Cara couldn’t sleep.

How could she? In the morning, she would be forced into a marriage with Aldrich. It didn’t matter that she didn’t want to marry him. Cara had no other alternative. Not anymore.

She could still remember what it was like before the town had walls built over ten feet high surrounding it. There were mountains in the distance, beautiful sunsets. Back then Cara thought she’d climb those mountains. She thought she would escape her father and leave all the ugliness behind.

People would talk about the big cities beyond the mountains. Cities that welcomed all walks of people, even the new race of people who changed their shape. These big cities still had the kind of things that Cara’s mother used to talk about. Taxi cabs, television, and phones that made communication possible across great distances.

The cities who did not fight against the shifters were allowed to carry on as they were. People like Cara’s family, who rejected the new race were pushed out of the established communities and forced to build new towns, and ways of surviving without any contact with the Shifter accepting cities.

Eventually war broke out among the shifter cities. At least that was what Cara heard. People left the cities, and so did the shifters. The order of the world forever changed.

Cara thought that perhaps the shifters were misunderstood by the people of her town. She wanted to believe that the world would eventually return to the kind of order it once held. She wanted to believe that the shifters were good.

Then they came.

The creatures who walked like men but were not men at all. They were monsters, wild beasts. Every man attacked by them died. Their bodies were brought back in pieces.

It wasn’t long after the hunting party was slaughtered that the wall was built. At first it was only five feet high. When more hunters were killed outside the wall, the townspeople added to the wall. It grew higher every year, cutting out more and more light from the people inside.

For seven years Cara, and most of the people of Aldrich Town, were trapped behind the walls. It was a cage, and it was only going to get smaller for Cara when she married Aldrich.

The man was in his forties, while Cara was not even twenty years old yet. Cara knew him to be a cruel man, just like her father.

If it wasn’t for Cara’s uncle, Mortimer, she might not know that there were men who were kind.

The men of the town angered easily. Many of them took out their frustration on anyone weaker than they were. When this happened, it was up to Aldrich if the person causing trouble got to stay, or was pushed outside the wall to be killed by the shifters.

All matters were taken to Aldrich. When Cara once asked her uncle why Aldrich was in charge he said, “He owns the food. Aldrich owns the weapons. He owns the wall. Aldrich owns the people of his town because without him they starve, are defenseless, and die.”

When Cara’s father took to beating her, the neighbors called in Aldrich. Cara was thirteen years old when he came to her house that night to answer the complaint. He arrived with a rope, ready to tie up her father because he was not interested in justice so much as he was interested in not being bothered.

When he saw Cara, he entered the home and sat down at the dinner table with Cara’s father. He promised to spare him if he kept her untouched by other men.

A virgin.

Aldrich said he would return for her when she was ripe.

Cara didn’t understand most of what he’d said, but she knew she didn’t like how he looked at her. She didn’t like the way Aldrich would follow her home from the schoolhouse after that.

She was relieved when Aldrich married Paulina. Cara thought that since he’d married, Aldrich had forgotten her. Cara believed she was free of him.

Up until two days prior, Cara believed that she would be like every other young woman in town and choose who to date and who to marry. When Aldrich came knocking, Cara knew she’d been mistaken. Aldrich hadn’t forgotten her. Not at all.

Her father opened the door for Aldrich. When Cara saw him her body froze with fear. There was a rumor that Paulina died. Cara chose to believe it wasn’t true. After all, Paulina was only twenty-three. How could she die so young?

Aldrich married Paulina when she was nineteen. Cara heard people say that Aldrich never let Paulina leave his house. Since Cara’s father rarely allowed Cara to leave without an escort, she thought it must be the same kind of restrictions for Paulina.

Once though, when she passed by Aldrich’s house on her way to work, Cara saw her. Paulina was standing in the window glaring out at the light as though she’d been in darkness for so long she couldn’t adjust. She was bruised, too skinny, and she was crying.

Since Aldrich was the only kind of law in Aldrich Town, Cara felt helpless to do anything for Paulina. Cara remembered that look of desperation on Paulina’s face, it wasn’t a sight she would ever forget.

Aldrich entered Cara’s home. Cara could only think of the terror on Paulina’s face. She stood, backing away from the table. Aldrich’s brown eyes were so dark they were nearly black as they followed every move Cara made.

Cara’s hands were shaking. She fisted them. Cara didn’t like the pleased look on Aldrich’s face when he saw the clear sign of fear. Narrowing her eyes, she dared to meet his gaze.

Aldrich’s cutting eyes widened, the bloodshot vessels in his eyes darkened. His pale face and pointed chin lowered as his heated gaze ran over her. His gray teeth looked sharp as his thin lips curled back.

He pushed up the sleeves of his red shirt. “Take off your dress,” Aldrich commanded. His eyes opened wider as he spoke. His hands opening and closing like he wanted to grab her.

Cara looked to her father. He was the only one who could protect her from Aldrich. Sure, her father was hard hearted, and short tempered but he did love her. Cara was certain he would do something.

