274. From Prisoner to Project

(DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE IS WRONG. FICTION, NOT ADVOCATING)

Rhonda

The little blue car wasn’t meant for this, not anymore. Not the open road, not the mountains, and certainly not four women with guns, booze, and enough bad ideas to level a city. But here we were, barreling north with the windows down and pop songs about alphas blasting at full volume.

“Alpha, claim me, never tame me!” we shouted in unison, Suki leaning half out the window like a teenager at a festival. Marla tapped her pistol against the dashboard in rhythm, Jill hummed with surprising pitch, and Mikhail sat squashed in the backseat looking like the fates had personally cursed him.

“Too loud,” he muttered, voice hoarse from disuse, and it’s winter.

“Too bad,” Marla shot back, reloading her gun to the beat. “Welcome to freedom, sugar, and when you get heat flashes, you can comment on the weather.”

I cackled, slapping the wheel. “She’s right. If you survived decades locked up, you can survive four hot she-wolves singing about alphas.”

He gave me a look in the rearview mirror, part desperation, part pleading. Wrong move. I winked at him.

Jill pulled a sandwich from her grocery bag. She always had food tucked away. “Eat,” she ordered, handing it over.

Mikhail took it like it might explode. His hair hung in his face, white and wild, making him look like some starving elder dragged out of a cave.

“He needs meat,” Marla muttered. “Gonna snap in half before we hit the mountains.”

“Don’t worry,” Suki shouted over the music. “We’ll fatten him up. Burgers, fries, pie.”

I grinned at him. “By the time we’re done, sugar, you’ll waddle back to your daughter with cheeks so round she won’t recognize you.”

Suki flicked his hair with her long red nails. “This mop has got to go. Looks like you wrestled a badger and lost.”

Mikhail stiffened. “It’s fine.”

Marla leaned over with her knife, grinning. “I could trim it now. Quick and easy.”

Jill swatted her hand away. “You are not cutting his hair with a hunting knife!”

“Why not?” Marla shrugged. “Sharp’s sharp.”

I barked a laugh. “Relax, we’ll get him a proper cut once we find clippers.”

Mikhail sank lower in his seat, whispering something that sounded like ‘kill me now.’

We stopped at a glowing gas station in the middle of nowhere. Suki dragged Mikhail inside like he was her date to prom. He shuffled out later with jerky, a protein shake, and a glazed donut already half gone.

“Progress,” Jill said approvingly.

Marla shoved a beer at him the second he sat down. “Drink this, too. Put hair on your chest.”

He grimaced but obeyed. “I already….”

“More hair,” she interrupted.

Somewhere between the gas station and the foothills, the music quieted, the road stretching long and dark. Jill, always the practical one, asked the question. “What’s it like, being out again after all this time?”

Mikhail pressed a hand to the window like he was touching the night. “It’s… overwhelming. The air. The stars. I’d forgotten what wind feels like.”

For once, none of us had a joke ready. The car went quiet, the weight of his words pressing down.

So I broke it. “Well, good thing you’ve got us. We’ll whip you into shape, get you fattened, trimmed, dressed. You’ll be strutting back into the pack like you never left.”

Suki hooted. “We’ll have him looking like a young stud by spring.”

He shook his head, but a ghost of a smile tugged at his mouth.

It happened in a blink. A deer bolted across the road, eyes glowing. I swerved, tires screaming. Jill shrieked, Marla cursed as her beer splashed, and Suki cheered like we were at a rodeo.

“Rhonda!” Jill yelled, clutching Mikhail like he was a seatbelt.

“Relax,” I said smoothly, straightening the wheel. “Barely touched it. Besides, are you forgetting about THE DAMN BATTLE WE JUST WON? It’s a deer, not a tank.”

“We almost died!”

“Almost doesn’t count, sweetheart.”

Mikhail sat pale and silent, hands clenched, while Suki pounded the roof, shouting, “Best trip ever!”

The alarm on Jill’s watch goes off. Med time.

I sang it like a nursery rhyme gone wrong, bottles rattling in Jill’s bag like maracas.

