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

Chapter 7

Won’t People Talk?

I spend all of my time in my bedroom.

Well, beyond a few brief forays to the gym where I spend far too long on the treadmill, I do. I’m grateful for it if I’m honest, even if it’s incredibly boring with nothing to do but stare at the wall. I’d rather be tucked away in here than out there with the senator and Brian Coogan, doing god knows what.

It’s been two weeks since my father abducted me from the hospital, and I keep expecting there to be some kind of fallout. For someone to come looking for me. Surely the hospital would report it to the police, and they’d come and ask some questions of my only living relative. Even if Ren couldn’t explicitly tell them who took me, I’m sure she’d find some way to communicate that. But there’s been nothing.

Doesn’t stop me from waiting, hoping, expecting…

Or at least, I keep expecting it when I can bring myself to care about it. But I don’t, I can’t. Everything in my body is muted. All of my emotions and normal reactions are faint and wispy, ephemeral. I know I should feel a lot of things right now. Anger. Fear. Panic. Longing. Worry. Heartache. Pain.

I don’t.

When I can make myself think about it, I suspect that the injection my father gave me at the hospital is the culprit. Not only does it knock me out, but it dulls everything. Makes me feel even more like a shadow of myself than I did when I was under his thumb before.

I only parsed this out in the hour or so before he or Brian injected me with it again, when the fog begins to lift, and my thoughts become clearer. But then, of course, the drug hits my system and I’m back to this.

I suppose this time he’s not taking any chances I might act out, might embarrass him. My going into heat in ‘public,’ has him terrified that I might tip someone off that I am exactly what he doesn’t want me to be: an omega with normal omega instincts and biological needs.

Horrible , I know.

There have been no news reports about me disappearing from the hospital, or at least, not that I’ve seen. But I’ve only watched a few minutes of TV here and there. Not enough to watch a full news rotation. My father doesn’t want me to have any form of entertainment. The television has been moved from my room. I have no laptop or phone to browse the internet. I don’t even have any books. Just the walls of my bedroom and this fuzzy state of being.

So maybe there is some hubbub around where I went and who I’m with. I just have seen no evidence of that.

Really, is it such big news that an omega disappeared? Or I guess that an omega’s father brought her home from the hospital? No, it’s not.

Omegas disappear every day. And I haven’t disappeared at all. Not in the traditional sense. I’m still right here in full view of anyone who bothers to look. I’m just… not myself.

I can recognize that much, even in my drugged state.

To everyone else, he’s the perfect doting father. Everyone thinks he loves me, but he absolutely doesn’t. I can’t imagine the way he treats me is because he cares about me. If he does, he really needs to go to therapy and figure his shit out.

Even then, I know without a doubt that his love is selfish. Or it would be if he was capable of feeling it. He’s only interested in how I make him look, how I make him feel, how the world views him as a father, a caretaker, a man who only wants what’s best for his child. He doesn’t give a shit about how his actions affect me.

There’s a knock on my bedroom door and I turn my head to watch as it pushes open slowly. I don’t bother to get up from my seat on the edge of my bed. I’ve been ordered to sit quietly and not make a peep, to not cause trouble.

If my father had given me that order, I would have been able to disregard it, but it was Brian Coogan, his aide, that barked at me how to spend my days, so this is what I do now. Gym, breakfast, sit quietly, lunch, sit quietly, dinner, bed.

Charles, my favorite of my father’s guards, pokes his head in hesitantly, like maybe he’d find me in a state of undress or something, but he finds me fully dressed and sitting still like a statue. “Miss Bell.”

I tip my head at him in acknowledgment, but say nothing.

“How are you feeling?” The official story is that I’ve been sick, really sick, for months now. That’s why no one has seen me out and about, why I haven’t been to any of the events my father attends.

I shrug, because again I’ve been told to be quiet, and give him what I hope is a reassuring smile.

His brows draw together as he looks at me carefully. If any of my father’s guards are going to be worried about me, about the obvious change in my personality, it would be him. So I give him an even bigger smile, but that only makes his frown deepen.

Well, shit. He’s never looked at me that way before. He’s always been particularly concerned for me, but never… never like this. His mouth opens and then he closes it, shaking his head sharply once. Twice.

I watch all this, understanding that he’s worried, but not able to do anything about it. Or even being able to bring myself to care. If I was my normal self, his obvious concern would make me feel all warm and fuzzy. But as it is, I can barely force that smile to my mouth.

“You have a visitor,” he finally informs me, and there’s the sound of someone hurrying up the stairs.

For one wild moment I think maybe it’s Ren, maybe he’s letting me see her. Finally. I’ve been so good, so… quiet, and demure and still. Another louder part of me hopes it’s not. That part of me that can still feel something is terrified of what it would mean if she was here, that I did something wrong, that she will be punished for it instead of me.

But it’s Caroline, the seamstress, who seems to visit every other day. This time she’s carting two long black garment bags with her.

I push to my feet as Chuck steps back from the door, and Caroline gives me a smile.

She never talks to me, never asks for my opinion on anything. I’m just a doll, one she pins fabric on and measures and then leaves.

Today is more of the same silence, only this time she helps me into a cream-colored dress. It’s a little frillier than I’d normally like, and definitely more conservative than is in fashion. It fits like a glove, tailored to fit my body. Or it would be if I hadn’t lost so much weight since the last time the seamstress came to measure me.

