Alpha Ryker: Cursed Collision

"I am dying"

I said out loud to no one in particular. Speaking into the void, hoping the breeze takes my words to the heavens - to my father.

"I am dying," I chuckle.

I raise my face to the sky, closing my eyes and stretching my hands open, feeling the cold air on my skin, kissing my cheeks and tickling the tips of my fingers.

I hope God hears this.

I hope he laughs when he sees me standing on the rooftop of this 17-story hospital building. I stand close to the edge without holding the railing and to be honest I do not care if I fall. I am dying anyways, why should I be afraid of the monster who will eventually take me?

I always hated the phrase 'God gives the hardest battle to his strongest soldier'. Whoever said this has obviously never met me. If they did they would change their words to 'his most hated soldier' because that must be what I am to God.

There is no other explanation as to why I lost my father, couldn't find my mother, was abused by my stepmother, sold to an abuser for less than a penny and ended up getting cancer all before reaching twenty one.

God must have created me as a lesson to others, showing them how powerful he is and how he can mess up a life for no reason.

I laughed at this thought, so hard that tears starts to free fall my eyes

"I have never asked you for anything" I yelled into the void "I have never sought your help or protection for anything and yet this is what you do to me! You think you have won don't you? You think that you can take me out when my life is only just beginning?"

I crossed the railings, my hands gripping the cold iron even though I had urges to let go. The cold gust of wind hits my skin as I stare at the people and cars below.

"I have no gold nor silver. My dignity was stolen from me, my body was abused and yet you want to take the one thing I have - my life"

A voice whispered in my ears telling me to let go. I should take myself out. I shouldn't let God or Sir Valerie Russo decide how I die.

I've never really had control over my life but I should at least have control of how I die but why couldn't I let go of the railings?

If I jumped now, if I let go of everything I would die and the suffering would end - no more Valerie Russo, no more Madam Faye, but why was I scared?

My eyes wandered around the rooftop one last time in hopes of seeing the wolf only I could see but he was nowhere to be found. Seeing it was a sign of madness and hallucinations that I suffered. I still wanted the wolf to be here.

I wanted someone or something - to witness my last moments but even now I was alone. Just like I have always been.

Cold and alone

I closed my eyes tight, biting my quivering lips as I felt the cold wind on my face and exposed skin.

Jump

Just JUMP

JUST-

Tears start to fall from my closed eyes when I realize I didn't have the heart to end my own life. Just like Madame Faye had said - I was indeed a coward

I still want to live.

I guess despite being terminal ill with less than 6 months left - I still want to live

I slowly turned around, giving up on the idea of ending things. Devastated and defeated, I tried to cross over the railings back to the rooftop when I realized someone was standing right in front of me, a mask covering their face, leaving only their piercing blue eyes visible.

"Who are –"

They pushed me before I could finish my question.

I tried to grab the railings but I missed it by an inch. A loud scream escaped my mouth as I fell from the 17th floor hospital building immediately shutting my eyes.

Is this it?

Is this how it ends?

Is this how I die?

20 years of decision making lead me to this very moment. Would they know that I was murdered or would my step mother and Sir Valerie rule my death as suicide?

Would they even care?

Would anyone cry for me?

This is unfair.

I haven't even lived - haven't found my mother, haven't traveled to Daria and now I'm about to fall to my death without fulfilling any of my dreams.

I don't want to die.

Please, save me.

Someone.

Anyone.

Please.

I felt a warm embrace mid-air, I felt a hand wrap around me squeezing me into their body but I was too terrified to open my eyes. Was death claiming me before I reached the ground?

A shockwave coursed through my body as we crashed into a hard substance. My eyes remained closed as I embraced death tighter, waiting for pain to go through my body but it never came. Shock? yes but there was no pain.

Was I dead? Is this how people die?

I heard a low growl so close to my ear that my body vibrated. I slowly opened my eyes, welcomed by a set of golden brown eyes staring at me. I couldn't speak. I lost my ability to speak as I stared into death's eyes.

