Chapter 54
Aiden
“I, uh … I don’t know where to start,” I admit with a rough chuckle that scratches at my throat.
I glance at Julian, wondering if he can tell how fucking terrified I am right now, but there’s nothing in his eyes but silent support.
“At the beginning,” he says, his hand running up and down the length of my spine.
Like it’s that easy. I have the urge to scoff or maybe shout, but I can’t. I don’t even really want to. It’s just nerves and fear—the ingrained fear that always shut me up before I could get a word out. To share was to trust someone with me, and I didn’t trust anyone with that.
I trust Julian, though. I trust him with everything—and I can trust him with this. With me.
Nodding, I work in a deep breath. I keep my eyes on him—don’t let them waver, don’t fucking dare—because I know the second I do, I’ll start back-pedalling again, and I need him to get me through this.
“I … I was sleeping when I heard a window break—or I was trying to,” I start carefully.
“There was a pack meeting that night, and my parents left me at our house because I was sick. I begged them to take me anyway, but when werewolves get sick, nobody wants that spreading, right?” A humourless chuckle slips past my lips.
“I wasn’t alone. They said they left me with guards, but they must’ve gotten through them because—” My fingers clench tight as red flashes before my eyes. “It all happened so fast. The window broke, and then they were there—in my room and covered in blood.” So much blood.
I clear my throat. “I tried calling for help, but they were moving so fast, and we were out of the packlands in seconds … it felt like seconds. I tried fighting them off, but what can a kid really do against grown men?” My shoulders drop.
“I got in a few punches, but that just made them mad. I wasn’t supposed to resist—they wanted me to learn that early.
So they started beating me. Kicking me, punching me …
spitting on me. A group of them, just hitting me over and over and over, and the red—” Blood and bloody irises.
“The only thing I could see in the dark was their red eyes.”
My breaths rush in one after the other, filling my lungs too quickly while I stare unseeing at the floor. Our familiar floorboards morph into dirt instead, twisting to dark shades of brown as the scent of iron fills my nose.
“Breathe,” Julian whispers as he inches closer, consuming the remaining space between us. His eyes are so soft when I meet them, so gentle, even with the anger brewing there. “Breathe, Aiden.”
I do—taking each breath and focusing only on conquering the one. One breath at a time, I find my way back to the present, where the only thing I can smell is the sweet, fresh scent of lemons.
“When I woke up, I was already in the mill,” I continue, already drained, but I force myself not to stop.
“I didn’t know it at the time though. I was inside it and strapped down to a table.
It was … I’ve never felt darkness like that.
I couldn’t tell the difference when my eyes were open or closed.
I was in a room, but I didn’t know if it was big or small, if someone was with me or not. I didn’t … There was just darkness.”
Working in another deep breath, I peek at Julian and still at the look on his face. Horror has broken through his earlier calm, leaving him with wide, shell-shocked eyes and parted lips. “If you look like this now, you won’t make it through the rest.”
Julian’s lips clamp shut, sinking into a frown. “… Aiden …”
I look away, swallowing down the bile that races up my throat so I can get this over with.
“Rogues aren’t supposed to think like us,” I say as I wade through the memories.
“They can’t, once the pack links are severed.
Even the best of them are a little crazed, but these weren’t.
These rogues weren’t savages or beasts, and they weren’t like anything we were told about growing up.
They were still coherent, and they were smart.
“My parents told me early on that alpha pups were targets,” I say, and Julian nods quickly in agreement.
“In the case that someone got me, I was supposed to listen until I found a way out. If that wasn’t possible, then behave, wait, and they’d be there soon.
But you know me.” My lips tug in a sorrowful smile.
“Of course, I didn’t behave. The first time someone tried to touch me, I sank my teeth into their hand and locked down.
” Red eyes flash in my mind. “That was the first time I saw any light—when the rogue got so mad his eyes glowed. I didn’t see much for long with the beating I got. They muzzled me after that.”
The bond between us ripples with anger as Julian’s hand slides over mine. His rage is pitch-black, like the poison creeping back up in my chest, and it helps. But I can’t look at him anymore.
