36. Levi
36
Levi
She's been back with us for twenty-four hours, and we have barely seen her. She's stayed curled up under that blanket, never coming out when any of us are around.
"Are you sure it's a good idea to tell your father where we are?" Nolan asks for the hundredth time.
"My father won't sell us out, Nolan. And I think he can help Nora." Well, I hope he can help her.
When I called him and explained everything that had happened, his unrestrained whine of distress almost broke my heart. I'm not sure I've ever heard him make that noise before. He insisted I tell him immediately where we were so he could come help her.
When my father arrives, we sit down with him on the black leather couch in the sparse living room. We give him a rundown on how she was taken, what we learned, and how we got her back. We explain what we do know about the month she was gone and where our gaps lie.
"I was watching the interview. When I saw her," he inhales sharply, and when he looks at me, his eyes are eyes shiny. "I almost lost it. I can't believe what they've done to her poor Omega."
"What do you mean?" Chase asks, leaning closer to my father. "What did you see?"
"It's what I didn't see. It's hard to explain, but for every one of us, our Alphas and Omegas are just as much a part of us as we are. It's almost impossible to separate their desires from our own. It's like she's split from her Omega. It's probably a protective measure, but she must be hurting so much." Dad looks around the sparse safe house. "Do you have any chocolate or candies?" he asks. "Omegas like sweets, I may be able to convince her to listen if I can give her something she'll have a hard time turning down."
"Nora doesn't really eat sweets," I say.
"Except for lemon bars," Chase adds.
"Let me guess. Omegas need to be on a strict diet in order to maintain a figure that is appealing and beneficial to their Alphas?" he asks, sneering.
We all look at each other, ashamed we never saw it. "How did we miss this?" Joey whispers.
"It's insidious," Dad says, heading into the kitchen. "It's hard to notice the pieces when all you see is the whole." He digs through the cabinets and finds a pack of chocolate candies. "I'm going to take these."
We follow closely behind as he enters Nora's room. We sit on the floor along the walls, out of the way but close enough to hear and see what's happening. None of us want to be too far away in case she decides she wants us.
"Nora, dear, it's Charles," Dad says quietly. "I brought you a treat. Would you like to try some?"
The blankets rustle, and she sits up, the fabric falling from her face. Her hair is tangled and a sweaty mess in a bun on the top of her head. The back of her neck is red and inflamed from where she has been ripping hair out, and my chest cracks open at the sight of her. Her face is even more gaunt than it was yesterday, the bags under her eyes darker. If she's been sleeping for an entire day, why does she look like it's been weeks since she rested?
My dad just rips open the pack of candy and grabs Nora's hand, pouring some in her palm while popping a few into his mouth. "These are my favorite," he says while chewing. He's so casual it worries me. Does he not realize this is my Omega and that she is hurting? I try to remind myself that he's an Omega and I need to trust him, but it's hard. "When I was a kid, my mom would bribe me with these to get me to do anything she wanted," he tells her conspiratorially.
Nora doesn't speak but places one of the candies on her tongue and smiles softly. Dad continues. "I didn't realize for a long time how my insane sweet tooth was a trait of being an Omega. Did you know that? Something about the sugar giving us the stamina to keep up with a pack or something. I don't know how much of that I believe." Nora eats another candy, a blue one. "But any excuse for some candy, huh?"
"It's very good, thank you, sir," she says quietly.
"Charles, dear. Can I sit?" She nods, and he slips onto the bed beside her. "I've heard you and your Omega have had a rough couple of weeks."
"The Perfect Omega," she says weakly. "They made me the Perfect Omega."
"How does your Omega feel about that?"
She shrugs, putting another piece of candy into her mouth. "It was too hard to have her there when I was perfect. I think I've lost her. She left me at Dr. Greene's."
Nolan grabs my hand, and I feel my chest squeeze. What happened in that hell house? What did he do to our Omega?
"Let's not talk about Dr. Greene's house right now, Nora," my father says. "Can you talk to me about what happened at your mom's house?"
