Chapter 3
Wren
No matter how many blankets I wrap around myself or how many layers I wear, I can’t get warm enough to stay asleep. I’m woken up by the violent shivers of my body. Wincing, I push myself upright in the back seat, rub my eyes, and watch my breath turn white in front of me.
Every window in the car is completely fogged up. Condensation runs down the glass and…fuck, I swear some of the droplets are freezing solid.
Maybe sleeping in here wasn’t my brightest idea.
I wrap one of the three blankets I found in the house tighter around myself, but the chill seemingly comes all the way from my core. It rattles through my bones and makes my teeth chatter uncontrollably. The blankets aren’t enough. I need actual heat.
I have to piss, but the idea of exposing my shriveled cock to the outside air nearly makes it retract into my body.
“You stupid idiot,” I mutter to myself, shaking my head. Quickly wiping the snot running down my nose, I look at my fingers to make sure I still have feeling in them.
My phone is almost dead. I need to get indoors and charge it.
Inside.
I wipe one of the windows with my sleeve until I can see the house. Shivers run down my back, this time not at all caused by the low temperature. It’s still snowing. The house is still there, and the sight of it still makes me feel like there’s battery acid in my stomach.
I rub my face again and shift on the back seat, my spine screaming in pain. I’m too old for sleeping rough like this. If only I weren’t such a fucking coward and could bring myself to sleep in the damn place.
If only I didn’t feel like I’d have a never-ending panic attack at the mere thought of lying down on my childhood bed and closing my eyes. If only my subconsciousness wasn’t worried that somehow, some way, in the middle of the night, she’d walk through the door and ask me to do my duty.
“Don’t,” I growl at myself, jerking my head to the side in frustration.
No. She won’t make me lose my shit like this. Not when she’s dead. Not when she has no power over me anymore! Only the power I give her. So I need to stop giving it.
I suck in a sharp breath and jump out of the car, trying to wade through the snow without my pants and shoes getting completely soaked.
Why is there so much? It’s so deep it nearly reaches my calves.
Hands shaking from cold and nerves, I unlock the main door, stumble in, and close it behind me. The house is freezing too, but it’s not as bad as the car. I glance toward the fireplace, where I tried and failed to make a fire last night.
Who the fuck knows how to start a fire from scratch these days?
Or maybe it’s just you who’s useless.
I used to be able to do it, a long time ago, but not anymore.
The electricity in this rickety place somehow still works, at least. I can’t start a fire, which means I can’t even boil water to make a stupid coffee—and I hate the brand of coffee she has here, anyway—but there’s a microwave, so I use that to heat some water while I ponder whether it will give me cancer.
I rummage through the cabinets, looking for the tea I saw yesterday. My fingers feel all stiff as I sift through the boxes. White tea. Ugh. Fuck, whatever. It’ll do.
My eyes fall to one of the lower cabinets, where she kept her stash of alcohol. Wine, moonshine, tequila… A mix of everything. Most of the bottles are nearly empty.
It makes my stomach twist, but it also fills me with sadistic pleasure.
I imagine her sitting in that stupid rocking chair, drinking herself half to death, alone and miserable.
A satisfied smile tugs at the corners of my lips—yeah, that idea feels good.
That warms me up almost as much as the booze burning down my throat would.
I want to indulge myself, I do, but after a few moments of hesitation, I manage to talk myself out of it.
I know that if I started, I would end up completely wasted.
Sure, that would help tremendously in making this entire experience somewhat tolerable, but it would also mean I couldn’t leave as soon as I’d like.
So, no alcohol.
I’m gonna finish this sober.
I’ll fucking suffer, then I’ll get in my car, leave this place, and never look back. Ever.
When the tea is done—and damn it, it tastes disgusting—I continue the agonizing task of going through the piles of random shit around me.
I don’t remember her being a hoarder, so this clearly started some time after I left. In fact, when I was little, she was very particular about the things we had. About the things I could have or keep. Now, I see it was nothing but that bitch wanting to control everything.
There are so many stupid magazines. Dozens of broken pieces of furniture are scattered throughout every room of the house.
I have no idea why she would hold on to it all.
Not like she was ever the handy type. Half a chair that doesn’t match the ones at the dining table.
An old bassinet, and it’s not the one used for me.
