Chapter One
Alexi Huron was an abomination. One that the council could not pick up on. With her legs at a dead run, her eyes teared at the vicious wind cutting at her overexposed face. Yet the cold did not bother her in the particular state she was in, the fight or flight instinct had her in its grasp, and she was definitely running. The fight she had braced herself for, one she had built herself up to had fled her as she heard the voices coming closer to her hiding spot. That was when she had sprung from her crouch and made a frantic pace back home to hide her flawed self from the danger that lurks beyond.
Her breaths came out in gasps, humiliating her at how unaccustomed she is to exercise, but being the successor of her father’s research did not require her to do anything strenuous as appose to her “Wouldn’t need to lift a finger” lifestyle that has been adopted in her household since the age of thirteen.
She could just remember the simplicity of life back then. To run with her friends, to plan a tea party with fake assorted tarts and treats and Earl Grey tea. She could vaguely remember such freedom, especially to be able to walk freely and unaccompanied as she had. But her cramping side brought her out of those silly memories and back to the reality at hand.
Upon arriving at her fathers-at her house, she proceeds to skip the front door and not even attempting the back, instead, she tried to climb through her window. Luckily the house is only one story, the idea of a double story house, one which her father’s right-hand man, Timothy, would love to build in her stead made her anxious. It made her feel trapped in her already hopeless situation.
With a heft of her shoulders and a lift to her one leg, she straddles the windowsill as she wrestles with her dress. She abhorred wearing dresses, obstructing her movements, especially those tight enough to limit her breathing to panting. Fortunately, this dress was an altogether different monstrosity to the fishtail. This one, although, allowed her some deep breaths, it did however weigh her down, as a 30kg pack of rice would. It was puffy and made her look like a peach. She had once in an off-handed comment told her stylist that her favourite fruit was a peach, she hadn’t meant anything by it instead to keep a conversation going in an awkward silence of centimeters and measuring tape. She now knew to only mention something to her if she would like to see it as a dress. It’s a good thing she hadn’t told her about her favourite hobby, rescuing animals. Just imagine what she could have made a dress out of that one.
With a hard tug and a clumsy participant, she fell to her carpeted floor with a thud and froze on the spot. Listening if she might have disturbed the Calvary. With a deep and not to mention relieved sigh, she melted against the floor on her stomach. Her arms and legs outstretched, her anxiety subsiding, that is, until the window slipped shut with a BANG.
That sound, she knew, would wake the Calvary. She jumps up, her just subdued anxiety racing back up like acid reflux, choking her with breath that she does not seem to be able to release. Stripping at her clothing and jumping into bed, she closes her eyes, not a minute too soon, when the door opens with a whoosh
“Miss, Huron?” Jim hesitates or was it, Jack. She couldn’t remember half of the men working for her father. These men all looked the same to her anyway. Wearing the same black cargo pants and shirts and Kevlar vests.
“Miss, Huron. Are you awake?” the man asks again but as the footsteps of what seems to be about twenty men leave her bedroom and with a soft snick to signal her bedroom closed she huffs out a sigh of relief and opens her eyes to a middle-aged man grinning a big Cheshire Cat smile that had her jumping out of her skin.
“Wh- What are you doing here?” She asks defensively, noticing just how undressed she is and pulls the blanket tighter against her breasts. The man Toots and shakes his head as one would when dealing with a petulant child, which she was not. Just the day before they had celebrated her twentieth birthday. She was an adult now and should not need to deal with a man, twice her age, debauched in her room.
“You are a novelty my sweet. Keeping me on my toes, always,” he breaks off into a round of rambunctious laughter, gaining the ire of Alexi Huron. The threat not seen as severity when she does not have much say-so, but what she does have is her father’s love, of his twisted version of the word at least. One word to her father and his job could be at stake.
“Timothy, I asked you a question.” She warns, his face flushed with irritation and her previous active engagement. The man’s jiggling stomach has calmed as has his laughter, letting out a snort here and there with amusement. His sharp eyes, black as the sea at night, endless and dangerous fixes themselves upon her nude arms and shoulders.
“Where have you gone lady, Huron, hmmm?” His eyes wouldn’t leave her as he plays with the ends of his moustache. Twirling it with his forefinger and thumb. The smell of tobacco, his too intent gaze, and the panic of being caught sets in to make her stomach churn in an angry swirl of acid, making her nauseated.
“I needed to see for myself, what has been going on in there.” She forces out the truth through a clogged throat, “But I didn’t see anything, I swear.” She pleads, scared. Her anger fled under the man’s watchful and menacing gaze.
“Now- now” The man admonishes “I know you saw it. You saw everything and might even have taken something of value…” He draws out, smiling mockingly at her supposed lie.”
“I haven’t, I- “
“-Then what is this?” He interrupts her refute as he pulls out a leaf from her hair. Making her momentarily confused as to the context to their conversation, or more like, their forced conversation, on her part.
“Uh, a leaf?” she answers dumbly, which only makes another round of laughter spew out of his mouth. His handsome face is full of mirth as his white, straight teeth show in a grin. He pushes his hand in a fast flurry of movements to her face, making her flinch back, hitting her head against the hard oak of the headboard.
The man guffaw’s at her fright and says in a soothing voice, “Smell it.”
Tentatively, she moves towards the greenery and smells. Its mint, she deduces as she looks at the shape of the leaf and the wood-like texture that it grows from. She blinks her eyes to ward off the upcoming tears of relief and meets the man’s eyes.
“You caught me.” She lies, eliciting a smug cock to his mouth.
“You shouldn’t have seen this yet, it is not at its full capacity. I was waiting for next Spring to bestow this upon you as a …courting gift. Your father has approved of my inquiry of you.” He drawls out like a stallion as if he wasn’t the middle-aged man before her, lifting his chin in smug pride, waiting for her to gush over his present.
“That’s, that, it-great” she was able to grit out. Her emotions a roller-coaster. Just as she was ready to relax her anxious mind it roars up again, each time worse off than the last. Timothy, not picking up her horror that she so deeply felt smiled and pat at her head.
“Good night, Alexi” he uses her given name intimately as if they are already in a relationship. With a kiss to her forehead, he leaves her to wallow in the mess he had caused. If only he had caught her sneaking into the dungeons. If only she was free to live her life.
