The Luna's Forced Mark

Chapter 9

Catarina’s POV

After the twins came in and tried to console me because I was crying, they haven’t come back. I don’t know how long I’ve been down here now, but it feels like forever. Someone brings me food three times a day, but that’s it.

I could go for a shower and clean clothes and coffee. God, I’ve missed coffee. I usually only get water. One time there was apple juice with my breakfast, but that was the only time I got that. It didn’t matter. I barely ate the last few days. I couldn’t stomach the food anymore. They were just dragging out my death, and it wasn’t right.

I know they wanted the truth from me and I wanted to give it, but when you become a hunter, you take an oath and that oath is something that we live by and I couldn’t bring myself to betray it. We pledge ourselves to them and to die before we spoke of who we were and what we did.

My dad lived by this and made sure that I did too. I wanted to make him proud of me. I had to imagine that he and my mom were together and watching over me. Jeff would be with them as well. There is no way he is still alive.

The door burst open, and my heartbeat picked up. It didn’t sound like the twins. There were more people and someone was struggling. I got back in the corner, hoping they didn’t see me.

They walked past me. Two men dragging another who was trying to get away, but they were stronger than this man. They opened a cell a few down from mine and threw him in.

“f**k you all. He will come,” the man yelled out.

I heard his yelling, followed up by someone fist-hitting that guy and the cell door shutting.

“The Alphas will have fun with this guy.”

One of them said as they walked away. I stay in the corner, but one of them stops and looks into the cell and finds me in the corner. He takes a deep inhale, and it’s like his eyes light up when he realizes I am a human. He gives me a wicked-looking smile before whoever he was with yells, “Are you coming Beta Richard?”

He turns his head towards the man and walks off.

It was him. That was the man who killed my father. That was the man I wanted but couldn’t find. It had to be. They signed the letter R and the way he just looked at me sent an icy chill down my spine. He was dangerous, and I needed to avoid being around him.

After he left, I went back to my cot and lay down. There was nothing else I could do. I didn’t sleep much anymore because I had the same dream about my father, but now it was the twins who did it. I am sure they were a part of it. They had to be. They were the Alphas.

I closed my eyes, thinking of Mr. Whiskers. He was now living with Ivy and I’m sure being spoiled rotten. She loved him like I did. We found him in the garbage can one night. He was so tiny and so cold. I took him in and bottle-fed him until he was big enough for regular food and I loved him so much.

Great, now I was crying again. I seemed to do that a lot, but being down here waiting for your death would do that to a person. I closed my eyes, trying not to cry, and must have drifted off because the door being thrown open and two sets of boots coming down the hall woke me.

It was the twins. I could tell by the way they walked. Axel was a little more heavy-footed than Dax.

I stayed laying on my cot and pulled my blanket up tighter around me. They walked right past me and went to the cell of whoever had been brought down earlier.

“GET UP!” Boomed Axel. His voice was laced with so much anger. It had goosebumps breaking out on my skin even though I wasn’t cold.

“You can torture me, but I won’t tell you,” he yelled back, even though you could hear his fear, despite being locked up.

There was some shuffling and then they walked by, dragging this guy by his arm. They didn’t give me a second look and just kept going.

I heard them continue just past my cell and a cell door opened and then shut, but I could hear everything.

Axel asked them to make it easy and tell him what they were sent here for.

“f**k you,” he yelled, and a scream followed it. I don’t know what they did to him, but you could tell he was in pain. Every once in a while, I heard what I thought was a whip. This man was tough though because he never said another word, just his screams.

“We can do this all day. Just tell us.” I heard Dax say sounding frustrated.

Nothing from the guy, but soon he was screaming again.

“Fine, we can continue to do this later. We’ll let you heal and start over,” Axel said and then laughed like he was enjoying it.

I heard the door open, and they were dragging him back to his cell. I had to look and see how bad it was. When they walked by, I could barely see since it’s always dark in here, but he was just letting them drag him. He was bloody, but that’s all I could see.

Seeing and hearing that gave me a new energy to hate them. Seeing what they could do with their own kind was sickening, and this is why I did what I did.

I heard them slam his door shut and head this way. They both stopped in front of my cell but didn’t open it. They stood there for a minute before Axel finally spoke.

“Don’t worry, my little kitty Cat, we saved some fun for you too. We’ll be back later for you,” he told me with a smile on his face.