So many DVDs. She didn’t even have a working TV!
Hours pass, and I find myself sitting on the floor by the cabinet in the kitchen again, a bottle in hand. I stare at the distorted reflection of my face in the glass, feeling pathetic and sad and worthless and…fuck…
This house is making me lose my mind.
I swallow hard and put the bottle down. I’ve been mentally going in circles for hours, winding myself up for no reason while going through all this useless trash.
All I really need from here are the few personal mementos I already got out of my bedroom.
Like that one picture of Dad, the carved wooden statue that the boy I liked gifted me in fourth grade, as well as the letter I wrote, asking him to be my omega, but never gave him, and the little tattered teddy bear I used to sleep with.
Besides that, I only need the paperwork. And I know where that paperwork is, don’t I?
In a room I have yet to enter. Her bedroom.
That door is closed. Has been since I walked in here, and I cannot bring myself to open it. I just can’t.
Feeling the maddening urge twist inside me like a cold, slippery snake, I look down at the bottle again.
I want to dull my senses—to dull the pain and fear—so fucking bad it’s unbearable.
I want nothing more in the world. I want my brain to stop working properly so that it stops remembering.
I want it to stop sending signals to the rest of my body, especially my nose.
I don’t want to smell the very faint scent of her hanging onto every single thing here.
Most of all, I don’t want to open the door to that room and see the bed where she made me do the—
Shivering violently, I push the bottle away and bend over with my head between my knees, heaving. I dig my fingers into my scalp, painfully tugging at my hair, and screw my eyes shut.
The bottle rolls across the floor until it hits the wall with a thud and stops.
It’s not fucking fair. This pain. This excruciating fucking pain carved into every aspect of me forever, coming back like an echo, lashing at me over and over again. Relentless.
It isn’t fair.
It isn’t fair that I have to live with it while she’s free of all her problems, relieved of all guilt and shame she might’ve had.
It isn’t fair that this won’t ever go away.
And it isn’t fucking fair that the only way for me to get through life is to dull this with shit that slowly kills me and sets fire to anything good I try to make for myself.
I wish Dex were here. I should have accepted her help, but no—I’m too much of a stubborn ass. Should’ve waited to deal with this until I was more ready. I even wish… Goddammit, I even wish Felix were here with me, that absolute prick!
My breaths come in fast and shallow. I don’t think I’m getting enough air, and I feel like I might pass out if I don’t get a grip on myself, but then it hits me, and suddenly I’m on the verge of bursting out laughing like some maniac. He was right. No matter how angry I am at him, Felix was right.
Because what kind of alpha am I? How utterly pathetic am I right now? Losing it and crying on the floor like some child?
The sad truth is, the drugs have been the only reason I’ve made it so far. They’ve ruined everything else and turned me into a pathetic, lying, cheating lowlife, but at least they made these feelings go away. Made them mellow and inconsequential.
Without the pills, I’m nothing but this. A dismal, brittle, broken thing.
That’s why Felix had to find another alpha, a proper alpha, to stand by him. Because he saw the true me—after I foolishly let him see the real Wren, thinking he could actually love and accept me—and realized that I’m not a person anyone could rely on or be around.
I hold my hand over my mouth, muffling my sobs and whimpers.
I can’t do it.
I can’t go in there.
There could be eight tons of gold in a chest under the bed or a deed that says I legally own the entire Silverpine Mountain for all I care, but I’m not going in.
Fuck that.
I don’t give a damn. It’s not worth…this. None of it is.
I never should’ve come here.
Rubbing my eyes and face until they burn from friction and not just the tears, I stand sharply and draw in a deep inhale, squeezing the edge of the kitchen counter to help bring me back to reality.
Everything worth keeping, with any nostalgic value at all, is in the box by the door. Nothing else matters.
What I need to do right now is get back to the city and go to a meeting.
I need that more than anything—support. Help. No matter how much I hate asking for it or receiving it, because I know I don’t deserve it. I’m so damn fucked up, but I can’t mess up again. I can’t keep disappointing Dex, the only person in the world who still stands by me for some reason.
Leaving everything as I found it, I rush to the door, clasping the box in my trembling hands until it bends. I lock up behind myself, and damn, how did the weather get this much worse in the span of a few hours?