how they get along despite growing up in different households.

Ms. Dawning addressed the class before I reached my seat. “Okay class, first we will discuss what happens when you change. This class is scheduled for changing in about a week. Those of you who did not do so yesterday, please don’t forget to see me for your injection before you leave.”

My ears perked at the word injection. Mom had told me she had signed papers and medical forms for me, but she never mentioned injections. I looked around the room. The other girls were nodding and taking down notes, acting as if she had just announced there would be a test next week. Even Rally, with her sweet innocent disposition, didn’t balk at the word injection.

Ms. Dawning turned on a projector with a little remote. A picture of a girl flashed onto the screen. Yet, she didn't exactly look like a teenage girl. The hunter in the photo had long dark hair, pulled into a high pony tail. She was wearing a brown halter and a fur skirt. Her fur boots came to her knees. The top of her hands were full of bristly spikes; her nails were sharpened to fine points. Canine teeth jutted slightly out of her mouth over her bottom lip. Her skin seemed to have a light brown downy coat. The girl’s eyes were frightening. Her black pupils almost covered her irises, barely showing the brown surrounding them. Her eyelids were narrowed toward the camera. She looked vicious, ready to strike.

“This is what most girls look like after they've gone through a changing," Ms. Dawning began. "Now, we never see each other like this. In fact, you won't see yourself as a changed girl because, well to simply put it, most girls are scared of themselves when they go through it. When you feel the changing coming, you will go to your safe room at home. Most of you will find yours in your basement. If your mother has not shown you where the safe room is and how to lock yourself inside, please ask her to show you by this weekend. We don’t want any of you running loose while you are changed.