“Blue for the morning, white for the night,

Don’t take Suki’s or you’ll start a fight.

Marla doubles hers, I skip mine

That’s why the car’s still running fine.

Meds keep the voices tucked away,

Or maybe we like what they have to say.”

Mikhail just stared at us when we finished, like we’d grown antlers mid-verse. Half a sandwich dangled from his hand, forgotten, while his eyes flicked from Jill’s rattling pill bottles to Marla’s grin.

“…You trade medication with each other?” he finally asked, voice flat, horrified.

“Of course we do,” Suki said, proud as anything. “Keeps life spicy.”

Marla tapped her knife against her thigh. “Besides, if the voices get too loud, they tell me things I like to hear.”

Jill sighed. “Ignore them. They’re exaggerating.”

Mikhail leaned back, like the seat might protect him from all four of us. “Years locked in a cell,” he murmured, “and I thought I’d seen madness. I was wrong.”

I cackled, smacking the steering wheel. “Welcome to freedom, sugar. You’re stuck with us now.”

“What if we find your old pack?” Jill changes the subject because, of course, she does.

“If my old pack is gone… I won’t rebuild it. Too much time has passed. Too much has been lost.” Mikhail says quietly after he finishes his donut.

Suki frowned. “Then what?”

He met my eyes in the mirror, voice steady. “Then I’ll stay with your pack. My daughter is there. Even if she doesn’t remember me, even if she doesn’t want me… that’s where I belong now.”

The car went quiet again, but this time it wasn’t heavy. Jill reached over, squeezing his arm. Marla nodded like she approved. Suki whooped and turned the music up louder.

I just grinned. “Told you, sugar. You’re ours now. You don’t get a choice.”

Suki looked over with that wicked glint in her eye. “So tell us, Mikhail. You into harems?”

He blinked. “…Excuse me?”

Marla’s grin was pure trouble. “You heard her. One man, a whole circle of she-wolves doting on you. Keeping you fed, entertained… busy.” She dragged the word out just to make him squirm.

Jill groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Must you?”

“Of course we must,” I said, cackling. “Look at him! Poor boy hasn’t seen daylight in decades. He needs to catch up. Maybe a harem would do the trick.”

Mikhail’s ears turned bright red, eyes darting to the window like he could leap out and run. “No. That’s… no.”

Suki smirked, unbothered. “Shame. You’d make a good harem king once we put some weight on you. White hair, tragic backstory, that whole broody look? We would eat that up.”

That earned a bark of laughter out of me so sharp the car swerved, making Jill swear under her breath. “Oh, we could be his GILFS!”

Mikhail groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “The Fates are mocking me.”

Marla’s phone buzzed, and she answered with her usual charm. “What the hell do you want?” A pause, then her face twisted. “It’s the liquor guy. Says he won’t deliver without proof of an alpha-approved license.” I rolled my eyes so hard I nearly swerved us into a ditch. “Send him the picture I made of the forgery, the one with the fancy stamp. If that doesn’t shut him up, pay the bastard. We’ve got a bar to stock and gamblers to keep drunk. End of story.”

Suki started slurring as Marla passed me her flask. “Did she take that orange pill again?”

“I think she took an extra because she said it makes her a cheap drunk.” Jill shakes her head disapprovingly.

“Don’t be a prude, Jill. She can save her money however she sees fit.” I growl.

“Do you all conspire before speaking, or does this chaos just… happen?”

“Oh, honey. This ‘chaos’ is what happens after our children decide they know what’s best for us!” I laugh, swerving over the center line again. I need to find a thick book.

“Yeah.” Suki slurs.

“And they try to suffocate us!” Marla interjects.

“Yeah.” Suki slurs again.

“And they think we are too old to have fun!” I throw my angry fist in the air.

“I’m just here because I don’t have other friends.” Jill interrupts our rally speech.

“Because you’re a prude. But we accept you.” I pass the flask back to Marla for a refill. “And we love you now, please, pass me a meat stick, and no, I’m not talking about Mikhail…..yet.” I wiggle my eyebrows up in the review mirror at him.