Chapter 15 June
June
My soul feels empty.
My throat is dry, my arms are trapped by my sides, and the light is too bright when I blink my eyes open.
Panicking, I struggle to get up, but I can’t move.
“Don’t try to move yet, Juniper,” an unfamiliar woman’s voice comes from close beside me when I struggle. It’s gentle but firm, a tone I want to trust.
My vision clears, and a dark-haired woman with brown eyes, who appears to be in her late thirties, dressed in dark blue scrubs, helps me sit up.
Moving is a slow and painful affair with a body that fights me every step of the way.
My all-white surroundings suggest a hospital, and the black stethoscope hanging around the woman’s shoulders indicates that she’s my doctor.
I feel so weak; sitting up is already exhausting me, and my head keeps wanting to flop to the side. With the pillow propping the back of my neck, I no longer feel like a top-heavy domino about to tip over.
“Here, take a couple of sips before trying to speak; you’ve been unconscious for a while now,” the woman says, lifting a plastic cup with a white straw to my mouth.
I sip cool, fresh water until my throat no longer burns. “Thanks.”
She sets the plastic cup on the side table and perches on the edge of my bed. “I’m Dr. Whelan.”
“How long have I been unconscious?” I ask her.
“Two weeks.”
My eyes pop, and my breath stops in my throat. “Two weeks!”
“You nearly died. More than once. If we hadn’t put you into a medically induced coma, you would have. Scent matches don’t break bonds for a reason.” A deep line forms between her brows. “I don’t know why they agreed to it. They should have known it was far too dangerous to attempt.”
“When you have scent matches like mine, you break the bonds and deal with the consequences after.”
She gives me a long, thoughtful look, forehead puckered.
I shake my head before she can ask why I would willingly risk my life doing something the Council staff warned me was dangerous.
I’m not interested in getting into why I walked away from my scent matches, because what it really comes down to is they walked away from me first.
My eyes dip to take in the tube in the back of my left hand, and I track it to the bag with the clear liquid hanging from a metal stand next to my bed.
“Saline,” Dr. Whelan explains. “It kept you hydrated while you were unconscious. I’ll remove it after I’ve given you a quick checkup.”
The sobs start with no warning. Huge, air-stealing sobs that stop me from breathing. I’d wondered why she would sit on the edge of my bed. When she draws me into a hug, rubbing at my back and making me cry harder, I figure she must have known these tears were coming.
“I’m sorry,” I cry. “I’m ruining your scrubs, and I don’t even know why I’m crying.”
“My scrubs have seen a lot worse than a few tears,” she says, her voice warm with amusement. “Get it all out, Juniper. Grieving is a normal response to what you’ve lost.”
Having someone hug me, rub my back, and tell me everything will be okay helps much more than I thought it would. Minutes later, my tears have finally stopped, and I wipe my wet cheeks with one of the many tissues Dr. Whelan passed me.
“Are my parents here?” I glance toward my closed hospital room door.
Maybe they’re outside, waiting for Dr. Whelan to give me a checkup before they see me.
She fusses with my sheets. “We called them.”
That’s all I needed to know. I knew this would happen when I walked away from my scent matches. Doesn’t mean it still doesn’t hurt to wake up alone in a hospital to learn my parents never visited even once.
Stupid, Juniper, I think to myself bitterly, expecting your parents to be here to support you through the hardest thing you’ve ever faced.
“They didn’t want to come,” I say.
“They sounded busy.”
“My parents are very good at sounding busy when someone asks them to do something they don’t want to do.”
Like visiting the daughter who just became the first omega to reject her scent matches.
I’ve tarnished the Harrington name, perhaps forever. I’m as dead to them as Pack Wells is to me.
“Did they survive? My… scent matches?” I hate myself for asking. I shouldn’t care, and I don’t. After what they did to me, they deserve none of my attention, but maybe the strands tying us together need more time to die?
“They were down for a couple of days. They didn’t require hospital treatment since you went through the bond breaking three times, they experienced it only once. I can—”
“I don’t want to see them,” I cut in, wondering where my clothes are. I left everything behind at their house, and a tiny part of me had thought that maybe I could still go home. Now I know where I stand with my parents, I only have the clothes I was wearing when I walked out of their lives.
“They were asking about you.”
Hardening my expression is easier than hardening my heart. “I don’t want to see them.”
She gives me a probing look and then nods. “They were… insistent about seeing you. Security had to be involved.”
“Can they get to me?” I give my door a panicked glance.
I don’t want to see them for a lot of reasons, but one of my biggest fears is my reaction to them. What if the bond breaking didn’t work? What if a part of me will always want them?
She shakes her head. “They don’t know which wing of the hospital you’re in.”
I relax against my pillows. “Good. Can I go now?”
“Recovery is going to mean staying longer,” she explains.
“You’ve been immobile for two weeks, and your muscles have atrophied.
You need to build your strength back up, starting with short walks with a walker and slowly improving your endurance.
” She hesitates and adds delicately. “And you’re underweight.
Can I assume it had to do with your scent matches? ”
I was hoping she wouldn’t notice, but I guess being my doctor, it’s her job to notice and actually say something.
“I wasn’t eating much before,” I quietly admit, fidgeting with my sheets.
I wasn’t happy. Maybe I was depressed. Maybe I was worse than that, but I didn’t want to eat. There were some days I didn’t even want to get out of bed.
