The Settlement's Cradle by Kyra Gregory

Author:Kyra Gregory [Gregory, Kyra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

21

Alec

Led to a floor beneath the barracks, rough hands stripped Alec of his uniform before chucking it aside, joining a mess of provisions that cluttered the antechamber to another room. Opening a door with a heavy, metal latch, they shoved him inside.

The long corridor, likely spanning just under the length of the barracks themselves, was lined at either side with towering cages, like the sort used for animals intended to be put to the slaughter.

Shuddering against the cold and the damp, he came to an abrupt stop, refusing to be moved any further. He wanted to tell them they didn’t need to do this but more than a couple of wardens had gathered on the lower floors to see this, a quiet little snicker cutting through the air.

He went to turn around—he’d fight them all if he had to—but they had the strength and the numbers. A baton collided with his ribs and winded him. The head of a second baton hit him square in the gut, releasing the last of what had remained in his lungs. Then, the third came, slamming on the back of his head, dropping him to his knees.

The world blurred around him, dancing like a mix of shapes and colours. The shadows turned to light, and the light turned to shadows, a glimmer of radiant stars dancing before his eyes. His arms, limp and useless at his sides, lost their strength and his hands, intending to clench them into fists, did nothing but tremble.

Soon, the ground disappeared from under his knees and he felt the chill of the air whizzing past his body as they lifted him.

Cool metal scraped against his back, his neck craned and his knees scraped against the low-lying ceiling of a cage. His vision cleared for a brief second and he kicked out in the direction of the warden, only for him to slam the door shut in time to avoid it.

As the world swam around him, sounds booming in his head, he blinked for as long it took to be able to take in the new world around him. He could make out the stack of cages across from him. They were all about as small as his—too small for a person—stacked, one on top of the other.

Placing his hands at his sides in an effort to right himself, something soft beneath his palm caught his attention. Feathers. They’d used the cages to transport the animals for the settlement—the chickens and roosters and, by the smell, he supposed the pigs as well. They really were literally being treated like animals. They weren’t any different in their eyes. They weren’t people. They were fit for cages.

A growl rising in his chest, he kicked, slamming the door of the cage repeatedly. No use. It wouldn’t bend or morph, let alone break. But he didn’t care. The pent up fury—the cage might’ve been able to contain it, but he couldn’t.

A quiet voice, speaking with a touch of bitterness, uttered something he couldn’t understand beneath the sound of rattling metal.

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