I’m too deep in this to stop now, and I know that’s exactly what I’ll do if I look at him.
“The beginning wasn’t …” I struggle for the word.
“It was fine.” I was scared shitless, cried all night, prayed, but …
“It was fine. Every day, they took my blood, checked my eyes in the morning and the evening, and then left. They fed me once every few days and didn’t bother to clean me until the smell of my shit and piss was too much for even them.
Other than that, it was just me in that room, lying on that table.
They never moved me from that fucking table. ”
I shift just to make sure I still can.
“I—I lost track of time after the first week, and that’s when everything went to hell.
They started … they …” I tell myself to breathe, but I can’t.
I clench my eyes shut but force them open when the darkness returns to crawl over my skin and strap me back down.
“They—” Fucking breathe. “They started b-breaking me, literally.”
Julian says something as his arm tightens around me, and I can’t help but wonder when that happened.
The world sways, spinning into some horror show between past and present. I fight the urge to close my eyes as I bury my fingers in my hair, tugging at the roots until the past fades back. When the darkness clears, I focus on the hand on my back, using that as my grounding point.
“They started with my toes,” I spit out while I focus all my attention on the hand.
Julian’s hand. Julian’s here. Julian’s touching me.
“They broke them. One by one. By the time one side healed, they … th-they’d break the toes on the other foot.
I—” My own screams rise in my ears, ringing as loudly as they had then.
“I screamed and begged them to stop. I said everything I could think of. I told them I was sorry, but it felt like I was screaming to no one. I couldn’t see them—the ones taking me apart. ”
Darkness and pain. Darkness in pain. The two interwoven and unrelenting.
“All I could do was feel. They didn’t take breaks.
They just took turns and kept going. They didn’t even breathe.
I never heard them breathe. All I heard were my bones cracking and the screaming.
” The cries. The pleas. The agony. “At one point, I thought they were someone else’s …
if it was, it would’ve been easier because then someone else was going through it. ”
My breathing slows as that sinking feeling returns, dragging me back down under the weight of the short-lived hope that maybe if I was strong enough, I could make it through. Find the other wolf they were hurting, and we could escape together.
It almost hurt more to realise that just as my parents weren’t coming for me “soon,” there was no other wolf to escape with.
“I asked them why,” I remember that part clearly.
“I remember asking them, why me? Why were they hurting me? Why wouldn’t they stop?
I asked whenever I was lucid enough, but they never answered.
They never spoke. They just kept hurting me—breaking me, over and over again.
Then, after a while, I stopped screaming so much.
My toes healed, and when they broke them, it didn’t hurt as much.
I barely felt it, and then it became nothing but a sting, if that.
I thought they’d stop there, but they just moved on to my fingers. ”
Julian sucks in a short breath that I know he tries to stifle, but he can’t help that or the way his fingers tremble over mine.
“They did the same exact thing,” I bite out.
“The same fucking thing. They broke my fingers over and over again until it didn’t hurt.
Then they broke my hands themselves, then my feet, my wrists, my arms, my legs …
my back.” Julian’s hand stills as if feeling the wound for himself.
“That one took the longest to heal. They broke every bone in my body except for my neck, and when I became numb to it all, they just left me alone.”
A stillness slips over us, an echo of the one that had found me back then.
I remember thinking how, suddenly, the empty darkness wasn’t so bad anymore. It was better than the terrible one when they were there. Being alone was a gift. Living in my own head was sweet, and I liked feeling it fray because that meant there were more places to hide.
I smile as I remember the peace. The sweet, sweet peace.
“I thought they were done,” I admit quietly.
“When they returned, it was only to take my blood and check my eyes. If they hurt me, they only broke a single toe every hour. I th-thought—I thought the Moon Goddess was on my side, y’know?
” I chuckle behind my blurry eyes. “I thought it wasn’t so bad anymore—that I could survive it.
I’d survived the worst of it, and if I could do that, then I could make it out.
” Stupid. “Stupid.” Stupid. “So fucking stupid.”
“Aiden,” Julian breathes, trying to reach me, but it’s all coming out now and I can’t stop it.