He was inhumanly beautiful

"Am I dead?" I finally found enough strength to ask after seconds of being captured by his beauty.

He continued to stare at me without saying a word. A frown sat on his forehead. His hands are still wrapped around me and for some reason I felt comforted by his presence.

He must think that I was asking a stupid question. After all, I just fell from a 17th floor building, of course I was dead. Who would survive that?

Do I even have anyone who would mourn me?

"Ma'am! Oh my God are you alright?" I turned to find a woman staring at me with horror written all over her face

I stared at her confused, and turned back to Death, only to find him gone without a trace. Slowly, I rose to my feet as I came to a realization that I wasn't dead and whoever or whatever that was, he had just saved my life.

*The Cure*

"You have been sold"

I should have known better than to believe that Madame Faye could ever hold any good intention for me after the passing of her husband.

He was the only link that held us together as a 'family,' and with him gone, she must want me gone as well.

"What did you just say?" my voice trembles as I question her, hiding my shaking hands from sight.

What was I really expecting to hear her say? That her words were a joke? That she had only said those words to lighten up the darkness that has been casted over our family since his death?

Deep down, I knew that Madame Faye would rather die than 'try' to lighten up the mood. She was not one to eat her words, let alone smile. Still, I desperately needed to hear her say that her words were nothing but a joke.

Madame Faye turns to me, her hazel eyes holding darkness, matching the color of her mourning black dress and dark makeup. The only thing bright in this room was her signature red lipstick accompanied by her ginger hair peeping from beneath her black hat.

"Since when do I need to repeat myself to you?" Her voice is like lightning - the kind that brightens up the night sky, warning you of the danger the thunder carries.

"But Madame -"

I should really shut my mouth before she hits me. Though this wouldn't be the first time she had hit me. She always did, whether I was right or wrong. She had a knack for finding a way to swat me so hard that my mouth would bleed. With this, I should back down, shut my mouth, and accept what she had just said. But I didn't.

I wanted to hear it again, to confirm that what she said was indeed what I had heard.

"I must have heard wrongly" I muttered, trying to meet her gaze but failing.

She is scary.

She is a terrifying woman.

Madam Faye is a big woman, she is taller than her husband - was - and he was by no means a small man. Her presence always radiated a throat gripping fear and I could never challenge her. I would lose before I could ever start and get punished. Yet, here I was, asking the woman who was the subject of my nightmares to repeat herself.

"You did not, Ressa"

Mason decides to speak. If I didn't know him too well I might think he was helping me but that would be the lie of the century. Manson was just like his mother. He doesn't help people like me, and I could bet that he only spoke because my voice annoyed him. "You are getting sold off for marriage tomorrow," he repeated his mother's words, kicking the breath from my lungs.

Michaela, Mason's sister, didn't seem shocked by his words. At that moment, I knew they had planned it together. They had always despised me and wanted me out of their lives. Yet, they couldn't follow through because I was their father's daughter, illegitimate but still a Rinn.

"You're selling me off?"

When I found the courage to speak, I sounded as though I were begging them to let me stay. I would never beg, even if they placed a hot iron on my neck. I would never beg them to let me stay but at the same time, I do not want to be sold off to God knows who and let them do God knows what to me. Despite the fifteen years of hell I had endured living with the Rinn, I chose the familiarity of this hell over the uncertainty of an unfamiliar heaven.

"The family is in debt, '' Mason stated as he turned to stare at me. He was looking down at me, I mean this literally. I was never allowed to share a table, much less dinner, with the Rinn even when their father shared the same breath as us. He had made a small table beside the family's elaborate dining table, where I had to sit on the floor and eat only what was tossed at me. It's been this way since the very first day I stepped my foot into this hell.

I was only five then, barely remembering my life before the Rinn. I only have one particular memory that I have held onto and that was the memory of my mother singing to me.

Unfortunately I cannot remember her face, just her beautiful voice.

