Knot All That Glitters, Part 2 (FatedVerse #5)

Chapter 3

Quite Monstrous

My alarm is going off. An annoying beeping that makes me groan with the way the sound stabs at my aching head. I lift my hand to bat it off, but the limb feels heavy, too heavy, weighed down by something.

My eyes are gritty, crusted over with sleep goobers, but I force them open, squinting at the room I’m in, which is…. Definitely not my room. Not the one at my father’s house or the one at the Calloway pack house. Though I suppose neither of those are really mine anymore.

I look around at the light gray walls, the low light, the luxuriously soft blanket over my legs. Where the hell am I?

My lids close again, worn out from that small amount of activity, as I sink further into the plush pillow behind me.

A scrape of a chair over the floor to the side of my bed.

Soft, slim fingers squeeze mine gently. “Haven, babe?”

Ren. That’s Ren’s voice. I groan as my eyelids flutter again, my head aching even in the low light. The grip on my hand tightens, accompanied by a sharp intake of breath. “Haven?”

My eyes ache, throb, but I make them move off the ceiling and down to where my friend is staring at me, hunched over my bed, blond hair escaping her tight bun, dark circles under her brown, green and blue eyes. “Ren,” my voice is raspier than ever. I swallow, lick my lips and try again. “Ren.” That’s not any better.

“Wait,” she says, straightening in her chair, and carefully disentangling her fingers from mine before reaching for a plastic cup with a straw poking out of it. “They said I could give you this if you woke up. They’ve been keeping you hydrated with IVs, but your mouth probably feels like a chicken died in it.”

I snort at the image, though it’s not far off. My mouth feels like it’s full of feathers and tastes like I haven’t brushed my teeth in months. The straw taps against my lips. “Drink.”

I do, and holy shit, nothing has ever felt as good as the cool water slipping over my tongue and down my parched throat. I suck it down too quickly, the straw making that rattling, bubbling sound when there’s no liquid left and Florence pulls the cup from my mouth. “More?” I ask hopefully.

My best friend shakes her head. “We don’t want to overwhelm your stomach. Or at least that’s what the doctors told me.” Her words have me looking around again, taking in the hospital bed, the needles sticking out of my arm, the machines next to the bed monitoring my heart rate and blood pressure. I have scratches all over my arms, and low in my stomach aches painfully, between my legs throbs uncomfortably.

A sense of foreboding creeps over me.

I lick my lips and find them cracked and dry. “What-what happened, Ren?”

She grips my hand with both of hers again, bends to press a kiss to my knuckles and then says quietly, “you don’t remember?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“You called me crying and in pain, told me the Calloway pack are a bunch of assholes, that you never wanted to see again, and then begged me to find them so you could fuck them, because you needed them.” I frown as she speaks, not remembering any part of it. “It didn’t take much for me to realize you—Haven, you were in heat, wandering around the city, alone.”

My free hand moves, pressing over my low belly as horror strikes hard and fast. “Was I-” I can’t bring myself to say it, to ask if I was raped while out of my mind on hormones. Would it have been rape if I was begging for it? Would the alphas who did it be given a pass? Not held accountable?

But Florence is shaking her head, thumbs making circles on my skin. “No. No. Once I realized what was happening, I had you tell me where you were, and told you to find a safe place to lock yourself in.”

“And I did?”

She nods, looking wrecked, horrified, haunted. “It took me hours to find you. Too fucking long. You were in a walk-in freezer, Haven. One that didn’t have power, but… you literally locked yourself in. You wouldn’t have been able to get out if I hadn’t-” she chokes off the words, tears filling and falling from her eyes. “Jesus, you could have died!”

I hate seeing Ren upset. She’s my sunshine girl, my bright spark in an otherwise very dark life. So I tsk and use my grip on her hand to tug her onto the bed with me. Well, I don’t really tug her so much as urge her. She doesn’t hesitate to curl up next to me, wrapping me up in her arms and I do the same to her, settling into her citrus and hibiscus scent, letting to calm me down like it always does.

“They put you in a coma to have you sleep through the rest of your heat. You weren’t aware enough to approve a relief team, so it was the only option.”

I shift so I’m on my side, facing her. “That’s good. It’s what I would have wanted had I been able to say it.”

She nods and presses her forehead into mine. “I know. No matter how much you begged for dick, I knew you wouldn’t actually want to have sex with someone you didn’t care about.”

“Thank you.”

She scoffs. “Don’t thank me for that, babe. I would expect you to do the same fucking thing for me if our roles were reversed.”

She reaches up to smooth my hair back from my face, and it’s then that I notice the bandages on her arms. “You’re hurt?”

She gives me a smile and nods. “Yeah, you didn’t like me too much when you were in the throes of your heat, and then you liked me a little too much.”

I furrow my brow, trying to make my fuzzy mind understand. “So I attacked and hurt you and then tried to have sex with you? Jesus. How are you still here?”

She laughs. “Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. You’re in much worse shape. So I can deal.”