They both walked off talking, but I didn’t hear a word they said. I was trying to breathe. No matter how many times I told myself I was prepared for this, I knew it was coming. I wasn’t ready at all. If they did the same to me as they did to the other guy, it would be a painful death, and that scared me.

After a little time, I could breathe better. I closed my eyes and prayed. I prayed to my parents and that I would see them soon and hoped that I had made them proud. I also prayed for a quick and painless death.

Once I was done, I just lay there because I couldn’t do anything else. Eventually, I fell asleep again but was woken up by someone coming down the stairs. They stopped at the door and slid me a tray of food.

“I don’t know who you are, but you’ve gotten the best treatment of any prisoner I’ve ever seen.” She said and walked off to the other person here. She wasn’t there long before she walked back by not giving me a second glance.

I got up to see what they had brought me for dinner. I lifted the lid to find a steak and mashed potatoes and a salad. It smelled great. I took it back to my bed and sat down. Biting into the steak and relished at the taste. I ate a few bites of potatoes when I heard the man a few cells down start moaning in pain.

He must have woken up. He sounds like he is in pain. This made my stomach roll. It reminded me of what was to come later and that’s when the nausea hit me and I ran to the toilet and threw everything up that was in my system, which honestly wasn’t much.

I walked back and grabbed my water bottle and rinsed my mouth out. I moved my tray back over to where they would pick it up and sat on my bed.

I unwrapped my hand to see how it looked after a few days. Its swelling had not gone down and it was still black and blue, but it felt better each day. I wrapped it back up and laid back down. I closed my eyes and let sleep come, but it didn’t last as I woke up gasping for air as I continued to have the same dream over and over again.

I was in a different room and they had my dad strung up by his arms and they were beating him and made me watch. I had to watch until they chopped him up into little pieces. Again, it wasn’t the beta but the twins that were doing it. I always woke right before my dad died. They would start chopping him up while he was still alive.

I just laid there on the bed trying to catch my breath when my cell door opening had me sitting up. I looked up and was staring at the twins. They held no emotion on their face. This told me they were not here for a friendly visit like the rest had been. I didn’t acknowledge them and they both approached me and grabbed my arms and yanked me to a standing position.

“Baby, we gave you every chance to avoid this and now you have left us with no choice,” Dax said to me.

This had my heart rate increasing at an unhealthy pace. I took a deep breath, trying to control it, but it was of no use.

“My little kitty Cat, I will give you more chance before we take you out of this room. Tell me, what do you do? Who are you?” He asked me.

“f**k both of you,” I yelled at them.

I don’t know where this confidence was coming from because I was scared as s**t right now, but I was trying to hide it as best as I could. I didn’t want them to know how scared I was.

They started to walk out of my cell, holding my arms. My feet wouldn’t work, so they were basically dragging me. My hand kept hitting Axel’s side, sending pain through it. I tried to get my feet under me and walk with some dignity. I would go, but not like this. I would walk on my own and hold my head high.

I got my feet under me and started walking, and I looked up. We were in a hallway now and went to the room that was a few cells down from mine. This is the same place they took the guy to earlier. I could feel my breathing pick up and also my heart rate even more than it was a few minutes ago.

We made it to the room, and it was so bright that I couldn’t see for a few seconds after being in that dark room for so long. I blinked my eyes, trying to adjust, and once they did and I saw where I was, I shuddered in fear. The room had blood on the floor. Blood from the man before me. There was a chair in the middle with chains on the arms and feet of the chair. There was also a table set up in the back with all sorts of whips, knives, and tools that I had no clue what they were.

They walked me over to the chair and sat me down in it and Dax held my arms down in place, causing a hiss of pain to escape my lips as he applied pressure to my broken hand. The look on his face held that of sympathy for a brief second before becoming emotionless again. Axel had slowly attached the chains around my ankles and the feet of the chair. The cold metal of the chains bit into my skin a little. He moved up and chained my arm down and then moved to the one that was broken. He was careful not to hit the part that hurt, but regardless, it hurt. The pressure from the chains and the way my hand hung off the arm of the chair.

Dax leaned in, put his face in my neck, and inhaled. When he brought his head up, his eyes were completely black. I didn’t know what that meant, but it couldn’t have been good. Axel leaned in and did the same before whispering to me.

“Kitty Cat, you did this to yourself. Remember that.”

“OK, we’re ready for you,” Dax yelled out, and in walked RJ with a wicked smile on his face.