"Father gambled a lot" Manson's voice forces me back to reality "We are on the brink of losing the house, the estate and even the business" Mason explained. I am shocked that he even bothered to explain their actions to me. They never bothered to tell me anything

"We need help if we are going to get everything back and Sir Valerie Russo as offered to help us, with you in exchange"

I wanted to scream 'Are you insane?' But the words could not leave my mouth. Fear gripped me like a Python squeezing my bones and choking me just at the mention of the name Sir Valerie Russo. I don't know many names but I knew the name of the monster that shook the country.

There were rumors that Sir Valerie was wicked and Vile, plus he was 40 years my senior, known for pursuing young and beautiful girls with long black hair. I've heard the rumors that they never leave his home sane. The whispers said that he did unspeakable things to the girls and several had resulted in ending their own lives.

Everyone knew him for what he was, including my stepmother and step siblings, and yet they had decided to sell me off to a man whose name is spoken to stubborn kids to get them to behave. I could only imagine the torture I would endure if he owned me. Something tells me that the torture was exactly why they want to sell me off to him.

I felt my skin crawl at the possibility and my chest tightened at the mere thought of what he would do to me.

"No!" I suddenly screamed, startling the Rinns and myself. "I refuse to be sold off to that beast" my voice louder than it had ever been.

"Have you gone mad!" Mason questioned. I am not sure he wants to hear the answer to that "How dare you yell -"

"You are sending me off to die, aren't you?" I cut him off.

I really need to shut my mouth before I get punished. I no longer have anyone to protect me from the three of them and the one person that had shown a pinch of compassion was now six feet deep. He was no longer here to stop them from punishing me and from selling me off and for the first time since he died I felt truly and utterly alone.

"Gosh, Ressa you are so selfish" Michaela decides to grace us with her voice. Like Madame Faye, she too was a ginger with darkness in her eyes and she scared me the most. She barely speaks to me and despite being a year younger, she has never gotten tired of showing me that she had more power than I could ever hope for.

"Since you came into our family all you have ever done is to drain us dry" She spoke, her voice like pin on my bare skin "You stole Father's love from us, his affection -"

Is she high on opium? Father's love and affection? The man hated my guts, he never failed to remind me that I am nothing but a drunken mistake. I don't know why he took me away from my mother, why he raised me in the midst of wolves and turned a blind eye every time I was abused, only stepping in when I was on the verge of dying. He never sent me to school with them, or taught me how to ride horses or cars and Michaela thinks that I stole his love?

"You barely contributed to anything in this house and the one time that we actually need your help, you flip out like a child"

"That's easy for you to say, you're not the one getting sold off to a monster" I let my mouth run free and regretted it the second the words were out of my lips.

She stood up, dropping the cutlery and walked up to me. Michaela stood in front of me as I stared at her, my heart beating so fast I was afraid she could hear it. Michaela slapped me hard across the face. Tears threatened to fall from the corners of my eyes as she pulled my hair, yanking me back.

I yelped in pain. Tears threatened to fall from the creak of my eyes as she pulled me close "So what if we are sending you off to die?" She whispered "No one wants you alive, anyways"

I opened my mouth to speak but no words could come out of my mouth. She was wrong, my mother wants me alive, she's the sole reason why I have been enduring this life, why I've been saving up any money I could get to change my name and run away. I dreamed of escaping on my 21st birthday to start the journey of finding my mother but all my dreams were destroyed because of his death.

He was never good to me when he was alive and even in death he still disrupts my life.

I bite my lips, swallowing my plan. If they knew that I had been planning to escape they would block every single means and maybe even hurt my mother so I bite down my secret as I stare into Michaela's burning eyes.

"Take her to the dungeon" Madame Faye commands "It seems Ressa has forgotten her place" the snake hissed as the guards came to drag me into my hellhole.

*The Cure*

"I need to escape"

I whispered, unable to sleep. I lay flat on the cold floor, my back pressed against it as I stared at the dungeon walls. I have slept more nights in this dungeon than on my actual bed - or what the Rinn think is a bed- so it wouldn't be strange to say I felt more at peace here. On a typical day, I always arrive here with a bruised face, sore body and one occasion - a broken bone.

