No Time for Memories

             Sapphire couldn’t believe what Magnus said. His? If she wasn’t stuck sitting on the motorcycle, with his hand awkwardly trapped in her hair, under the helmet she wore. She would have fled from him by now. Her heart pounded in her chest and her breathing increased. She could smell his moods and there were many. His moods kept shifting and she couldn’t understand how they related to her. Sapphire’s mind screamed that she needed to escape. He’s a wolf and running from a wolf never ended well. Someone who ran became prey, and that never ended well for them.

             “I know we have a brief window before that twit wolf runs to her daddy and complicates things. So, this is what we are going to do. You will say nothing, even if the guards ask you something directly. I will do all the talking. You will then go with Hayden and pack a small bag of things you feel you can’t leave behind. Just the most important things we can’t replace. Anything else doesn’t matter. Then Hayden will return with you to the bikes and guard them. You will wait there with him. He will make sure that no one approaches or speaks to you. You will not respond to anyone.”

             Sapphire couldn’t look away from him. He wasn’t using his normal voice. The tone he used was the tone an alpha used to lay down the law. His way or the highway. Some called it, the alpha voice. A wolf’s instincts were not to question what the alpha said and to follow those words to the letter. It was hard-wired into wolves. But he wasn’t her alpha. Why did she have the urge to follow?

             With his hand in her hair, she couldn’t nod. So, her only response was to whisper meekly. “Yes, Alpha Magnus.” She didn’t know what else she could say. Her fears raged inside her head. “Can we stop at the Black Hole to get my purse and paycheck? I could go through the back door and keep it quiet.”

             “We’ll see how this goes first. I have a feeling my meeting will not end well after this and that will have enough complications as it is. Let’s get this over and done with.” Magnus released her finally and turned back to face forward. Engines started again and Sapphire again needed to hold on to him for dear life. Now she had nothing to ground herself to reality. Her life was in his hands, and she knew nothing about him or what was happening.

             It didn’t take long for them to reach the main gates to the Vagas Moon territory. She buried her face in his back and it surprised her when no one questioned her presence and just waved them through. No one even looked at her. She was nothing to these people.

             Magnus and Hayden pulled up and parked beside the packhouse. “Be quick getting her things and be back here as quickly as possible. I want to be gone before this goes too far south.”

             “No one’s going to like the unrest of no agreement.”

             “Well, they are going to have to live with it, aren’t they? I feel this agreement will go south sooner or later, anyway. Now keep her safe.” Hayden frowned at his alpha questioningly.

             “Alpha…?” He didn’t get any further before Magnus held up his hand for him to stop speaking.

             “This is important. Treat her safety like it’s mine. Now go.” Hayden nodded, still frowning like he was trying to grasp some unspoken thing. Sapphire, though, was trying to understand why he’d say any of it. She could easily get her things with no one caring one whit what she was doing.

             “Come on Sapphire. Let’s get this over with.” Hayden made his way to the front of the building behind Magnus.

             “No, it’s easier to go through the back door. Fewer people and we don’t need to travel as far. This way, no one will think it’s strange for me. Though you following me might raise a few eyes.” She couldn’t believe she was doing this. Finally, leaving everything behind. It wasn’t what she planned, and there was a time limit before all chaos hit. She needed to be out of there before Ivory contacted her father or this Cliff told his side of the story. That is if he lived.

             Hayden followed the small woman in her waitress uniform and well-worn cardigan. She wore just a pair of worn sneakers on her feet. Long hair piled high in a tight knot. She looked like someone from a bygone era rather than a carefree teen wolf. He liked nothing he saw and the number of times she flinched since she met them disturbed him because he saw no reason for the violence against her. He figured if Magnus got the full story, then he’d be fixing things. Magnus may have said nothing, but Hayden didn’t miss the change in his alpha’s scent the moment this tiny thing got close to him. His words and orders were enough for Hayden not to need to question anything. There’d be enough time for clarification when they were safe. This would not turn out well, no matter how it played out.

             The back door was, in fact, a basement door and not a kitchen door as he thought it would be. He followed her up a tiny staircase and at the top; she entered a small corridor that led to the kitchen in one direction and into the main building through the other end. She didn’t head towards either. Sapphire opened a door on the other side of the hallway that led into a pantry of sorts.

             This gave new meaning to living under the stairs. Inside the small pantry, with its preserves and jars of dry goods, lay a crib mattress, a few blankets, and some scattered clothing. To his shock, this was her room. She slept here. He watched her silently take a small dirty backpack with a well-worn cartoon character on it from the back corner and she tossed a few personal items into it. There weren’t many, and few were deeply personal. He’d expected her to be scrambling to take books and pictures, but there were none. Only a few clothes, a hairbrush, and a faded blanket. Not even a spare pair of shoes.

             “Sorry, my coat is in my locker at the Black Hole. But that’s it. Let’s go. I… I don’t need to see anyone.”

             “You sure? There’s no one you want to say goodbye to?”

             “No. There’s no one.” She led the way back down the stairs. No one even came to see what the sounds were. The basement door wouldn’t even lock. He’d seen nothing in the basement that contained any security or armoury. The packhouse was deathly silent, so unlike theirs. Within a few minutes, they were back at the motorcycles, and he was securing her bag to his motorcycle.

             “Keep your helmet on and sit on Magnus’ bike. I’m not leaving you. I’m just texting him to tell him we’re done.” He turned from her once she sat.

             With his phone in his hand, he turned from her to watch the sparse people wander about doing their business. Very few even registered the bikes and him. If they did, they did it fearfully. One glare from him and they scurried like rats out of his sight. These weren’t wolves, they were rodents hiding from the light. Probably fighting for scraps. It disgusted them. No wonder Sapphire accepted everything Magnus said to her. That’s how she survived here.

             He pulled out his phone and texted Magnus that they were ready, and he had things to report that he would not like to hear.