“We have a therapist you could speak to,” she adds. “She can come right to your room.”
I shake my head. “I don’t need a therapist; I just needed to be away from my scent matches.”
“If you change your mind, just let me know.”
I nod, but I won’t be changing my mind.
“There’s something else we need to discuss.”
Instantly, I’m wary. “What is it?”
She lifts her hand for mine. “May I?”
She wants to offer comfort, which means I won’t like what she’s going to tell me. I give her my hand and hope it isn’t too devastating.
“You won’t survive another heat without an alpha.”
I stare at her, my mouth dry. “What?”
She squeezes my hand. “The bond breaking has made you more sensitive. Too sensitive. Suppressants and heat clinics won’t be enough for you now.”
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because we found traces of suppressants in your system, and we know you were taking them before. And to give you time. You say you don’t want to see your alphas again, and I understand that things would have to have been terrible for you to cut them out of your life the way you did, but you will need an alpha. ”
“I’ll find one.” I have maybe two months to deal with that problem.
“We can offer mediation if—”
“I appreciate your offer, but I will find an alpha to help me through my next heat. It will not be Pack Wells.”
Omegas must come up with arrangements with alphas to get through their heat and go their own ways after, right?
Her eyes flick to my throat, and automatically, I lift my fingers to trace the three bites there. I could speak to a doctor about removing them, but that can come later. “What is it?”
“We don’t know how an alpha is going to react. You had three scent matches, and you went through the bond-breaking ceremony, but it’s biology that decides scent matches.”
I wish I didn’t understand what she was saying.
“You don’t think an alpha will want me because I’ll seem like I’m already bonded, don’t you?”
She nods. “We’re in new territory here, Juniper. That you survived was a miracle. None of us knows how an omega can cope, or if she can cope, cut off from her scent matches. We’d be more hopeful if it were just one scent match. But three is unprecedented. Maybe if they hadn’t all bitten you…”
My stomach twists. “So, I’m not out of the woods. I could still die.”
“You’re stronger now, and the fact that you woke up with relatively minor side effects is a good sign, but you need to come back to the hospital if you start feeling unwell. It’s likely to be bond sickness.”
“I didn’t know there was a name for it.”
Her smile is tinged with sadness. “A broken bond happens so rarely. And with scent matches…” She trails off, but the one word she doesn’t say hangs silently between us.
Never.
Scent matches never walk away from each other.
I stiffen my spine, clinging to my strength. The worst is over. I got away from my scent matches, and I can start rebuilding my life. I will get through this.
“What does bond sickness look like?” I ask.
“Lethargy, fatigue, sleeping for too long and not feeling rested, loss of appetite. You might lose consciousness. Your hormones will go into overdrive. Come back to the hospital if you have any of these symptoms.”
“What will you do if you said this is new ground?”
“Run tests.”
“And?”
She doesn’t immediately respond.
My heart sinks. “You don’t know?”
I thought there would be some medicine I could take.
“We’ll figure things out,” she says reassuringly.
Which confirms that she has no idea.
“Can’t you put me into another coma to get me through my heat?”
“An induced coma is not a long-term resolution, Juniper, and bond sickness will get worse the longer we don’t treat it.”
“But the only known way to treat it is by going back to my mates?”
She doesn’t respond.
I lay back down, eyes burning as I stare up at the ceiling. “I left them, and they are still ruining my life.”
“We’ll figure it out, Juniper.” She pats my shoulder.
I release a frustrated sigh. “I’d feel more hopeful if that statement came with a big, fat needle with a magical drug that made me forget I ever had scent matches. And I hate needles.”
I’ve rejected my mates and broken the bonds between us, but it’s not over yet.
I still might die.
I stay in the hospital for five days.
Two weeks unconscious means my muscles have atrophied. It’s a slow, hard and painful process to regain strength and find the motivation to want to get up when a part of my soul feels like it’s missing.
First, I use a walker, doing short laps up and down the hallway, avoiding the curious glances from the nurses and the other patients on my floor. They would have heard about the omega who rejected her scent matches and nearly died in the process.
I eat whatever the nurses put in front of me, and I watch every news channel, horrified by the news of Haven Academy's shutdown, and clueless about where my sister River might be. Dr. Whelan said that Garrison had visited me while I was in my coma. He brought me my clothes, and more importantly, my great-grandmother’s bracelet, all of which had been at the Council building since they rushed me to the hospital in the white shift dress I’d worn for the bond-breaking ceremony.
Dr. Whelan told me he’s busy interviewing other omegas to help them escape their alphas if they want to, but she left me his card.
Garrison had explained what his work was in the car on the way to the Council building, but I was so relieved to be away from my scent matches that I didn’t listen as well as I should have.
I could call him to ask for his help to find River, but the work he’s doing is too important to take him away from it. I’ll find my sister on my own.
When I’m too tired to walk and bored with TV, I call my parents.
That never goes well. Alice, my parent’s housekeeper, usually answers.
The dial tone follows soon after she hears my voice.
It hurts. Alice loves me. She loved me. I’ve known her since I was five years old, and now she won’t even talk to me.
My parents won’t speak to me, and they’ve instructed the servants to hang up when I call. It’s not the first time I’ve called since I woke up, and if I weren’t so worried about River, I wouldn’t call again.
But I keep on doing it, expecting that this time it will be different. Like an insane person head-butting a wall, convinced the next time they do it, it won’t hurt.