Chapter 2
TWO
They unhook me from the machine and carry me like an invalid back to my cage. This Alpha is strong as fuck for a scrawny dude, because I am not a small man to be carting around like a sack of potatoes.
I fucking hate this.
I hate every goddamn moment of it.
Well, every moment except for this one. The one that comes right after I’ve been poked and prodded and had my blood stolen and shoved back in me.
I’m gently placed in my cage, and they close the door without a care for the way it echoes in the cavernous room. Athena shuffles closer, sticking her fingers through the grates of her cage as if she could touch me. “You okay?” she asks gently, and my heart flips.
This moment, being on the receiving end of her attention, isn’t so bad.
Athena is beautiful, funny, and resilient. She thinks she has given up, and maybe that is true, but she hasn’t gone under. She believes that her attitude makes her weak, but it doesn’t. She’s a realist. She knows what happens in situations like this.
Lucky for her, I’ve always been a stubborn asshole. I will not go down like this. She doesn’t think we’ll get out of here, but she still listens to my plans and actively makes suggestions, encouraging me.
I’m sure she’s only humoring me, but I appreciate it nonetheless.
It’s never completely light in here, but I can tell day from night based on the depth of shadows and how bright Athena’s eyes shine. Since I can barely see them, it must be the middle of the night.
“I’m okay,” I tell her, though I don’t mean it. I still don’t understand the point of these treatments, but the more I undergo them, the more painful they are. I feel like a tightly coiled spring, getting turned, and turned, and turned, knowing eventually I’m going to snap.
There’s no telling what will happen when I do.
I can never sleep after a treatment, and as much as I want Athena to rest, by this point, I know she won’t. Not until I do.
“What’s your favorite food?” she asks, and I know she’s trying to distract me from the residual pain coursing through my body.
My stomach rumbles loudly. They don’t feed us. We spend all our treatments on a drip that I am assuming is keeping us pumped with enough nutrients to stay alive, but that is not a substitute for actual food.
“I’m lame, because mine are everyone’s favorites, like pizza, burgers, and fried chicken. I would kill for a burger with blue cheese and red onions right now, oh my God.”
Athena groans, and I hear her cage rattle. She must’ve thrown her head back. “And mushrooms, right?”
“Absolutely. Oh, I could go for some falafel and kofta, too. Stuffed grape leaves.”
“I love Greek food,” she says with a slight whine. “Okay, I know it was my idea, but we have to stop talking about food. What do you do for fun?”
I snort. “Maybe video games? Honestly, not a lot. My best friend, Will, and I hang out whenever I get a free moment. He plays the guitar, so usually I can convince him to do one of those band video games.”
“Those are still a thing?”
“It’s an old system.” I stretch out as best as I can, ignoring the way my limbs cry out. I’m so stiff. Being stuck in this cage for a week, not able to stretch my legs or stand up straight, is hell.
Athena has been quiet for a while. Did she fall asleep? Before I whisper and check on her, she speaks so quietly I can barely hear her.
“Do you have a partner?”
A sour taste fills my mouth. My last true partner, where I had commitment conversations, was Tyler, and he is literally the last person I want to talk about right now.
She knows about him, since I told her how I got here, but that’s as far as it’s gotten.
Since him, it’s been a string of one-night stands. Nothing and no one of substance.
“Nope. I’m not against relationships or anything. I haven’t found the right person yet.”
“And is the right person a man or…?” Her words trail off.
“Why, Athena Valentine, are you asking if I’m into women?” Is she blushing right now? Do her cheeks turn pink, and does she duck her head, hiding under her hair? I’ve seen her make the movement a few times since I showed up, but the light has never been good enough to know if she flushes.
“I was just curious. You don’t have to answer.”
“I am into women. And men. And nonbinary people. I don’t have a preference. A hottie is a hottie.”
“Me too!” she says with a small amount of excitement. “You’d think with being attracted to the whole gender spectrum, I’d have no problem finding a partner, but…”
My heart does a little flip. “You’re single, then?”
“Painfully so.” There’s a story there, but I don’t think it’s the right time to press her for it right now. “I’m beginning to wonder if I’m meant to be with anyone at all.”
I shuffle toward the side of my cage, thinking maybe this time I could get close enough to touch her. It’s futile, I know that, but it never stops me from trying.
“Your person is out there,” I whisper.
