Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
“You know that this isn’t forever, right?” Ethel says gently, reaching through the grates of our enclosures, hoping to touch me. We’ve been doing that more lately, trying to get our fingers to brush against one another.
Ethel has been here longer than I have, yet she’s the one trying to keep my spirits up. Shouldn’t I have more hope than she does? “This isn’t where your story ends.”
“Maybe,” I acquiesce, stretching my fingers out as far as they will go. Still not touching. Maybe tomorrow our enclosures will shift closer to one another, and we will finally be able to.
It’s hard to believe that I’ve been here for six days, and we still haven’t touched. Six days in hell, being poked and prodded like a lab rat.
I feel so close to her, and yet there is this massive thing between us.
I just want to touch her. To feel how soft her skin is. Is that too much to ask?
“But what if it is? What if we both die here?”
“You know we don’t,” she reminds me. “You have so much life left to live.”
“And you don’t?” I fight to keep my voice lowered, worried that the doctor will come in here and take Ethel away if I’m too loud, even though there have never been any signs that they’ve heard us in the past. “This isn’t the end for either of us, Ethel.”
I’ve been in love before. I have. But what I feel with Ethel, while it’s close, it’s not quite the same.
Maybe it’s the trauma we share, or the unknown potential that we have stretching between us, but it feels like she’s a part of me. Like, no matter how hard I try, I could never separate her from me.
Not that I’d want to.
So while I’m not sure if I’m in love with Ethel, I think, one day, I could be, if we had the chance.
Not here. We’d have to escape from here first.
There is no love to be found in a cage.
“Athena.” I look up, my breath catching at the tears that pool in her dark eyes. “You have to know that this isn’t how your story ends.”
“You said that already!” A disproportionate amount of anger towards her rolls through me. How can she be so calm in the face of so much danger? Does she not realize that our time together is almost up? That we can’t continue like this forever?
“This can’t be it for you,” she implores, trying to make me see reason in a place where it has been stripped away from us. “You have to be stronger than this. You have to be strong, just for a little longer. You have to get through this. I need you to get through this.”
“Well, I needed you too!” I can’t control my volume anymore. My chest aches as I blame her for things she had no control over. “I needed you and you left me!”
“You think I had a choice? That I wanted to leave you alone?” The corners of her mouth are crusted, and her lips are flaky and white.
The whites of her eyes have yellowed, and her nose is bleeding.
“I wanted to stay with you, Athena! I wanted to be there with you when you got out. I tried. I really did. I fought so hard. But I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t hold on any longer. I promise I tried so hard to stay with you. ”
“I needed you!” I weave my fingers through my hair and pull, craving physical pain, hoping to reduce the ache in my chest. “I needed you, and you left me, Ethel. You were all I had in here. The only thing that kept me going.”
“I know, sweetie. I know. But I can’t change it. I can’t make this okay for you.” The blood is running down her nose faster now, covering her chin and throat in torrents of crimson. “We have to do this. Just one more time.”
“But you don’t come back,” I sob. “You always came back. Always. But this time, you don’t. I needed you to come back.”
“I know. But I wanted to, Athena. I really, really did. I would have if I could. You have to know that.”
My chest feels like it’s cracking open. There’s nothing I can do. I can’t save her.
Couldn’t save her.
The door to the warehouse opens, and two doctors file in. When they take both of us from our confines, they walk close enough that our fingers brush for the first and last time.
“We’re here.” My brother’s voice jars me out of my nightmare. I feel tears tracking down my cheeks, curling around my chin, and pooling in the hollow of my throat, but in my mind’s eye, it’s blood.
Ethel’s blood.
She died.
She wasn’t taken from me. She didn’t just not come back after a treatment.
She died on the table in the lab, reaching for me.
And I saw it happen.
How could I ever forget that I watched the woman who was my only comfort in that hell die?
“Athena?” Icarus asks, opening the back door of his car. “Are you back with me?”
I blink, clearing the fog from my eyes, and the sight of my brother’s concerned face loosens my chest. Safety. That’s what Icarus has always been to me.
He’s the one I called whenever I was in trouble. I know I’m in trouble right now, but I don’t know what to say to him, or how he could help me.
“What do you mean, back with you?” I look around, noticing that it’s only me and him. I somehow missed that while I was processing what I realized about Ethel. “Where’s Atlas? Where are the guys?”
“You were dissociated,” my brother answers, ignoring the second half of my questioning, while resting a hand under my elbow and helping me out of the back of his sensible sedan. “After I calmed you down when you woke up, you completely left your body. I think your Omega took over to protect you.”