She frowns, pinching the fabric and then looking at me closely. “I’ll have to take it in,” she mutters to herself, not to me. I’m sure she’s under strict instructions not to engage in conversation with me. “By tonight. Shit.”

I don’t respond, even though I have the insane urge to apologize. Or I do for a half second before the drugs smother it. She pins the fabric, then helps me slide it off before opening the other garment bag.

This one I blink at rapidly because it’s white and fluffy and looks an awful lot like a wedding dress, but… as far as I know, I’m not getting married. Still, I say nothing as she pulls the dress over my head, muttering again about how she’ll have to take it in. It’s clear the dress is unfinished, still in the beginning stages of construction, but it’s a lot farther along that it should be, considering no one has proposed to me.

When she’s finished pinning the white monstrosity and I’m back in my normal clothes, she tucks it back into the garment bag. The door opens without a knock and my father steps in. “Are they ready?”

The seamstress folds the two garment bags over her arm and keeps her eyes lowered. “The engagement party dress will need to be taken in. I should be able to have it done in an hour or so. The wedding dress is coming along. I’ll have it finished in time for the ceremony.”

My father nods. “Thank you. Have the dress back in an hour.”

Her head bobs once and then she scurries away. I watch her go impassively, then look at my father, who is watching me like a hawk.

“Ceremony?” I ask, voice rusty with disuse.

He gives a decisive nod. “Yes. You are marrying Brian in a month on New Year’s day. The engagement party is tonight. He’ll be able to keep you in line. His alpha presence is almost as strong as mine.”

Technically, it’s stronger for me. I can ignore my father’s bark thanks to Hale’s command staying in place, but he never protected me from Brian.

“A month? That seems fast, won’t people talk?” It’s as much of a protest as I can muster, and my father has always been concerned about optics, how things look to the media, his constituents.

He folds his arms over his chest and nods. “It is fast. But what with you being so sick recently, you both want to embrace life and your romance. There’s no point in waiting when you know, right?”

I get what he’s saying. If people think I was on the verge of dying for the last few months, they’ll understand why we’re having a rushed wedding. Most will probably find it romantic. Like we don’t want to waste a single moment of our time together.

This turn of events should upset me. I know I should feel sick at the thought of marrying Brian. But I just can’t bring myself to feel much of anything these days. Numb. That’s what I feel. Numb and compliant. Detached. Like I’m watching this happen to someone else.

My father waits as if he expects me to lash out. He should know better. When have I ever done that? Not once in my life have I acted against his wishes… until I met the Calloway pack and look how that turned out.

I gave them my heart, and they… stomped all over it. Ripped it to shreds in some messed up game that I still haven’t figured out the point of. Why would they do that to me?

A tendril of anger and hurt wraps around my chest, but then it’s gone.

I dip my chin to my chest and nod. “Okay.”

“That’s it?”

No, that’s not it. Again, I know I should be angry. Know I should rage against him and everything he’s doing to me, but I can’t bring myself to get worked up. I can’t bring myself to care.

It was foolish of me to think I could have more than what he deigns to give me. More than the life he planned out for me.

I tried to have something else and look where that got me. The Calloway pack. Being used as a fuck toy, a pawn in a game I didn’t know they were playing.

“Yes,” I say, looking away from him, wandering over to the window to stare out the new bars over them. “That’s it.”

A low chuckle. “If I had known how accommodating you’d become, I would have given you this medication years ago.”

Medication, he calls it, as though it’s for my health, for my wellbeing. Not drugs.

I don’t know what the hell it is, have never heard of a drug that does this before, numb and compliant, but I’m grateful he’s only discovered it recently. I have been wondering, though, where he found it, who created it.

“Did Atticus Calloway design my new medication?” I ask before I can think better of it. I want to know the answer and I can’t talk myself into the good sense to not mention the Calloway pack. Over the last two weeks, any mention of them has earned me a growled word or a smack to the face.

This time, he doesn’t do either of those. No smack to the face makes sense. If there’s a party he needs me to attend tonight, he can’t very well have me showing up with his handprint on my cheek or a split lip.

“Atticus? No, he’s not the only chemist I’ve been working with, though he is the most brilliant.” He pauses for a long moment. So long, in fact, that I look over my shoulder at him, to find him watching me with a gleam in his eye. “You know what he’s been helping me with, don’t you? A way to suppress the designations entirely. To stamp them out.”

I turn back to the window, watching as a small bird hops along the roof of the porch. “Yes, he told me about that.” He also told me he had no intention of completing his task. That he gives my father just enough to keep him interested, but not enough to do any actual harm.

He chuckles and I can see the headshake that goes along with it in my head. “You thought they would want you, didn’t you? That they would keep you. There’s a reason they don’t already have an omega, Haven. They don’t want one.”

That I do believe. If they wanted one, they’d have one by now. They’re all in their early thirties, ten years older than me, than most unbonded omegas. They’ve been a pack for fifteen years. If they wanted an omega, they would have found one years ago.

I was just foolish enough to think they’d been waiting for the right omega. And that the right omega was me.

“I’m aware,” I say, still watching that little bird outside, wishing like hell it was me. I’d fly far, far away and never look back.

“Good.” He takes a big self-important breath. “There will be a lot of important people at the party tonight, Haven. I expect you to conduct yourself with poise and class. I expect you to do as you are told. You will not embarrass me. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” I say again. “That is abundantly clear.”