“Except I’m not. I’m in here, and I am never getting out.” The hopelessness in her voice threatens to pull me under with her. It hurts, the reminder that she doesn’t believe me when I tell her I’m going to get her out of here.
I’m not sure how I’m going to convince her not to lose hope.
“Or in here,” I say, so quietly I can barely hear it over the electrical whirring that powers whatever happens in the lab.
I’ve convinced myself she didn’t hear me, and I’m fighting myself on whether I should repeat it, to let her know that the thought that pushes me through this is that one day I’ll get the chance to hold her in my arms. Except she speaks before I get up the nerve.
“You can’t find love in captivity, Atlas.”
It’s not a rejection, so I’ll take it and run with it, hoping that she’ll catch up to me one day soon.
“Maybe not, but you can find hope. And I don’t know about you, but hope seems like the perfect foundation to build something real.”
I’ve learned a lot about Athena in the month we’ve been together. The basic stuff, like she’s a Beta with an Alpha brother who is a doctor, and she’s close with his pack and their Omega. Typical get-to-know-you stuff.
She works at ABOSS, the sports network, on Cyrus Knight’s show. Cyrus is apparently her brother-in-law, but she wanted to make sure I knew she didn’t get the job because of that. She’s worked there for five years now and plans to have a long career behind the scenes in the entertainment industry.
I’ve told her about my work with Pack Lupine at Lupine Investigations and how, before that, I was floating kind of aimlessly, without a clear direction on what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
And in the quiet, when we’re both sore and nearly broken from the treatments they’re giving us, we go a little deeper.
I’ve heard about her ex-pack and the brutal way they rejected her.
How she worries she won’t be able to find love.
I try to tell her how worthy of love she is, how happy she will make someone, but she blows me off.
I want to tell her I hope it’s me she makes happy one day, but she keeps repeating, “You can’t find love in captivity,” every time I bring it up.
Maybe she’s right. But I think you can get close. The only time we’ve spent apart over the last month has been during our treatments. I’ve started sleeping during mine, so I come back rested and able to talk to her without falling asleep.
I think she may do the same.
“Have you ever gone skydiving?” I ask her.
“Hell no, absolutely not. Why would I jump from a plane? That goes past adrenaline and straight into suicidal.” She shakes her head in the foggy, grey light. “But I love roller coasters.”
“It’s been forever since I’ve been on one. We’ll have to go together.”
I keep trying, peppering in things we’ll do after we get out of here into conversations, to make sure she knows I haven’t given up on us, despite everything.
“You’re making quite a list of things we’ll have to do.” She sounds tired. “It’ll take years to get through them all.”
That’s the point, Athena Valentine. That’s the point.
Maybe after a month, I should’ve given up hope of getting out of here, but I haven’t. And I don’t believe Athena truly has either. She has her moments of darkness, of despair, sure, but so do I.
I think I’m better at hiding mine than she is.
“They’re ready,” the doctor who always collects us from our crates says, preceding the door slamming. “Another day, maybe, and we can try moving to phase three.”
“I can’t believe we’re still in phase two,” Athena grumbles. “Not very good at their jobs, are they?”
I smother a laugh at her commentary.
“Prepare B-twenty-one and B-thirteen for phase three, then.”
A chill goes down my spine.
Was that Tyler?
That sounded like that asshole, Tyler, my ex-boyfriend and the reason I’m here.
“Tyler?” Athena whispers, letting me know I growled his name out loud. “Like, ex-boyfriend who clocked you over the head during your rescue mission and brought you here, Tyler?”
Before I can answer her, I’m staring at a pair of familiar green eyes over a medical mask. They don’t feed us often or give us much water, but I still produce enough spit to send some flying at his face.
“Delightful as always, Atlas,” he sneers. He turns his back on me, facing our regular doctor. “Tomorrow, then. I’ll expect your report soon.”
And then he strides out, ignoring me like I haven’t buried my cock in his throat hundreds of times.
They give Athena a shot to sedate her and pull her out of her crate, a dreamy, far-off look falling over her face almost immediately.
I don’t know what they plan on doing to us tomorrow, but if Tyler is giddy about it, it can’t be good.
“Scrub,” the Alpha barks at me. My body tenses at the sound, but I do as I’m told, standing under the freezing cold spray of the shower.
This is the first time they’ve let me bathe in the month I’ve been here.
I clean off the dried blood and dirt, the sticky residue from the tape they used to attach the tubes to me, and wash my greasy hair.