15. Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Fifteen
Asher
I lean over the guard station desk, the harsh fluorescent lights making my eyes burn after hours in the darkness.
The night's logs spread before me, each entry a potential vulnerability, a possible threat.
Every delivery, every shift change, every shadow that's moved across our cameras has been documented, but I check again.
And again. We can't afford to miss anything.
Not after how easily Pack Carmichael breached hospital security.
My fingers trace each line of text, the paper crinkling under my touch.
Coffee cups litter the desk, evidence of my endless rounds, my refusal to rest while Emma suffers upstairs.
The guards exchange worried glances when they think I'm not looking.
I've been here too long, checked too many times, but I can't stop.
“I want to be contacted for every entrance,” I tell them, my voice sandpaper-rough from lack of sleep and too much caffeine. “Every delivery, every maintenance worker, every piece of mail. I don't care if it's the pizza guy. You call me first. No exceptions.”
The guards nod, properly intimidated by whatever they see in my face.
Good. After the hospital breach, after watching those bastards get so close to reclaiming her, I'm taking no chances.
My mate is upstairs, damaged and terrified, and I'll burn this whole compound to the ground before I let anyone hurt her again.
I make my way to the house that is turning out not to be her haven. It’s been twenty-four hours, and she’s not come out of her room, refusing food, refusing comfort, refusing everything we try to offer.
I understand why. Gods, do I understand.
Her trauma runs deeper than physical wounds.
Years in that basement, gods know how long at Haven before that has warped her perception of what she deserves.
Every kindness we offer gets filtered through layers of learned distrust. Every choice we give her becomes another potential trap in her mind.
She's not eating, barely sleeping, refusing to engage. Her response is based on trauma but knowing that doesn't make it easier to watch. Doesn't make her silence less devastating. Doesn't stop us from second-guessing every move we make.
My impulsive, unforgivable moment of lost control has done more damage than good. I gave her a reason to distrust us, and another reason to expect the worst.
We’re going to have to be more proactive. Giving her space, while well-intentioned, has enabled her to spiral. Too many things have happened to her in too short a timeframe. I’ve held back when the only thing I want to do is break down her door and hold her in her nest until she knows she’s safe.
The truth is, we’re all playing this by ear, walking a tightrope between respecting her boundaries and preventing her from completely withdrawing.
Between giving her control and keeping her safe.
Between being the alphas she needs and the monsters she expects, and fuck, I hate all of it because she should know the difference when it comes to us without an ounce of doubt or fear in her body.
I hate that I messed this up not just for her, but for Soren and Phoenix as well. They deserve their omega as much as she deserves them.
Movement on one of the security monitors on my device snags my attention.
Camera six – the patio view. A pale figure drifts into frame.
It’s Emma. She still wears the clothing from the hospital even though I know Soren had fresh clothes delivered.
That means she hasn’t been out of bed or showered to change—and we’ve let her.
Another nail is hammered into my coffin, but then my eyes follow the path she takes to the shallow end of the pool. My heart stops as she reaches the water's edge. She hovers there, standing so still she might be part of the furniture, but then she steps into the water and moves deeper.
My feet are already moving, the radio I share with my bond brothers out of my pocket as I start racing up the hill toward the house.
The water is up to her chest as she tips her head back to stare at the moon.
I roar as her head disappears below the surface, not even leaving a ripple.
If I hadn’t been here to witness it, she wouldn’t have been seen.
One second passes. Two. Three.
She doesn't come up.
“ No !” The word tears from my throat, primal and raw. I press the radio button so hard it breaks. Fucking damnit! I still bark into the device. “Soren! Phoenix. Emma is in the pool!”
The radio clatters behind me, nearly hitting a figure dressed in the guard’s black camouflage. I recognize the build. It’s Jones. He should be restricted from the compound after the hospital incident. I wonder who the fuck let him back here, but none of that matters except getting to Emma.
I vault over the first fence, muscles screaming with effort. My boots barely touch the ground before I'm launching over the next one. The fastest route is straight through the compound's back gardens. To hell with proper paths .
Ornamental shrubs snag at my clothes, and security lights blaze in my eyes as they flicker on with my movement.
I vault the final fence into our backyard, landing hard enough to rattle my bones.
The pool glows with underwater lights, illuminating the motionless water, while fairy lights above cast deceptively tranquil patterns across the surface.
Somewhere beneath that calm facade is my mate.
Soren and Phoenix burst through the sliding doors, responding to my emotions running wild through our pack bond, but confused. They haven't seen what I saw on the monitors. Haven't realized why I'm sprinting across the lawn like death itself is chasing me. Because it is.
“Ash? What’s going on?” Phoenix starts.
