Chapter Six #2
“Try anyway. You gotta keep up your strength for…” He trailed off, pretending not to remember why I was laid up in the first place.
“For the next round,” I finished. My voice was steadier, but it felt raw inside.
He watched me eat, as if he could will the calories into me by the force of his concern. I managed a few bites, but each swallow felt like pushing boulders through a garden hose.
I cleared my throat. “I need to pee.” I hadn’t realized how urgently until the words left my mouth.
Burke straightened, business mode activated. “Bathroom’s across the hall. You want an arm?”
“No offense, but I’d rather crawl than piss myself in front of you.”
He grinned, but there was pride in his eyes. “Roger that.”
Getting upright was a multi-phase process. I braced my hands on the bed, counted to three, then pushed. The pain made everything white for a second, but I stayed conscious.
Small victories.
Burke hovered, close enough to catch me but not so close that I felt caged. I shuffled into the hallway, moving like an arthritic octogenarian. Every step made my side flare, but I refused to cry out.
The bathroom was old but clean, with a claw-foot tub and a mirror that had seen better decades. I locked the door and leaned against the sink, breathing hard.
Only then did I look up.
The face in the mirror was a stranger’s. The left side was a swollen continent, purple and green and yellow, orbiting a bloodshot eye that barely opened. My lip was crusted black, split in two places. There were scrapes along my jaw, and a bruise that arched over my cheekbone like a half-moon.
I stared, trying to reconcile this with the memory of who I used to be.
Every past version of myself flickered through my mind: kid with the bowl cut and scabbed knees, teen with headphones and a chip on his shoulder, college hopeful with plans and dreams and no idea how easily a future could be erased.
I didn’t cry. There was no room left for that.
After a minute, I pissed—awkward and painful but at least I didn’t faint—and splashed water on my face. When I finished, I stood there, gripping the edge of the sink, staring at the wreckage.
The door was slightly ajar. In the mirror’s reflection, I saw Burke, arms folded, leaning in the hall like a bouncer at a club nobody wanted to get into. He didn’t say anything, didn’t come closer.
I didn’t know if I was talking to him or to myself, but I said it anyway: “I’m never going back there. I don’t care what it takes.”
My voice didn’t shake. That surprised me most of all.
Burke didn’t flinch, didn’t smile, didn’t do anything but nod, once, slow and solemn. The kind of nod that meant a promise was being made, even if we hadn’t worked out the details yet.
I shuffled back to the room, and Burke followed, silent and steady.
He helped me ease onto the bed. I winced, then laughed a little because it hurt so bad. “This is what I get for skipping P.E. all those years,” I said.
He let out a breath, and I realized he’d been holding it the whole time. “You’re doing great,” he said.
“You don’t have to baby me,” I said. “I’m not—” I stopped, not sure how to finish that sentence.
He finished it for me: “You’re not helpless. I know.”
We let the silence sit for a while, companionable in its own weird way.
After a while, I said, “You really think Dennis won’t come looking?”
His jaw ticked. “If he does, he’ll regret it. Rawley’s got half the ex-military in Montana on speed dial. You’re not going anywhere.”
The promise settled over me, heavy and warm. It didn’t fix anything, not really, but it was a start.
I finished the toast, one bite at a time, and when I was done, Burke took the tray and set it on the dresser. He came back, standing in the doorway with his hands shoved into his pockets.
“I’m not going to pretend I know what you need,” he said, voice rough. “But if you want to talk, or yell, or just sit and watch Netflix until your eyes fall out, I’ll be here.”
I nodded, unable to say thank you, but I think he understood.
For a long time after he left, I watched the sunlight inch across the floor. I listened to the noises of the ranch—the lowing of a distant cow, the rattle of a tractor, the laughter of Jojo somewhere in the kitchen.
I replayed the words I’d said in the bathroom, over and over. Each time, they felt less like a hope and more like a fact.
I was never going back. Not ever.
Somewhere outside the room, I heard Burke’s laugh, quick and bright, and even with all the pain, I found myself smiling.
For the first time in my life, I wanted to be here tomorrow.
And the day after that.
And the day after that.
* * * *
The next time Burke brought food, I was ready for it. Not hungry, exactly, but steady enough to sit up without getting dizzy. The tray came loaded with actual silverware, a folded napkin, and a note in Jojo’s handwriting that read, “Eat or I’ll spoon-feed you myself.”