He nodded to Cara, telling her without words to obey Aldrich.

Cara’s face burned with anger at his stab of betrayal.

How can he just stand there?

“No,” Cara said.

Aldrich towered over her. He was crowding her space trying to intimidate her to his will. Cara pressed her lips together as they too began to tremble.

Aldrich’s hand shot out taking hold of her long blond braid yanking hard and pulling her head back. Tilting her chin up so that she had to look at him. His rough hands groped her breasts as he breathed into her face.

“You need to see who is in charge, don’t you?”

Cara was terrified, but she couldn’t stand his hands on her body. Reaching up she raked her nails across his face and kicked him as hard as she could.

Only a small grunt sounded before his hand wrapped around her neck. He choked her, yelling in Cara’s face as she fought for air. “I’m going to teach you to obey, Cara Warden. You will be my wife.”

Her name on his lips was a death sentence.

Aldrich held her up in the air, her feet dangling. The whites of his eyes were bright as he bared his filed teeth at her. His sharp chin stabbed into her cheek as he pressed his face into her hair. He groaned a disgusting sound.

Cara continued fighting for air but wasn’t getting any. She kicked out wildly and caught him between the legs. It was all that saved her from Aldrich choking her until she was unconscious, or dead.

He dropped her.

Cara backed away scooting across the floor. Her breath was coming fast and ragged but she couldn’t get enough. Aldrich’s eyes were crazed with rage. Cara was certain he’d kill her for what she’d done. The scary part of it was that she hoped he would.

Instead Aldrich cradled his crotch with both hands as he glared across the space at her. When he was able to stand upright again he pointed at her.

“I’m going to break you, Cara.”

Her father came forward. He grabbed Cara by the front of her dress and hit her hard in the face. It hurt but fear of what would happen next was stronger. The room was tilting as she tried to see where Aldrich had gone.

Is he coming? Is my father really going to hand me over to him? Aldrich’s worse than any creature that could be outside the walls.

“I will come for her Thursday,” Aldrich told her father. “Make certain she is here and ready for me.”

When the door slammed, Cara relaxed. She stopped struggling against the dizziness and gave in to the darkness that filled her vision.

Her father apologized when she woke. It was strange for Cara, because he did actually appear sorry. It was the only time she’d ever seen real remorse in his brown eyes.

“Aldrich will starve us if we deny him. We would both die if I refuse him.”

“I’d rather starve to death than let Aldrich take me,” Cara told him.

“I know,” he’d answered. “But I wouldn’t.”

He didn’t lock her in her room or in the house because there was no where she could go. Nowhere to run away from Aldrich. No one would hide her. If Aldrich found her hiding with anyone, he would starve the entire family.

Her uncle Mortimer and his wife were the only good people she knew. Even though her father rarely let her see them, she loved them and their children. She loved them too much to have them starve for her.

Cara sat up on the mattress that served as her bed.

Thinking of Paulina in that house, looking out like she’d forgotten what the sun felt like, made Cara feel smothered. Even the thin worn blanket on her legs was too much. She pushed it off and onto the floor.

Cara needed to get outside. She needed to breathe in the cold air.

Pulling on her hand-me-down boots, she spotted her shawl on the hook by the door. Cara wrapped it around her shoulders. On an impulse, she grabbed the scissors from the tabletop as she passed by on her way out the front door.

As soon as she was outside she felt a little better.

The air was frosty. Her breath looked like smoke in the dark. Cara breathed hard, like she did after Aldrich choked her. She walked away from her father’s house. It was the first time in five years she’s been in the town without an escort. It was the last bit of freedom she’d ever get.

Cara walked through the small town finding herself on the main square. Aldrich’s house was up ahead. Cara looked up, spotting Paulina’s handprints still on the glass of the upper window.

Cara remembered Aldrich’s hand around her braid, his face in her hair, and his breath on her neck. Rage and revulsion burned up her fear until it was gone.

Raising the scissors, Cara chopped off her braid at the nape of her neck. Just like that she felt lighter. She knew her father would be furious, and she knew Aldrich would be too.

I’m done being afraid.

The town horn sounded, signaling a change of the guard. Cara spotted the guard climbing down the tall ladder to go report and trade places with the next guard on duty. She watched him with disbelief.

The guard tower is empty.

She’d dreamt of stealing the ladder enough times that as she watched the guard walk away Cara wasn’t sure if she were dreaming again.

Taking hold of the ladder, she tried to shift it to lean on the wall instead of the tower but it was too heavy for her. Before she could think better of what she was doing, Cara started climbing.

The sun was rising and the sky above was just hinting at the color blue. Excitement leapt in her chest. She wanted to see the mountains. She wanted to see the field and the forest. Cara kept climbing.

“Hey, hey you there,” someone called out. Cara climbed faster. Ten more rungs up the ladder and she would reach the tower. Her hands were wet with sweat and it was becoming more difficult to hold on. The ladder shook. Cara looked down to see a guard climbing up after her.

Faster, come on Cara