Page 28 of His Pet

"I know. That's why we have to escape. Bella, we have to get back home and stop this."

"We have to escape," she repeated, in a whisper.

Alex didn't even notice the odd tone to her voice.

"Yeah... just think, if we can get out of here and make it back before the Wolf memory-drugs us, we can tell everyone what's happening. We can stop it from happening to anyone else, tell them what's going on, make them understand that we have to get our resources under control so that we're not relying on the Earth anymore."

"We have to escape."

Bella sat up and Alex felt concern wash through him. She sounded so strange, her voice taking on an almost dreamy quality as she stared across the room at the wall.

"Bella, are you okay?" he asked, brushing his hand over her shoulder.

Her forehead was creased, like her head was hurting, and she was squinting at the sigil decorating the wall. Alex turned his head to stare at it too, but whatever she was seeing, he didn't see it.

Scrambling onto all fours, Bella crawled off the bed and practically ran over to the wall. Sitting straight up on the bed, Alex watched her, confused, as she ran her fingers over the shape. Something stirred in the back of his brain, insistent but unfocused as he watched her. Like there was a hazy cloud in his mind, making it hard for him to think.

Her fingers pressed against the sigil, the right end of the bar, the left end, the bottom curve, the top curve, and then three fingers on where the S intersected. And the wall beside her opened.

Eyes wide, hand trembling, Bella turned to look at Alex, her voice a hoarse whisper. "I remember."

13

They stared at the opening in the wall, and Bella backed away, remembering what had happened the last time she'd gone into the tunnels. Memories cascaded through her, like pictures slamming down into place inside of her head. Trish. Alex. Making love. The tunnel. Jordan. Trish's punishment. The Wolf! His words...

He'd told her how to get out.Fly free...

"What the fuck..." Alex breathed out the words almost on a sigh. He clutched at his head and she realized he was feeling the same sensations that she had before she'd remembered. The pain, almost like a headache, but more like something was about to break through…. it had pushed at the inside of her mind like a geyser trying to burst, and once it had, she'd remembered everything.

She still didn't know how or why, but it had happened.

It was a relief, actually, to have those old memories surging up and overwhelming everything, including what she and Alex had been through the day before. She could still barely comprehend what had happened with the Moon's Prime and the others.

There was something seriously wrong with the Moon, not just the Prime, but with all its people. They'd all been ignoring the Earth, taking it for granted, taking its people for granted, and the Wolf and his ilk were the result. In some ways, she couldn't even blame him, because it was her own people who were making it possible.

How strange that even in her head, she differentiated. They were all from the same place originally, but she thought of the wealthy, pampered, sheltered people of the Moon as hers, and the more hardened people of Earth as the Wolf's. Perhaps it was just a difference in lifestyle, but in some ways, they might as well have been from entirely different worlds.

Standing, Alex distracted her as he stared at the hole in the wall, walking toward it. As he did so, the door finally closed and he stopped, looking at her. "Can you open it again?"

"Yes..." She hesitated, because she was pretty sure what his response was going to be, and that it would be a mistake. "I know how to get out."

"What?"

"I just remembered," she whispered, her eyes going back to the smooth wall where the doorway was hidden. "The Wolf told me how to reach the exits from here..."

To her relief, Alex didn't immediately demand that they use that knowledge. Which was what she had honestly expected. Sometimes he could be so single-minded. Instead, he frowned, his brow wrinkling as he processed all the new information, as well as his old memories.

"Last time, I just went exploring, and they caught me. Jordan caught me. And..." Bella's breath caught. "He punished Trish for telling me, and then the Wolf told me the fastest way to get out of the compound from here, using the tunnels. All we have to do is go straight down to the end."

“How do we know it's not another trap?" Alex muttered, but she could tell that he was asking himself, not her. Turning away, he started pacing the floor, glancing up at the ceiling in the room. They knew there were cameras up there somewhere, they just didn't know exactly where or if they were turned on.

Bella still didn't know if Jordan had come upon her by chance in the tunnels last time, or if he'd been waiting for her. She didn't really want to run the risk again though; just the thought of being returned to Dr. Margolis was enough to make her shudder.

Moving away from the door, she tried to push her fear aside.

They waited for over an hour talking through options. Discussing risks. Waiting. Wondering. Finally, Bella's stomach began growling and she realized that no one had brought them breakfast yet.

That was when the door finally opened. The regular door. The Wolf's soldiers had come for them.

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