Nora stretches her legs out and leans back against the headboard of the bed. "I had to restart my Omega training. They had concerns that Pack Sloane had encouraged me to forget my training."
"My Omega training was exhausting," Dad says, scooting closer to her in bed and pouring more candies into her hand. "All of those books, all of those papers."
"Oh, I didn't have to write any papers," Nora says, looking at him. "Their biggest concern was the fact that I was not immediately compelled to listen to an Alpha. So that's what we worked on."
You could hear a pin drop in the room, all of us holding our breath as she spoke. My father's voice shakes slightly as he says, "What do you mean by that?"
"The Perfect Omega listens when an Alpha makes a command of her. I…" she inhales sharply, her fingers twisting in the blankets. "I wasn't listening to Dr. Greene. He had to fix that."
I start to rise to my feet, to come grab her and wrap her in my arms, but my dad shakes his head sharply and mouths at me to sit down. He gives her a few more candies. "How do you fix that?"
"First, they had to test me to see how ruined I was." She makes eye contact with my father for the first time. If she notices us here in the room, she doesn't show it. "I took a knot, and they found out about it in my physical examination. I wasn't even in heat when I did it. They said no one would have me. That I was lucky Dr. Greene was willing to overlook my promiscuity."
"What kind of physical examination can even tell that?" His voice is strained, his knuckles white on his thighs.
She wrinkles her nose. "Dr. Greene had my mother hold my arms as he pinned my legs. He was able to tell with his fingers. He said the spot the knot fits had been stretched."
Bile rises in my throat, and I worry I may puke on the carpet right here. To my left, Blaine has his face buried in his hoodie, his body shaking with sobs. Joey is a picture of fury, and I wonder if the gears are turning in his head about getting the club involved in this.
Nolan and Chase both stare straight ahead, twin expressions of pure malice on their features.
"What happened next, sweetie?" Dad says, not asking any clarifying questions to keep her talking.
"Once it was determined I was so unclean I had to be stripped and scrubbed." She looks at my father, eyes glassy. "I thought the pack was going to save me. Every day, I thought a window would break or a door would be kicked in. But instead, I got scrubbed with bleach to remove them from me."
Chase looks like he's about to stand up and say something, but I grab his foot and yank him down. I give him a firm shake of my head and remind him to stay put. My father is getting somewhere, and we need to let him.
"How did all of this get you to listen to Alpha commands again?" Dad presses on. I know he's not unaffected, and it's kind of impressive how he manages to push through his own distaste.
She waves her hand dismissively. "Oh, that was all very standard. Barks, restraining me in position until I listened, that sort of thing."
I can see his throat bob as he swallows harshly, and I find myself mimicking the movement to clear the bile from my throat. My father speaks past his distaste, urging the subject along. "What happened when you found out you were being paired with Dr. Greene?"
"He took me home right away. He reminded me the entire drive to his house that I was lucky he was willing to overlook the fact that I was tainted." She eats a candy slowly, sucking on it as she thinks. "When we got into the home, he wanted me to strip. He said as his Omega, it was my job to make him happy, and he wanted me naked and kneeling every time he came in the door." She wrinkles her nose. "Why would he request that?"
Joey looks at me, the corners of his eyes downturned. He's thinking of the time he had her kneeling naked at his feet. I do my best to convey to him that it's not the same, but I can tell he doesn't believe it.
"He put rice under my knees to remind me. I stayed there, naked and kneeling, until he was ready for me to make him dinner."
I want to leave. I want to run from this room where every nightmare I had while she was gone is coming to life. But I can't. Because while hearing about the horrific things that happened to Nora is hard for me, I am not the one who lived it.
"I got to earn clothes, though. The more I obeyed, the more he let me wear." She pulls her knees to her chest. "We had breakfast together every morning. I would make him scrambled eggs with toast and coffee, and I would have a piece of wheat bread and a glass of water. Oh, and my suppressant." Her back goes rigid. "My suppressant! I need to take it. It's in my purse. Please?"
Blaine takes the opportunity to leave the room and grab her purse. He hands it to my father, who pulls out the pill bottle. He holds it up in front of his face curiously and then opens the bottle to pull a pill out. He swears. "Nora," he asks gently. "When did you start taking this?"