I follow him up the flower-lined path, heart in my throat. I am a fractured being, pieces of me scattering with every step I take. “How is that possible?”
It’s dark outside.
How much time did I lose?
“Our designations are a part of us, almost a separate entity, in a way, but we’re woven so tightly together that we’re one consciousness.
Since you were created, it’s possible that you’re not as woven together as someone who has been with their Omega since their presentation at sixteen.
This is all theoretical, but you may have split into two entities, and your Omega is protecting you from a trauma you’re not ready to face. ”
“I think I just faced that trauma,” I say softly, following him over the threshold. “Where’s my pack? Where’s Atlas?” I ask again.
My brother’s kind face darkens. “You’re still part of my pack.
My sister. Family packs have a powerful hold over us.
It’s biological as much as it is instinctual.
I didn’t do what I did to hurt you. I needed to protect you.
Neither of you handled the treatment well.
Atlas woke up first, having a panic attack, and we all rushed to him.
When you awoke screaming, I ran to you to comfort you.
After a while, I noticed that none of them followed me.
They didn’t even come to check on you. I was going to get them, but you were…
gone.” He bends down and unties his shoes, stuffing his laces inside them before placing them fastidiously onto a shoe rack by the door.
I mirror his actions, surprised I’m still wearing shoes and my regular clothes, not a hospital gown.
He looks at me with the type of love and affection that only a big brother is capable of, wrapping his hand around the back of my neck and pulling our foreheads together. “I wasn’t going to let you hurt on your own. My pack can take care of you.”
This makes sense.
They didn’t come for me.
Of course.
I don’t know why I expected anything different this time. Just because they called me pack doesn’t make it so. I’m never the first choice.
Always the consolation prize.
I can’t blame Atlas. He wasn’t in his right mind any more than I was.
But the others?
They behaved as Alphas always do.
Icarus places a hand on my elbow and leads me further into his home.
Rafe is sitting at the island in the middle of their spacious kitchen, squinting at a tablet.
When he looks up and notices us, he jumps to his feet.
“Athena!” He rushes me, then attempts to slow down before he reaches for my hands.
“I knew you were okay, but it’s not the same as seeing it for myself. We missed you.”
I’m still reeling from my nightmare and the rejection from my pack, but I try to give my brother-in-law a convincing smile. “It’s good to see you, too, Rafe.”
His eyes narrow, like he wants to ask me questions he knows I won’t answer, but he shakes his head and moves back to the island. “Jordan and Cyrus are out with Topher and your parents. Slime is here somewhere.”
“Slime is here right now,” the biker in question replies, sliding into the room on socked feet. “Athena!” I guess Icarus didn’t tell them he was bringing me back. He nearly trips over himself to pull me into his arms. “How is Pack Lupine treating you? Do I need to call Harvey and give him hell?”
A sob hitches in my chest.
I think I was starting to care for those guys. Or at least, appreciate their presence.
“Let’s get you some tea,” Icarus interrupts, bustling into the kitchen and turning on the kettle. “And then some food. Plasmapheresis can take a lot out of you.”
“Plasma what?” The green-haired Alpha wraps his arms around Rafe’s waist and nuzzles into his neck. “Sounds fancy.”
“Do you mind if I tell them, Athena?” my brother asks, respecting my privacy even though they are his pack.
“Sure, Icky.” I slip onto a stool and rest my head in my hands. My chest is aching, Atlas’s worry flowing through the bond. I don’t like leaving him. It feels like a piece of me is missing.
But this is for the best.
They chose him.
My entire pack chose Atlas. In a time when both of us needed our Alphas, I was left alone.
Why am I continually surprised when I am proven not to be enough?
Icarus’s voice drones on in the background, explaining the medical event I went through, which I should pay attention to. I still don’t know why I ended up in the hospital.
But I can’t hear what he’s saying over the rushing of blood in my ears.
All I can think about is that once again, I am alone.
I am alone.
When will I ever be enough?
Will there ever be a time when someone puts me first?
Do I always have to grin and bear it, stepping back and respectfully bowing out when my life is cracking under my feet?
I’m not good enough.
That’s the only explanation.
In every shitty situation, every time I’ve had my heart broken, there is only one constant.
Me.
I am the common denominator in my agony.
I’ll never be enough.
Why do I even bother trying? It doesn’t do me any good.
I was trying. It may not have seemed like it, but I was trying to be an Omega that they could be proud to claim, even though I feel hollow and broken. And I was enjoying it! Being held, purred for, and taken nest shopping was the first time I felt cared for.
Atlas needed them. I would never begrudge my Omega of that care. But I needed them, too. And none of them came for me.