I know to her it’s really not that big of a deal. I wasn’t myself, but I still feel guilty for hurting her and embarrassed for apparently trying to fuck her. My cheeks heat. But Ren just wraps me up tighter. “Don’t sweat it, babe. Everything is fine.”

“Not everything.” She freezes for a moment and the strokes a hand up and down my spine, soothing me.

“No, I suppose not everything.” She waits for a moment. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I shake my head. “Not right now. Is there a bathroom I can use? A shower? I feel… really gross.”

My best friend squeezes me tighter for a moment, then drops a kiss on the top of my greasy, stringy hair. “Yep. And I brought all of your favorite products so you can feel normal again.”

I should ask how she got all of my favorite products. They aren’t cheap. And while Florence isn’t totally poor or anything, she’s not flush with cash. She lives with her mother and little sister in an old townhouse that they can only afford because it’s been rent controlled since the eighties, when Moira moved in with her then husband.

But I’m too tired to question it and I have a feeling I won’t really like the answer. My brain flickers to all the things I left at the Calloway pack house and then away. It’s more than possible that they brought my stuff to me, and I’m not fully ready to think about them yet. I’d like to bask in this post heat fuzziness for a while longer, before I have to face the reality of what happened.

Ren climbs off the bed and helps me to my feet, hovering nearby to catch me if I need it, but I don’t. I feel a little weak, a little woozy, but beyond my head, I don’t feel too bad. She stays with me as I climb in the shower, perching her butt on the counter as I slowly but methodically clean the heat sweat from my body.

My fingers brush over scratches and cuts, bruises where I’d undoubtedly slammed into hard surfaces as I tried to drag myself to safety. When I shut off the water, Ren is right there with a towel, wrapping it tight around me, helping me to dry off, being extra careful of my injuries.

“Are you okay getting dressed by yourself?” She asks, squeezing the water from my hair with a second towel.

I nod. “I think so.”

“Good.” A kiss presses to my cheek. “I’m gonna let a nurse know you’re awake and clean. They’ll want to check your injuries and, um, discuss what was done with you.”

Another nod as she leaves the bathroom. Wincing every so often, I pull on a pair of loose sweatpants and a t-shirt that smells like bleach and astringent, and then shuffle back to the bedroom, to find a nurse already in the room, quickly changing the sheets. She smiles when she notices me. “Oh, sorry. I thought it would be best to get these changed while you’re up and about. I’ll just be a moment if you want to take a seat.”

I do. I really do.

She chuckles. “I don’t blame you. You’ve been through the ringer.”

I guess I said that out loud. I shuffle to the chair Ren was sitting in earlier. And watch as the nurse finishes up with the sheets. When she’s finished, she helps me back under the covers and plumps the pillows. Then she spends a few minutes checking my vitals.

“We’ve had quite a few alphas try to visit you,” the nurse says, fingers pressing into my pulse point. “Miss Karlin assured us you wouldn’t want them here, so we’ve kept them away. But I want to just verify with you she was correct.”

I swallow and nod. “She was.”

Her brows jump. “You don’t know their names.”

“Doesn’t matter. I don’t want any alphas near me. At least not any of the ones who would come looking for me like that. But especially, Frederick Bell.”

Her gaze sharpens on my face. “The senator?”

I nod and lean against the pillows. “That’s the one.”

The nurse hums and carefully sets my hand down. I could go into it, tell her everything, all the reasons I need him to stay away from me, but I also don’t feel like rehashing it at the moment. If I need to explain myself, I will, though.

Her lips purse into a tight line, and then she nods. “Okay, I’ll let everyone know. I take it that also applies to Creed Calloway?”

I frown. “Just Creed?” Why not the entire Calloway pack? I push the hint of pain aside and remind myself of the scorecard, the proof that I never actually meant anything to them. A game. Only a game.

She presses a stethoscope to my chest. “Mmm, I believe the entire pack showed up, but they left shortly after. Creed is the only one who stayed.” She pauses and looks down at me. “I have to say he looks wrecked.”

“I don’t really care how he looks.” Lies. Lies. Lies. I care too much. The thought of him sitting out in the waiting room, slumped in a chair, waiting for the chance to see me makes my heart do a crazy little flip in my chest.

Another of those knowing hums. “Well, he hasn’t left the entire time you’ve been here. We’ve been bringing him food and coffee from the cafeteria. He’s hardly even gotten up to use the bathroom.”

“I don’t care,” I repeat. Maybe if I say it enough times, I’ll believe it.

She opens her mouth like she’s going to say something else, but at that moment the door opens and a man wearing a white jacket and scrubs steps in, followed by Ren. My best friend plops down into the chair she’d been sitting in before while the doctor looks over what I assume is my chart.

“How are you feeling, Miss Bell?”

My fingers fidget with the blanket covering my legs. “Oh, about as well as can be expected, given the circumstances.”

He hums. “Yes. Circumstances it appears you brought on yourself.”

I straighten from the pillows and glance at Ren, who is too busy glaring at the doctor to notice. “Pardon?” I ask. “How did I bring this on myself?” He finally looks up from the tablet and pins me with a knowing look.

