Page 19 of Her Feral Beasts

The prisoner enters the room growling and sniffing the air—a tall beast with close-cropped brown hair, nose, brow and lip pierced with silver on both sides. Their septum piercing wiggles as they sniff at me. They wear a faded blue denim jacket and matching jeans, leaving no doubt in my mind that they’re a wolf. That also explains the stutter. Some wolves can have issues with speech because they use telepathy so much from childhood. Their lanyard is purple and says ‘they/them’ and their ID is an orange card that states ‘Wolf Anim’.

Those beasts that don’t differentiate between anima and animus, we call ‘Anim’.

“Hey Raquel,” cigarette girl says. Raquel’s head snaps over to my neighbour and they give the girl a sharp nod, heading straight to sit by her.

Two more girls with ‘lioness anima’ ID cards enter. One, the blonde and leggy type and the other, an East Asian girl with black to blonde ombre hair. They’re excitedly chattering away about some of the males they saw outside.

So they all know people. Great. Am I going to be the only person here who doesn’t have friends? It makes my stomach knot to think on it. The walls start to press in on me and I squeeze my eyes shut to try and control the wild thoughts.

I’ve never felt so alone in a place so full of beasts.

“Are we ready?” comes a bright voice.

My eyes snap open as I flinch, because I can’t believe someone has entered the room without me knowing. I’m seriously losing it. I need to calm the hell down.

It’s not a threat. It’s a short, curvy girl with deep brown skin, long, curly, bubblegum-pink hair and wide, light brown doe-shaped eyes that are staring at me and my handcuffs. Her pupils momentarily shift from round to a long slitted feline version, but it’s gone in a flash. Silver bracelets take up most of her forearms and rings take up all of the fingers curled around the handle of her pink plastic suitcase. There’s a bright pink folder under her arm that’s bursting with plastic sleeves and a rainbow of tabs. Her pink lanyard is plain and her ID card states ‘Tigress Anima’.

She’s so cute that my protective instincts rise even though I have no doubt that, as a tigress, she can look after herself.

“Hey,” I say, smiling at her.

She raises a hand to the side of her mouth and whispers, “Ooh, I recognise you from TV.”

My heart stutters. “Sorry?”

She quickly settles herself on the bench beside me, carefully placing the pink binder on her lap. I can now see that it’s hand-labelled ‘Prison School’ in bright turquoise letters that clash violently with the pink background.

“Yeah,” she says, eyes wide. “They sent out a fugitive alert. You didn’t know, did you?”

I sigh as the other animas pretend not to be listening, but clearly are.

“No, I didn’t, but I’m not surprised.”

Here I was, calling myself a criminal, when an even better title was waiting for me.Fugitive.

“So…” She opens the folder then runs her fingernail down a typed bullet point list. “I read that it’s rude to ask inmates about the nature of the crimes that got them in. So I won’t ask if you really burned down your husband’s house and killed him. But I will ask…” She grins at me with all of her white teeth. “Sagittarius?”

I stare at her for a second. “Actually, yeah. My birthday was three weeks ago. How’d you know?”

She conspiratorially taps the side of her nose with a bright pink nail. “I’ve got a sense about these things.” She holds out her hand. “I’m Minnie. And yes, it’s after Minnie bloody Mouse. I was the smallest kitten in the litter and my parents thought it was funny.”

Trying not to laugh at that, I shake her hand. “I’m Aurelia—”

“Aquinas. Yeah, I know.” She beams at me. “So I made this folder to keep track of everything. You can use it too, if you like. It has the school rules and maps and everything.”

I stare at the colour-coded binder as she lovingly runs her finger down the plastic tabs. “You’re my type of girl, Minnie,” I say softly. At one time, I’d been that diligent, organised student. It looked like that was all behind me now and my life as a fugitive had begun.

“Then we’ll get along nicely!” Minnie kicks her legs as she grins at the girls around us, who all glower back, but it doesn’t deter her at all.

I wonder what the hell a girl like Minnie is doing here, but luckily, I’ve learned that it’s rude to ask.

After a few minutes, Hope appears at the door with another woman and two more armed guards. It’s pretty unnerving that we can’t see anything of their faces except their eyes, but I suppose it’s for their own safety. The woman, however, wears a casual t-shirt and shorts. Her blonde hair is buzzed short, she has full sleeves of colourful tattoos on both arms and a silver nose ring.

“Ladies, this is Theresa,” Hope says brightly. “She’ll be your councillor and guide for the year.”

Theresa smiles and nods at us. On her plastic name tag, it has ‘she/her’, and her name and ‘Cassowary Anima’. I instantly know she’s a badass because the cassowary, with its lethal kick, is the deadliest bird in the world.

“Looks like we’re all here.” Her voice is calm and reassuring as she scans us and then the clipboard in her hands. “Alright, we need to have a little chat before we enter the academy.” Theresa sits down on a seat by the door.

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