Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
Athena is shaking, tears running down her cheeks as I talk to Dr. K about our time in the warehouse.
“I’m sorry, Dr. K, we need to go,” I say, pulling Athena into my lap and banding my arms tightly around her.
“If you don’t mind, Atlas, this is the perfect time for me to be here,” she says, resting her notebook on her knee. “How often does this sort of dissociation happen with Athena?”
I stroke the back of her head as she shakes and sobs in my lap. “Often enough. Once or twice a day.”
“And what happens when it’s over?”
“It’s like she was asleep.” I don’t want to answer these questions right now. I want to take care of my Omega. She needs me more than I need answers from a doctor I don’t even know.
“I can see you’re getting upset with me, Atlas, but please hold on. Both of you are having a trauma response right now, and it would help you both if we could work through it.”
“I’m not having a trauma response. My Omega is hurting, and I need to fix it. She needs me to fix it.”
“And is it possible that this is a response to helplessly watching as they took her away to experiment on her?”
Her words hit me like a fist.
“You watched someone you care about get taken away time and time again, and could do nothing to stop it. Now that she is here, in your arms, you think it’s your responsibility to take care of her through everything. But who takes care of you, Atlas? You also went through a trauma.”
“I don’t need anyone to take care of me! I’m not weak.” Athena whines, and I shush her, nuzzling my face into her neck.
“I never said you were weak. Needing help doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human.”
“It makes me an Omega, you mean,” I sneer. “I know how people see Omegas. I’m not like them. I’m not a regular Omega.”
The doctor taps her pen on her chin, tilting her head to the side. “And why do you think that your brain immediately went on the defensive? Why are you so afraid of being treated like an Omega?”
I gesture widely with one hand, the other holding Athena tight.
“Why am I afraid of being treated like an Omega? Have you ever watched the fucking news? Things haven’t gotten that much better since the Perfect Omega trial.
We’re barely more than chattel to be sold.
I see it every fucking day, Omegas being taken, being trafficked.
We have to have guardians, for fuck’s sake.
Someone to take responsibility for us because of our delicate sensibilities.
Can you blame me for not wanting that life? ”
Athena stirs in my arms, eyelids fluttering as her tears slow. I make a soft shushing noise and brush my hand down her messy hair, even as I am vibrating with anger.
Not toward her, or even Dr. K, but toward the world.
The world that says that because I’m now an Omega, I have to be different. Submissive. Meek. As if the thirty-three years of my life before the day I woke up bonded to Athena didn’t exist.
Atlas Cassidy died in that warehouse, and in the ashes, they have erected an Omega wearing my skin.
“You’re not wrong about the bad parts of being an Omega in our society. Omegas are constantly infantilized and told they cannot make their own decisions. I see it daily as well. But what about the positives? Can you think of any positives of being an Omega?”
“What positives? That I’m tied to a pack now because they think I smell good? Even though I can’t confirm it. I’m supposed to accept their word that we’re their scent matches? I am supposed to entrust them with Athena? With my Omega?”
“Have they ever given you any indication they would not be trustworthy in a situation like this?”
“Of course not! They’re good men.” I know where she’s going with this, so I cut her off before she can.
“I’m supposed to be happy that the men who used to be my equals are now my keepers?
That I now have all these instincts that make me want to prostrate myself before them and beg for them to take me?
” I scoff, fighting back the tears that threaten to spill from my eyes and the whine that wants to escape my throat.
“What good came from this nightmare, other than the woman in my arms?”
“Am I not enough?” Athena’s tiny voice shocks me out of my spiral. I look down at her wide green eyes, and my chest aches at the expression I see.
My voice catches in my throat, and I don’t know how to respond to that question.
Dr. K does it for me.
“You can be enough, be worth the pain, and still not erase all the bad that it’s caused,” she says, leaning closer to her camera.
“What happened to both of you is unconscionable, and you’re lucky that you came out of it with each other.
That is a significant positive aspect of this change.
But I want you to set aside for a moment how you became Omegas.
What is positive about being an Omega? If you had woken up and presented as an Omega, instead of being converted into one, what positives would you find? ”
“A pack that’s mine,” Athena says, not needing to think about it. “One that no one can take from me.”
“That’s a great positive.”
“But are they really mine?” she asks in a whisper. “Because this Omega isn’t mine. I’m not supposed to be an Omega. Ethel is.”
“Who’s Ethel?” The doctor asks.
“She’s who they killed to make me an Omega,” Athena answers blandly. “I forgot about it, or was being protected from it by my Omega, if my brother is to be believed. But I remember now. I remember everything.”
“Tell me everything.”
And she does.
Every moment with Ethel. Every whispered conversation. Every memory that haunts her.
Athena lays it bare before her and lets Dr. K pick through the scraps of her sanity.
And as she does, all I can think about is if Ethel was used to make Athena, who made me?
What could I have forgotten?
Crystal stands, her back to us, in front of the door to the concrete building. “You two don’t have to do this,” she says for the fifth time.
Athena’s hand quakes in mine. Neither of us feels confident about our decision to see the doctors who turned us into what we are today, but Dr. K thought it was a good idea.
Apparently, there is something about needing to know what truly happened to us so we can embark upon our healing journey. That’s fine in theory.
Except now we’re here, about to face our fears, and my stomach is in knots.
“I want our Alphas,” Athena whispers, clinging to my arm. “I don’t know why. They hurt me. I don’t even know if they want me. But I want them.”
“It’s normal,” Crystal responds, as if she weren’t listening in on a conversation that didn’t include her.
I love her, but she tends to overstep a lot of boundaries.
“Their purrs are basically magic when you’re upset.
They’re here, you know? On the compound.
You don’t have to see them, but they’ll be there watching over while you talk to the doctors. ”
“I don’t want that,” I snap at her. “They don’t need front-row seats to our nightmares.”
“They do.” Her tone is firm and final. “Atlas, you’re my friend, so I’ll give it to you straight.
These are your Alphas. There is no changing that.
Regardless of how you became an Omega, your body is always going to crave them.
And they’re good men. You know that. You know them.
” She looks at Athena, her gaze softening.
“They fucked up. They’ll probably continue to fuck up because Alphas are morons when it comes to their Omegas sometimes.
Trust me, I am well aware of that. But they also need to know what happened so they can help you heal, because no one should have to go through this alone. ”
“I don’t want them as my Alphas,” I say petulantly. “I want them as my friends. My colleagues.”
“They didn’t ask to have your stubborn ass as their Omega, either,” she responds, crossing her arms over her chest. “You think you’re the only one thrown for a loop over this? They went from seeing you as the annoying Beta they let hang around them-”
“You asshole, you know-”
She continues as if she didn’t hear me. “To this Omega that they want to rut, to cuddle, to take care of. Everyone has been thrown for a loop over this, not just you. Your trauma doesn’t give you carte blanche to be a dick, Atlas.”
Our argument seems to have knocked some nerves out of Athena, because she laughs, but quickly smothers it when I glare at her.
“Sorry, but she’s not wrong,” she says, choking on her giggles. “You’ve been a bit of a dick. Not to me, but definitely to the guys. Especially Charles.”
“He thinks I need to be coddled!”
“Maybe you do.” I gape at her. “Maybe we both do. We went through something terrible, Atlas. Our lives have been irrevocably changed. Would it be so bad to have someone help us as we adjust?”
“I don’t need them,” I remind her. “I just need you.”
“But what if I do? What if I need them, and you push them away and take away that chance for me?”
Her words make my chest ache, but I can feel her sincerity through our bond. That’s why waking up without them hurt her so much.
She wants them.
Or at least wants to try.
I owe it to her to at least try, don’t I?