Page 44 of Choosing Her Alpha
Sasha insisted the shopping trip start early so that she would have all day for her chance. She bought baubles and scarves for her friends and used every public toilet she came across.
If she hadn't been so intent on planning an escape, she might have enjoyed herself. This sector was so much different from home. The streets were clean and felt safe. Sellers smiled over their wares, handing out free samples of cheese, meats, or sweets. This modern world was drastically different than the one she grew up in.
At the end of the day, she declared that she hadn't found everything she needed and asked if she could go back another day.
Zinanno was pleased to have her out of the compound doing the types of things young ladies should do. Of course, she could go back.
Sasha did everything the same, except this time when she used a toilet with two exits, she changed into the borrowed drone clothes, braided her hair, and rubbed her lunch of onions and garlic all over herself.
She exited the bathroom with a group of drone teenagers, got out of the building, and set off for the nearest Administration Office.
People moved about the city on foot or carts pulled by other people on wheeled pedal cars. No donkeys here. There were public transport stations, but she avoided those because of the enforcer’s presence.
As usual, the drones she met were friendly, responding to her smile without suspicion, and giving her directions. She avoided the males, knowing that she no longer looked like a little girl, but there were plenty of women and young people moving about to blend in with. The daylight hours were filled with people going about their business; she fell into the crowd, headed in the general direction of an Administration building.
The gray day became sunny, the sky turning a beautiful blue-green. As it grew warmer, Sasha began to sweat. In her nose the smell of onions and garlic ripened, reminding her of days spent cooking at home.
She'd get to that big building, show her mark, get them to look up her file, get the list her father left for her, pick a mate, and finally get to go back home where she belonged.
She thought of the drones she had left behind. With her property "in custody," what had happened to them? Was the place abandoned? Kane hadn't taken the time to explain.
She looked forward to getting into her father's safe. She was the only one with the code, after all. She'd get the recipes. She'd get the account books and see where she really stood. Surely there was a way to restore her father's legacy.
Sasha had gone to Kane for help, and though the outcome wasn’t what she’d hoped for, hehadhelped her. Maura was dead, and the slimy Merrick was on the run. He was nowhere near Dover's End.
Kane had left her, but she didn't need him anymore.
The sidewalk crowd slowed to a bottleneck. She couldn't see over the heads of the people around her, but she smelled the aggressive alphas before she saw them.
The bottleneck turned out to be a line for a checkpoint, with the sector enforcers shaking everyone's left hand. They'd look for a black drone star, which meant the drone had registered with the Administration and had all their vaccinations. They'd look for the two dots and scan in the numbers below.
Anyone over two years of age without a mark was pulled aside.
It didn't happen often. The vaccinations that came with registration prevented life threatening illnesses common inside the sectors and ensured the fertility of its citizens stayed intact. Drones didn't suffer infertility, but needed their own set of vaccines.
There were some people, so called Freedom Fighters, who believed the vaccines were unhealthy. They believed that instead of preventing death and infertility, the shots were an Administration plot to cause both.
She'd heard about men who wore black robes and spoke of a First Alpha who said registration marks and Breeder Laws were blasphemous. Some people didn't register their children, or they came from the slums where clinics were few and hard to get into.
Whatever the reason, it happened often enough that there were periodic checkpoints around the sectors. Vaccinated or not, the Administration wanted every citizen in their data bank.
Sasha was wearing a drone tunic that she just couldn't pull aside. She'd have to take it off. Just as her mother planned, her number sat on the top of a now full breast, stamped so close to the soft pink areola that it almost touched it.
It had been difficult and embarrassing to show the mark before, but now? The idea of exposing herself in such a way at a public checkpoint terrified her. She couldn't do it.
The line moved forward. She turned around, squeezing her way between the people behind her. She stepped on someone's foot and got shoved in the ribs. A man yelled at her and called her stupid. A woman told her she had to go forward and tried to turn her back. The disturbance caught the alpha's attention.
"You there!"
Sasha's belly dropped and her mouth went dry.
No. No. No. This wasn't happening.
The harder she tried to escape the crowd, the more like sticky hot taffy it became. She was caught, pushed in the very direction she was trying so hard to flee.
The public sidewalk narrowed to an area with gates on both sides and an actual guardhouse. Her route wasn't a random checkpoint, it was an established one, and she had walked right into it.
So stupid. Why had she done this?