I don't explain. Don't pause to remove my boots. Just launch into the pool. I arrow into the deep end and see her shadowed form on the bottom, unnaturally still, hair floating around her head.
My lungs burn as I stretch toward her. My fingers brush her arm, then lock around her waist. I secure her in my hold and kick off hard from the bottom, propelling us both toward the surface, my muscles screaming against the weight of waterlogged clothes and precious cargo.
We break the surface and I hear twin shouts of horror from the pool's edge. I cradle her head above water, her body limp against mine as I swim for the edge where my pack brothers wait with outstretched hands, their expressions stark.
“What the fuck?” Soren’s eyes gleam and lines bracket his mouth as he hauls her from the water and lays her on the tiles.
Water streams from her clothes, her hair, her too-pale skin. I haul myself out of the pool as Phoenix presses two fingers to her throat with more gentleness than I've ever seen from him.
“Come on, Tough Girl,” he mutters, before the rigid set of his shoulders slump a little. “She has a pulse.”
Soren turns her onto her side as Phoenix cushions her face. Emma convulses, water spewing from her mouth as she coughs. The sound is horrible. Wet, desperate, painful, but it's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. Relief hits me so hard my knees buckle. I sink to the ground next to her.
“What the fuck happened, Asher?” Phoenix asks.
I shake my head. If I hadn’t chanced looking at the monitor in that split second, no one would have found her until it was too late. “I saw her come out of the door, walk straight to the pool and right into the water.”
I want to say more, but Emma’s shaking. Violently.
Her skin has a blue tinge, lips nearly purple.
Her teeth chatter so hard I can hear them clicking together, her whole body wracked with tremors that start in her very bones.
Her clothes cling to her like a death shroud, highlighting how fragile she is.
I press my fingers to her cheek. “She’s freezing. We need to warm her up.”
I bundle her in my arms and gather her against my chest. Her skin is ice against mine. I glance at Phoenix “We have to get her into a warm shower. Now!”
Phoenix bolts ahead of us toward the house, taking the stairs two at a time to her room. Both Soren and I run after him. Phoenix disappears into her room because it’s the only bedroom with a pack shower. The bathroom door slams open and the shower splutters to life.
I waste no time and step into the shower fully clothed.
Emma is a block of ice against my chest. The lukewarm water hits us like thousands of tiny needles, but I know from emergency training we can't shock her system with heat.
We'll increase the temperature gradually as her body warms, letting her core temperature rise slowly.
Emma moans and a small frown ripples her forehead as tremors wrack her frame.
Her clothes are frozen to her skin and will hinder getting her warm. “Help me get these off her.”
My stomach hollows out, rage and grief warring in my chest as we remove her clothing.
Every rib is visible beneath sallow skin, casting shadows like prison bars across her torso.
Hip bones jut sharp enough to cut and, oh gods, those round puckered scars scattered over her belly are cigarette burns.
More scars in sharp lines curl around her waist and lead up to the mangled flesh at the base of her neck .
I’m going to be fucking sick.
Phoenix’s hands flutter over her body, as though he doesn’t know where to begin to touch her.
He swallows hard before spearing me with a horrified look I feel all the way to my soul.
“How…how the fuck can anyone do this to a person? How the fuck could they be so cruel? This is…fucking… perverted , Ash. They’re deranged . ”
My pack brothers’ grief weaves with my own.
I thought I’d known the full extent of Pack Carmichael’s cruelty through the state of the basement, but seeing it written on her skin is a new kind of horror.
Dr. Chen told us what she’d suffered but seeing it like this…
no amount of imagination could come up with this type of abuse.
“No wonder they want her back. No one can ignore this kind of evidence of abuse,” Soren whispers.
Yet still, would it even make a difference? Pack Carmichael are the type to say she begged for it in the depths of her heat. They only did what she asked. Omegas are unpredictable and will ask for anything in the haze of heat. They were only being caring alphas, giving her what she wanted.
Bile rises at her mangled ankle where the chain sat.
Her flesh is a mass of scar tissue, purple, red, silver, all layered together like geologic strata of trauma.
Layers of damage speaking of countless attempts to escape, of infection allowed to fester, of metal eating into skin until it became part of her.
Fuck this world to the ends of all the fucking hells. I’ll personally make sure Pack Carmichael rot in all versions of them.
I tighten my hold on Emma, careful of her injuries, as the water gradually warms her frozen skin. They weren't just killing her body. They were killing her spirit. Breaking her down piece by piece.
And they wouldn’t have stopped until she was dust.
Emma moans, the sound barely audible over the shower spray. Her eyes flutter open, unfocused and distant. Relief floods through me at seeing her conscious, but that relief curdles as I realize she's not really here with us .
“Beach,” she mumbles, trying weakly to push away from my chest with trembling hands. “Need... my beach. Please…take me back.”