1
Sean
The sound of the basement door opening caused Sean to stiffen and his breath to catch at the sound of a small voice crying out to be, "Let go!"
"Shut up!" His father's harsh voice snapped and then the wooden stairs shook with his heavy boots as he clamored down, carrying a boy of about six over his shoulders who struggled and beat his fists at his broad back.
The boy landed in a heap in front of Sean, but he didn't stay there long. He jumped to his feet and attempted to rush to the stairs, desperate to escape. Sean's father backhanded him, sending him flying into Sean, who caught him with thin arms and a rattle of chains. Sean winced at the hard impact of fist against flesh and hoped nothing had been broken, but knew it wouldn't take long for any injuries to heal at least. The boy whimpered, but remained there in Sean's arms this time instead of attempting to get up again.
When Sean saw his father looking around the basement and heard the sound of Tara's and Samantha's sobs, Sean wanted to cry along with them, knowing his father would be relentless in his passions that night. He always was after a successful kidnapping. Dark brown eyes settled on Sam, the least pregnant of the two girls at five months along, and the hulking figure of a man unsnapped the keys from his belt, opened her cage, and grabbed hold of her arm, wrenching her out and dragging her, screaming, up the stairs. Sean flinched as the door slammed shut and was locked from the outside. The only thing any of them downstairs could do was listen to Sam's screams as Sean’s father brutalized her, a sound Sean had heard more than once over the years, one which would haunt him for the rest of his life, however long that may be.
The younger children whimpered in their cages while Tara sobbed in relief and yet agony for her best friend and companion. They all knew it would be at least an hour or more of pain for Sam before their father would drag her unconscious body back to the basement. Sean couldn't help but wonder if this time would be when she lost the baby. It wouldn't be the first time. This was Sam's third pregnancy, having miscarried the previous two in their first trimester. Though it was a blessing in the disguise of death for the babies, as terrible as the thought may sound, because an innocent didn't deserve to be born in the hell they called life. Sean worried about Sam's mental health after the second one, but even more so now that she was pregnant with the third one and so far along this time.
Sean brushed the hair out of the face of the young boy he held and gave him a tremulous, but hopefully encouraging smile. "Are you all right?"
The boy glared, a bruise growing on his cheek. "Where am I? Who are you?"
Sean could see the spirit in the young shifter he held, eyes glowing bright in the dull lighting. Yes, every single one of the seven occupants of the dingy, dark basement were shapeshifters of some kind or another. Tara, a white wolf, sixteen, had been taken from her family at the age of eight. Samantha, shortened to Sam, a beautiful lynx, now fifteen had joined both Sean and Tara in their nightmare when she was seven. They'd been there the longest. The twins, Fredrick and Tomas, both liger shifters, were nine. The other female, Vicky, another lynx, was eight. His father had blessedly left her alone so far, but he knew it wouldn't be for long. He'd started eyeing Vicky already. Sean hoped to find some way to get her out before it could happen, although how, he didn't know. She never spoke a word to anyone, too frightened since the day his father beat her so badly for shifting when expressly forbidden.
Sean... he was the oldest at twenty-one. He had no idea what kind of shifter he was. His father had never allowed him to shift and never told him what he was. Since he could remember, he'd worn a collar, something enchanted by some form of magic. It was locked in place by a spell which grew with age and size as Sean did, preventing him from shifting. The thing wouldn’t budge, no matter what he tried to remove it with. A few times Carl had placed a similar collar on a couple of the cubs he’d abducted, but something happened to them over the course of several months and they wasted away to nothing. Eventually, Carl stopped trying to prevent the others from shifting with a collar and just used threats and beatings to prevent them.
He'd once made the mistake of asking what he was, one he'd paid for dearly with fresh bruises, broken bones, and a scar over his left eye, a wound which had nearly taken his eyesight. Since then, he'd never broached the subject. The only things he knew of his mother were the awful words his father called her when drunk. Sean had no memory of her and knew she'd either died or left before he could remember. He liked to fantasize that she'd been a beautiful woman, a woman with a kind heart who'd passed away, because there was no way she'd have left him behind to remain with a man the likes of Carl McNeely.
There'd been others, ones who'd disappeared over the years, ones who hadn't been "good little boys and girls". Sean shuddered as he remembered the ones who hadn't made it through his father's beatings and sexual assaults. He'd been the unlucky one to bury their bodies out behind the house whenever one didn't make it. He tried to help the others, to keep them from angering his father, taught them how to stay out of Carl's way, to do the right things and complete their chores without mishap. The ones who struggled the most were the youngest cubs. They didn't tend to have the coordination of the older shifters. Whenever one of them made a mistake, Sean took the heat, claiming the mess as his own. On the days he could walk, he walked with a limp, a bone never set properly after a particularly bad beating. Oh, he healed faster than a human, but being unable to shift, he couldn't draw on his inner animal to heal himself and it still took days to heal something which would only take minutes or hours if he were able to take on his animal form. Thankfully, the bruise on the newest addition's cheek would heal quickly once the boy shifted.
"My name is Sean and... this... this..." How did he answer where they were? They were in his father's house, prison, hell. Gods, what did he call it? "What's your name?" he asked instead of answering the other question.
"Ronnie." Ronnie stood and looked around, shivering at the cages, and he scented the air. "You're all shifters, too. What does he want with us?"
"My father-"
"Your father!" Ronnie squawked, spinning around to gape at Sean. "That bastard's your father?"
Sean couldn't quite keep the corner of his mouth from curving up. Somehow he figured Ronnie's parents wouldn't approve of the boy's language. "My father doesn't like shifters."
Ronnie raised a brow, crossing his slender arms over his chest. Sean tried to guess what kind of shifter Ronnie was. He'd learned no two kinds of shifters smelled alike and Ronnie didn't smell the same as any of the others who'd come through the house before. Dark brown hair with light eyes, Ronnie didn't stand but around waist high on Sean, who was five foot eleven. "Where did you come from then?"
Sean shrugged a slender shoulder. "I've never really known the answer to that."
"How long have you all been down here? I can smell the forest outside, we're still in my streak’s area. I know it."
None of the others spoke, fearful Sean's father would return, and they always allowed Sean to explain the way of their world to the new arrivals. Sean sighed into the waning light and drew his knees to his chest, the clothing he wore was dirty and tattered, the jeans barely enough to be called that while the shirt, several sizes too big or perhaps just from his being half-starved, hung off his shoulders, moth-eaten in multiple places. "Some of us a couple of years, others longer."