Chapter 14

My nurse first removed my weights in a storage room, before hauling me to the Slaughter House – the golden doors tinged with red grind apart as if the mechanisms are rusted with the blood from inside. I'm dropped when Xrat finally launches onto the neck of the Genesis female, catching her in a fatal blow just like Skyelar.

As I land on my butt in dirt, in the lowest ground level of the Wolf Dominion – I see gates to the Sunblasted land, rock and sand. The nurse doesn't make a sound, Xrat is always going for the voice box in his kills. Silently he holds her still while she dies, and my eyes roll into the side door that slid open briefly.

The Slaughter House isn't a clean place, and each machine looks to inflict maximum torture upon death. I see the meat already packed away and visible, ready for export to the population. Herd animals that lived under the rocks, in the green caves, are the main food source. However, it is just my luck that I see a line of three girls – Human Kind that had been captured with me, now being lined up for Slaughter.

They must have been more defiant than I saw that day we were brought in by the Slave Trader.

They are not dead yet, but the chains around their ankles are slowly sliding them toward a metallic box of death. The biggest surprise is they're not wailing. They're silent and seem accepting of the horrible end, while staring ahead, unafraid.

I see a strange kind of strength in their eyes that has me standing and scrambling into the unmanned room. Well, there are Genesis Kind about but they are few and far between – packaging the meat on the furthest ends, not bothered in the dirty butchering process.

I just have to break the chains on their ankles. I owe it to them.

The smell is oil and iron in here – and it's so hot I can barely breathe. Still, I fall at the feet of the girls to see if there is a weak spot on each chain. I had memorised certain links in abandoned chains from different hunting campaigns the Genesis Kind embarked upon.

These chains are not high quality – they are basic and can be broken.

But I need more time than this.

The girls shuffle forward but tears suddenly well from their dry eyes when they see some hope in my arrival. Maybe it's wrong to give them hope if I cannot stop their death in the next 60 seconds.

"Help?" the one in front whispers, perhaps thinking I am a delusion.

"Yes," I turn and run off. I find a strange wrench in an open maintenance box. I have no idea how to use this thing, but I use it as I would a rock. I fall at the feet of the first girl, about to be dragged in as the chain starts to slither faster.

As I pound on the steel with my tool, I see the metal being dented but not breaking yet. It needed a few good bashes – and I needed more time.

"Hurry, please?" the girl yells it as the floor loses the rumble of it's last slaughter – the quiet pertaining to the death box being ready for the next meal, "Hurry!"

I lose my spot on the chain as it jerks her further forward and she falls. I scramble ahead of her again to keep up, and she starts pulling back with the other girls until the machine halts for a brief moment because of the resistance. The chain is taut as I'm pulling it also with one hand – and a power shift grinds – a harder gear starts to force the shackled humans forward.

"Pull back as hard as you can!" I scream at them – and by now the Genesis have seen and heard. Helpers are called for.

I bash on the chain in a newly revised panic – and I see one little crack but it's so minuscule I need more time – or the chain to be even tauter.

In that moment, I glance up as I feel a pulsing of reassuring comfort, I got you.

A strange animal rumble through my head.

Xrat – his jaws are around the chain behind the third girl and he is pulling back hard with them.

The machine can't match everyone pulling back, now including the help of the young Wolf Beast.

I bash the chain and it finally snaps – Xrat even surprises himself when he bites so hard the chain shatters on his end as well.

"RUN NOW!" I don't even want to see how close Helpers may be to stopping us.

I turn and lead the way, and I know each girl is connected to the other, so they won't make it far unless we separate those chains next.

I run out into the open heated ground floor – while the girls run on adrenaline and trip as they try to squeeze through the door altogether.

Behind them I see the shadow of one lone Helper available to chase, and he is reaching for them. Xrat bites at the chains twice – freeing all of the girls from the constraints.

He bounds up next to me and runs with me.

We all escape, the three girls run with us toward a garbage shoot, that falls into an Abyss of the Dry Canyon. It's a steep descent rather than vertical, so we will be able to climb.

There's no time for tears – because we still have to run down this bone and blood stained rocky ramp into the ground.

This was a trail of leftovers – and would attract lone Beast Kind at the bottom.

Xrat lopes ahead with his nose – showing a safer path. He barks back at us multiple times.

"Follow my friend!" I speak it with such joy, turning to the thr –

What?!

No!

Only two girls remain.

The very one who begged me to hurry, she had been caught.

My heart shatters again, as if I knew her like my father and mother.

Another death by Wolf Dominion.

The two girls run ahead of me, not waiting to see if their friend made it.

Xrat barks in the distance, three times, sharply.

I turn, it's too soon to weep about it.

My rage, however, has quickly returned.

I follow from behind while Xrat leads the way to freedom based on instincts built for this planet.

I hate him too in this moment, despite his obvious help.

My Kind were always the ones to die.

Of course, the Helper didn't bother retrieving the damn pup for the glory of saving a precious Wolf Beast.

No – the Helper would rather make sure another human died.