Burke set it on my lap and perched at the edge of the bed, eyes careful but open.
We watched each other for a while, the space between us charged and brittle. I wasn’t sure how to start. The words crowded in my throat, too big to swallow and too sharp to spit out.
I pushed the eggs around, then finally said, “I don’t really remember the first time he hit me.” My voice was flat, almost bored, but I saw Burke’s jaw flex.
“Dennis?” he asked, gentle.
I nodded. “I mean, I remember the first time it mattered. I was eleven. He’d just turned seventeen, had the truck, the job at the mill. I asked Mom if I could join chess club instead of football. He broke my wrist with a door.”
I didn’t look at Burke. Couldn’t. “Mom said it was my fault for being underfoot. Dennis told the ER it was a fall. He was good at that. Everyone believed him.”
A long pause. I forced myself to keep going.
“It wasn’t always like that. Sometimes, he’d be…normal. He’d bring home pizza, let me watch movies with him. But then something would set him off and it’d be like a switch flipped. He’d just—” I made a vague exploding motion, my fingers shaking. “He got real creative, after a while.”
Burke’s voice was soft. “Nobody ever tried to stop him?”
I snorted. “This is Black Butte. Alphas don’t get in trouble for handling their omegas. Especially not ones with a record for ‘acting out.’ He made sure I got labeled the troublemaker early.”
I dropped my fork, appetite evaporated. “Dennis took every paycheck I made. Since I was sixteen. If I tried to hide money, he’d take it out on me or on Mom.
If I tried to leave, he’d trash my stuff, threaten my boss, call the cops and say I’d gone missing.
I started working doubles at Harmon’s because it was the only time he couldn’t get to me. ”
Burke’s hands fisted on the quilt, but his voice stayed even. “I saw your transcripts. You were top ten in the whole county. That’s not nothing.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “I was supposed to go to state. I got a scholarship letter. Dennis found it first. Tore it in half and said only losers went to college out of state. He made me call the registrar and turn it down, with him on speaker so he could listen.”
Burke didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.
I finally looked up. “You think I’m pathetic. It’s okay. Most people do. I could’ve run away. I should’ve fought harder.”
Burke shook his head, slow and deliberate. “I think you survived something nobody should have to. That’s not weakness, Danny. That’s fucking resilience.”
My throat closed up. I looked down at my hands—knuckles covered in old scars, fingernails bitten to the quick.
“Every time I tried to save money to leave, he’d search my room.
The day I got enough for a bus ticket, he cut up my debit card and beat me so bad I missed a week of school.
Nobody even asked why. They just said omegas get fragile sometimes. ”
I thought about that word—fragile—and hated how perfectly it fit.
I picked at the toast, not hungry but not wanting to stop talking now that I’d started.
“He hated when I did anything he couldn’t.
Computers, coding, even the garden stuff.
If I ever showed I was smarter than him, he’d find a way to take it out of me.
Once, he broke three of my fingers because I tried to fill out a scholarship application online. ”
I blinked, the memory coming hot and clear. “He laughed while he did it. Said it was ‘character building.’”
I tried to read Burke’s face, but it was locked down, eyes narrow and sharp. “Did he ever hurt your mom?”
“Only when he was really mad. Or when she tried to stick up for me. She mostly kept her head down. Sometimes, if I got really beat up, she’d sneak me Advil and frozen peas. But she never called for help. She just…let it happen.”
Burke looked at me for a long moment. “You ever tell anyone? A teacher, a friend?”
“Who would believe me? Nobody ever has.” My voice went quiet. “People like Dennis always win.”
He surprised me, then. Instead of getting up or changing the subject, he reached for my hand—gently, like I was made of blown glass. He threaded his fingers through mine and squeezed, not to hold me in place but to remind me I wasn’t alone.
When I let myself feel it, the comfort was dizzying. I wanted to pull away, to tell him to save it for someone who deserved it. But I didn’t.
The story kept coming.
“I got into a couple of schools for computer science. He intercepted the mail. Once, I tried to open a P.O. box so he couldn’t steal it, but he found the receipt and made me burn it in front of him. Every time I tried to plan an escape, he was three steps ahead.”
I blinked, surprised by the sting of tears. I hadn’t cried in front of anyone since I was a kid. “He ruined my laptop. That was the only thing I had to work on for school.”