“When you were brought in, we tested your blood. Its procedure.” Makes sense. I wouldn’t expect to come to the hospital and not have my blood taken. “We found trace amounts of InstyxBurn, more commonly known as Burnout, in your system.”

I blink at him. Not understanding what he’s getting at. Neither it appears does Ren. “InstyxBurn?”

He sighs and answers her unasked question. “It’s a heat stimulant. Omegas use it to force a heat. You weren’t taking it in a high enough dose to push into a full heat immediately, but it was enough that, combined with stopping suppressants, you were likely tipped over into a heat.” He tsks and shakes his head, unaware of the turmoil in my stomach. Because I definitely wasn’t taking that myself. I stopped the suppressants when Creed stole me from my father’s house, but… “You really shouldn’t have been experimenting with that kind of drug, Miss Bell. It might make sex feel amazing, but it’s dangerous to use it over an extended period.”

My brow wrinkles and I want to ask questions, lots and lots of questions, but I can’t get my tongue to work. Thankfully, Ren doesn’t seem to have that problem. “What exactly does it do in small doses?”

He shrugs. “It lowers inhibitions, makes sex feel better.”

“Like a mini heat?”

“No, more like… MDMA. Molly.”

They drugged me. They fucking drugged me to make me more compliant for their games, to get the most points they could.

“What would it do if an omega was also taking suppressants?”

“They’d cancel each other out, basically. The suppressant would try to keep any omega instincts or traits from surfacing, while the InstyxBurn would work to heighten all of that.”

There’s no stopping the whine that pulls from my chest. “Why would they do that to me?” I ask, even though I know the answer. Ren is by my side in an instant, arms wrapped tight around me. I know she glaring daggers at the doctor, who only now seems to understand there’s an issue.

“You didn’t do it to yourself?”

“No, you asshole, she didn’t do it to herself.” Ren snarls at him. “Maybe you should work on your bedside manner. Or better yet just not talk to any patients at all, coming in here accusing her of forcing her own heat.”

He holds up a hand to stave off her flood of vitriol. “I apologize, you’d be surprised by the number of young omegas admitted that have been using InstyxBurn recreationally and take it too far.”

“Well, she’s not one of them. This was done to her.” I bury my face in the curve of her neck, letting her fight this battle for me. I don’t have the energy or the strength. What little there had been is completely and totally sapped. “Is there anything else, doctor?”

There’s a long pause before he sighs. “Again, I apologize. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. We’d like to keep you overnight for observation. But we should be good to send you home tomorrow morning.”

Home.

Where even is that? I don’t have a home. Don’t have a place of my own. I thought I’d found it, but it was all a big lie. A joke. A game.

I barely listen as Ren asks a few more questions, and then sends the doctor on his way.

Once the door closes, Ren settles more fully against me. I don’t lift my face from her neck. “What am I going to do?” The question is whispered against her skin.

She strokes a hand over my wet, tangled hair. “You’re going to come stay with us and we’ll figure it out from there. I’ve been looking into the Omega Crisis clinics that Miss Levenseller told us about. We can reach out to them. They’ll know how to keep you safe.”

I wrap an arm around her waist and squeeze. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“If you help me, you won’t be safe, Ren.”

“As if that would stop me.”

“It should.” Not only is my father a monster, but it appears the Calloway pack is also quite monstrous. Not just for the games they played with me, the way they made me a pawn, but they also drugged me. Just enough to make me more pliable, just enough to get me to give in to them.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want them before they started doing that. I did. Well, before I went to stay with them, I wanted them. Desperately. I wanted something that was totally and wholly mine. I probably would have given them anything they asked without the added lowering of my inhibitions with drugs.

More fools me.

I’m sure every one of Tic’s smoothies were laced with the stuff. After all, he made them just for me. The alphas never had one. And I never questioned it. He told me the smoothies had everything an omega needs to stay healthy.

And I thought it was sweet, considerate.

“What if they come after you?”

“They won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

She sighs and drops a kiss on my forehead. “Well, they might. But I don’t give a fuck. You’re my best friend. My sister from another mister. My ride or die. The peanut butter to my jelly. I’m not going to abandon you when you need me most, Haves, so stop asking. For the record, Mom and Ginny feel the same. We even sprung for a new security system to keep you safe.”

Tears fill my eyes as I snuggle into her. “Why do you get to be jelly?”

She hums. “You wanna be jelly?”

“I mean, I think you’re more peanut butter than jelly.”

She laughs. “I guess you’re right. You’re all the sweet in our relationship and I’m all the salty.”

I laugh, and god, I didn’t think I’d be able to so soon after learning everything I just did. “That’s not what I meant. You’re plenty sweet when you want to be, and we both know I can be salty as hell. I meant you’re a little nuttier than I am.”

She gasps in mock offense. “Haven Bell, are you calling me crazy?”

“I would never. And even if I did, you’re my kind of crazy.”

She hums against and hugs me tighter. “You’re my kind of crazy, too.” We’re quiet for a while, so long that I drift off. I try to stay awake. I’ve been sleeping for days. But Florence strokes my hair and murmurs. “Get some sleep, babe.”

I’m helpless but to follow her command.