Trifecta: Ice [Complete]

Ch 3: Incapable

For hours I huddled in the corner of the room they had given me and cowered whenever Karen came in to check on me or whenever I heard even the sound of someone moving in the house beyond the door.

It took me a long time to work up the courage to even explore the room with my eyes and even longer for me to get up and actually inspect this place where I had landed.

As I walked around the plain bedroom, every cell in my body screamed for me to find a corner and resume my attempt at shrinking out of existence like a good thrall should.

I might have completely given in except somewhere deep under my terror were the first tendrils of my building frustration.  Deep down, the real, suppressed me did not want to simply submit to the magic threading through my cells.  I wanted to fight.

I wanted to scream instead of whimper, rage instead of shake, and cry out my pain instead of this horrible silence the magic inflicted upon me.

My frustration was sort of a comfort because it reminded me that she was still there in the shadows.  The free woman, the free werewolf was not truly dead, just suppressed under uncountable heavy magic chains.

I looked at the heavy quilt over the bed that I would sleep in when night fell.  There was a solid desk and chair.  I could not bring myself to open the drawers to see what was inside.

The dresser was the same, I could not say whether the drawers were still full of items from a previous occupant of this room, or empty and waiting for me to fill them with mementos of my life.  I could not bring myself to even touch the handles, it felt like too great of a trespass.

There was a mirror on the wall behind the dresser.  I avoided it, because I was afraid of what I might see now that I was a thrall.

I wanted to keep my memory of what I had looked like before.  I did not want confirmation of what I imagined I now looked like, a gaunt wraith with sleek black hair and hollow brown eyes.

The closet door was slightly ajar so I peeked inside without the need to touch it.  It looked empty.  Perhaps I had been placed in a guest room.

If this was to be my room, it would be a guest room no longer, since there was no way I would be leaving it.  I felt my heart sink.

I walked back to the bed and my eyes lit upon the backpack on the floor that I had unknowingly brought.  Someone back home must have packed it for me.  I walked over to it and crouched down beside it.

I wondered who had done that. Maybe Sean, maybe my step mom, maybe whatever woman of the pack was handy when I left.

Swallowing hard, I wondered when I would get to see them.  We had little social contact with the other packs so it might be weeks or even months before I would see a friendly face again.

I swallowed back my whimper and forced myself to reach for my backpack.  Even this was difficult to do, which was madness, because it belonged to me.

I knew it was mine, but the magic did not care.  I did not even feel I was allowed to touch my own things.

My hand stretched forward.  It shook with my indecisive fear.

My daring action was interrupted by a knock on the door.

I jumped away from the backpack so quickly I almost fell backwards.  I caught myself and shrunk into a crouch on the floor as I waited for the door to open.

"Elise?" Karen asked with a second knock before she pushed open the door.  I looked at her feet.  I recognized her patterned socks from the other times she had come in to talk to me.