"The day they brought me home, why?"
He holds up the orange oblong pill. "These aren't suppressants, sweetie."
She shakes her head. "Yes, they are. I had to be on suppressants until they found a pack that would accept me. Dr. Greene said I didn't have to stop taking them until he officially bonded me to give me time to acclimate to being there."
"They're just vitamins, Nora. You've been off suppressants this whole time."
I watch her face go through a range of emotions before her eyes widen. "That explains what happened the night before the interview, then."
My shoulders tense. My entire pack sits up straighter, all of us on high alert for her next words, dreading what they could be. What they could mean.
"I was standing beside the bed in position, waiting to see if my Alpha had any needs of me overnight," she says, looking down at her hands. The way she calls him her Alpha has a growl ripping from my throat. "I felt fevered, and I was cramping and in pain like I was when my heat spiked at the pack house. But you told me exposure to my Alphas is what caused that spike, so I knew it couldn't be that." Her voice is shaky, pitch changing every other word as she fights past something. "I didn't want to wake him. He didn't like being woken up."
I crawl across the floor to Joey, feeling untethered, my brain struggling to maintain any semblance of control. He sees me and my need and pulls me into his side, his large arm pushing me tightly against his body.
I don't give a fuck what anything thinks about my unusual relationship with Joey. It scratches an itch both of us have and feels right for us. He is comfort, safety, and guidance when I am feeling out of control.
"It hurt so bad, Charles," Nora is saying. "But I couldn't move, couldn't make noise. He commanded me to stay there quietly while he slept, so that's what I did."
I remember how much pain Nora was in during her heat spike, and I think this time, I may actually be unable to hold back the sickness imagining her in pain like that all night. Chase leaps to his feet and, despite our protests, sits behind her on the bed and pulls her between his legs. Nora, surprisingly, slumps right into his chest.
Chase loops an arm under her knees, folds her into a ball against his chest, and begins purring. My father smiles at him, not at all concerned that he interrupted their conversation.
"It hurt so bad, Alpha," Nora whines, burying her face in his chest, sobbing.
My father stands up from the bed, gently placing a hand on Nora's back. "I'll be in the living room if you want to talk more, Omega," he says softly.
I follow him out of the room, unsteady on my feet. Dad pulls me tight against his chest, squeezing me until the shaking in my body stops. "Levi, your Omega is strong, but she has been abused so thoroughly that it may be a long time before it doesn't affect her every move."
"I can wait for her. I can work with her."
"Good. I'm glad. Go get everyone except Chase. Let him keep purring for her. I need to talk to the rest of you."
I listen to my father, silently getting the other members of my pack to follow me into the living room. We sit down on the couch as Dad paces in front of us.
"Dr. Greene needs to go to jail," he says.
"Of course he fucking does," Blaine snarls. "He abused our girl."
"It's not just that," Dad continues, ignoring Blaine's outburst. "He's been training her since she was six years old. Most likely, for the express goal of having his own Perfect Omega to indulge every depraved whim." He runs his hands through his dirty blonde hair, the exact same shade as mine. "Her Omega is so hurt, buried so deep, that she didn't even try to take over during a heat spike. That's unheard of." He stops pacing and looks at all of us. "A heat spike is just as painful as heat, just for a shorter amount of time. The fact that she didn't immediately proposition Dr. Greene is a sign of just how badly her Omega has been damaged. When going through heat, instinct takes over, but hers hid."
He sits on the coffee table in front of us. "You have to bond her as soon as you can. I don't give a fuck that the Clinic is supposed to sign off on it. Do it anyway and fight it in court after. As long as she is unbonded, he has the chance of taking her back if he finds her, and you all have no standing." He looks at me, his eyes boring into every part of my body, making me feel five years old again. "If he gets her again, the woman you know will not be coming back. There's no way she can survive this again."
My father takes a beer that Joey has offered him and takes a long gulp. "And I doubt what she told me is even all of it. I doubt you'll ever know the full extent of what happened."