Several times, I have been forgotten in here with no food or water and those days ironically were the most peaceful days of my life. I used to enjoy being locked up here, it meant I didn't need to work till my finger nails break or that I had to see the faces of the people who caused me nightmares but today was different.

I tossed and turned on the cold cement, trying to come up with a plan to escape.

I've always had a plan to escape, the moment I knew I had a mother waiting for me within the walls I found a new reason to live - to endure this pain.

Edward Rinn, Madame Faye Rinn's husband and the man whose ball sack I came out from had tried to hide the fact that Madame Faye was not my biological mother. He denied and denied every time I asked him who my mother was. Lied that I had just lived in a different place at the beginning of my life and that his wife was my real mother.

She played her part in his lies until one fateful ball where she exposed him, when someone asked her why I looked so different from the rest of the family. Unlike Michaela and Manson Rinn, I do not have a ginger hair or hazel eyes. My skin was not pale like a porcelain doll, I am of a darker skin tone. I also didn't wear that soul gripping darkness on my shoulder like the Rinn and I barely shared any trait with Edward Rinn besides the color of my hair.

'She's the daughter of a whore Ed f.cked on a drunken night' Madame Faye had said, then turned to stare at me 'She's his drunken mistake. One that has haunted us ever since that cursed day'

I wasn't hurt contrary to what Madame Faye may believe, I was actually glad. Her words confirmed what I suspected and gave me a new purpose in life - finding my mother and first I had to find her name and who she was.

I do not care why she gave me up. From what I knew my mother is from the lower class and she must not have had the power to stop Ed from taking me away from her. He didn't even want to tell me her name, so I pleaded and pleaded. Promising to do anything he wanted but he refused. I had to find her name myself. It wasn't easy but I found the name of my purpose.

Hellen Borden.

I cannot believe all my plans and effort are all about to go to waste. I have money that I saved and hidden in the floorboard of the room. It's not enough to travel to Daria, the country where Ed and Hellen had met. Neither is it enough to look for her but it is enough to leave this town and to change my name.

I'll start from there.

Maybe with a new name I can get minimum jobs and earn enough to travel to Daria. I could wash windows, maybe even milk cows and sell cigarettes. Anything to get enough to buy a ticket to Daria, I just need to find a way to get out of this house first without being caught by the guards or worse by - the Rinn.

I heard a low growl, and a shiver ran down my spine as I slowly sat up. My eyes had already adjusted to the darkness but that didn't make me feel safe. I placed my back against the walls and I hugged my legs.

It's here again.

My heart is fighting to crawl out of my chest but I swallowed it back in fear as I heard another growl.

Emerging from the walls, a majestic wolf walks towards the iron bars that kept me locked in. Its fur was darker than the night, with its eyes golden. The wolf was larger than I'd ever imagined a wolf could be. I estimated its length to be nearly 10 feet, reaching a height of almost 50 inches. Its sharp eyes locked onto mine.

This wasn't the first time I'd seen this wolf. It had started five years ago. Every time I was locked in the dungeon, I saw it. It had never attacked me or came near me. It just stared at me for a few minutes and then disappeared into the darkness. But it didn't make it any less terrifying every time I saw it.

Nobody believed my words when I tell them that there's a wolf in the dungeon. They think I've lost my mind and maybe I have.

I heard the door shake, taking my attention from the beast to Manson and two guards behind the door, trying to unlock it.

I held my breathe, should I tell them that the beast has returned? The wolf looks like it would kill them before they even get the chance to scream. It could give me enough time to run, grab my savings and bolt. This might be the chance I need to escape.

"There's a wolf in here" I find myself yelling instead.

Ressa, you are such an idiot.

I couldn't believe I was throwing away my chance of escaping out the window to save people who weren't worthy of it.

"There you go again, acting crazy" Mason sings as he unlocked the door.

"Manson, you'll die if you come in here" I yelled.

Gosh! Shut up, Ressa.

"And I'm supposed to believe you want to save me?" He scoffs. Clearly he thinks I'm out of my mind and I do too.

I turn to the wolf staring at the door as if waiting for them to come closer so it could pounces on them and tear their open their flesh, devouring them limb for limb and I'll be next. After them it would be me.

"Manson! Don't" I pleaded. The wolf growl echoed through the dungeon like earthquake. My chest tightens and I forget how to breathe watching Manson walk towards us and the wolf lunged itself towards him.

I screamed, closing my eye. Covering my sanity from the gorge about to happen.

"I warned you" I cried. My eyes shut tight but I could still feel tears trinkle down my creak "You never listen to me. It's not my fault. You brought it upon yourself, I was only -"

"So your plan is to act crazy?" I hear Manson's voice covered with disgust.

I opened my eyes to see him standing in front of me, with the iron bars the only thing seperating us and a judgment stare burning though my skin.

No Wolf.

No dead body.

"Where did it go?" I asked myself more than I asked him.

"You would have to try harder than this make believe craziness, dear sister"

Manson orders the guard to unlock the doors while I stood there questioning my sanity.

Have I truly gone mad like they assumed?

I do not get the luxury to find the answer before the guards dragged me out of the dungeon. I paid no attention to where they were taking me, my mind still occupied by what had just happened.

Has it all been my delusions?

Have I been imagining the beast all these years?

Have I lost my sanity?

Only when my skin is met with a splash of icy water do I return to reality or what was left of it. My clothes are nowhere to be found as I stood naked in front of two of the house maids. Manson wasn't anywhere to be found also thankfully.

How long have I been in my head for? And why are they bathing me?

"I can't believe Madame Faye is trying to sell you off to that monster" Beatrice, an older woman cursed under her breath as she wipes my body.

I've known Beatrice since I was a child, she has been warm to me despite Madame Faye's strict rule that has caused many staff to lose their job here if they showed me any ounce of kindness.

Hearing Beatrice quietly curse the Rinn almost made me cry. I didn't think anyone would care that I was being sold and although she could not do anything about it, her curses gave me comfort.

Beatrice and the younger maid, Adeline had be ordered by Madame Faye to bath me and dress me to look appealing to Sir Valerie Russo. I almost vomited when I heard he was two hours away from reaching the Rinn Estate. I can't believe I spent the night thinking of what to do and didn't get an ounce of sleep only to come up with nothing.

"Poor thing" Beatrice mutters, biting down her lip as she stares at me in the new dress. I've never wore something like this before, I almost couldn't recognize myself in the mirror with the pota dot dress accompanied by a silk sash tied in a delicate bow at my waist. A seamed stockings with a pair of heeled oxfords and a Victory roll hairstyle that only Madame Faye and Michaela were allowed to wear in this household.

I stare at myself in the mirror looking like a home cooked meal for a mad man and reality slaps me on the face, reminding me of how real this truly was. My chest sinks, I do not recognize myself. I've always wanted to dress like this, I secretly envied how Michaela was allowed to dress femininely and sophisticated while I was only ever allowed to wear rags but now that I was dressed like this.

I hated it.

"Sir Valerie has arrived" Adeline informed.

"You bags have already been packed" Beatrice gestures at one suitcase the end of the room.

I do not have any priced possession and one suitcase was more than enough to hold everything I could ever need but that didn't mean it was less painful to see that all I have ever meant to this house was brought to just one suitcase.

"Could I please have a moment to myself?" I ask Beatrice and she nods. Hushing herself and Adeline out of the room. As soon as they were gone I ran to the floorboard under my bed, pulling out the three sachets filled with the money I had saved. I hurried and placed them into the suitcase, hiding the money deep in between my clothes and when I was satisfied I had kept them hidden enough I grabbed a pair of scissors.

I know I cannot escape now with Sir Valerie here but I will be damned before I let myself look appealing to him.

With that, I drove the scissors into my long black hair.