Chapter 14
Fourteen
Cooper
R iley sits across from Ethan and I with a serious look on his face, gazing pensively at us. He came straight to our house after his rotation tonight at the institute, insisting on coming through the back door and checking for cameras and audio listening devices.
His overlapping rotations have ended, or I’d have been worried he was losing it due to exhaustion. It would be laughable if he didn’t find two of them in the living room. They’re now sitting in a glass of water in the kitchen, ruined and broken.
I have no idea when anyone would have gotten into the house to place those so strategically, but it’s clear I need to get a security system for the house. Less for our safety, and more so to keep the hospital from getting information on Ethan and I.
It’s been eight months since Nina went into Weeping Willow, and the school year is over. I didn’t sign up to teach any summer classes, which means I have too much time on my hands. I have to take medication to sleep, but even then I wake up exhausted.
“Things aren’t going to get any better,” Riley says sadly.
“Not for you and not for her. They want to obliterate you two from her memories. She’s lost weight she didn’t have to lose, they regularly shave her head to keep her off balance, and the sensory deprivation is escalating.
Nina isn’t going to be able to survive much longer, guys.
As her scent match as well, it’s killing me to watch this happen. ”
Ethan flinches at his words. Way to bury the lead, Riley. This is the first time we’ve heard this. It means the alpha is invested in her safety, but he’s also torturing himself each time he steps into that hospital.
“Why didn’t you say something before?” I sigh, scrubbing my face.
“It didn’t matter,” Riley insists. “She’s our priority, and I have some hard truths to discuss. Nina is forgetting things about you. She’s holding on as tightly as she can, but they’re punishing her for it. They’re taking pieces of her.”
My heart clenches so hard, I wince.
“Ethan,” I rasp, forcing myself to breathe. “We had so little time with her…”
“Maybe twenty-four hours, if that,” he agrees. “We need to let Nina go, don’t we?”
“I think so,” I murmur. “Riley, can you help her do that?”
“Me?” Riley asks, blinking at me. “Help how?”
“She needs to forget Ethan and I,” I say.
Breathe, Cooper.
“She has…” Fuck, this hurts so much. “Nina needs to think I’m just a random professor who took over her class, and that Ethan is just a guy she ran into on campus. She can’t remember us as her scent matches.”
Ethan drops his head in his hands as he hunches over but nods in agreement.
“Yeah,” Riley replies, swallowing hard. “I can use hypnosis to make her forget. Remove the memories as we talk through them while she’s under. You want me to take all of it?”
“Yes,” I gasp. “She doesn’t know you’re her scent match, right? ”
“No, they have me use a descenting soap and spray when I come into the hospital each time,” he explains. “She doesn’t know.”
“If we found her once, we can find her again, right?” Ethan asks, his voice cracking. His shoulders are shaking and I know this is destroying him too.
“Yes,” I say. “It’s better than having them do something that could fuck with her sense of smell permanently.”
“They’ve been discussing that,” Riley says woodenly. It sounds as if he has no emotion, but the blankness on his face is a defense mechanism. I’ve used it enough to understand that. “She’s almost been at the hospital for a year, and her mother is getting anxious.”
“The bitch probably has a line of packs for Nina that are chomping at the bit as she tries to explain why her daughter can’t meet with them,” I grumble. “Convince the doctors this will work, and that she won’t recognize us if she sees us again.”
“They’ve begun water boarding her as part of her treatment,” Riley says. “She’s refusing to cooperate, and the staff is panicking. Weeping Willow wants Nina to be their success story so they can do this to others. There’s a possibility that she may have some damage to her senses.”
I remember how long it took Ethan to recognize Nina as his scent match due to the way his sinuses swell during cold weather, but it still happened. I have to hope that Nina’s senses will still recognize who we are to her when the time comes.
This isn’t goodbye, we are not giving up. We are merely retreating until we can find her again.
Reaching out, I rub my son’s back as he cries. Riley’s gaze stays on Ethan as he decides on his next words.
“I have some ideas on how we can ensure Nina sees us all again. We’ll win her over, even if she can’t recognize that we’re her scent matches,” he says. “Fate gave her to us, we’ll meet her again. ”
She was once ours and she’ll be ours later. We just need to be patient, bite back the crushing pain, so she can live.
Nina
I feel drowsy as I wake up, but I’m beginning to get used to this.
I’m either drugged asleep or forced to stay awake.
I don’t know what it feels like to sleep in a bed anymore since I’m often left on the floor or tied to a chair, which is why I’m surprised there’s something soft underneath me.
Blankets surround my body, another comfort I haven’t been allowed to have since I woke from my first heat.
A soft noise of confusion slips from my lips and I move my hands expecting to be tied down. My eyes fly open in shock as I find that I’m completely unrestrained. Unfortunately, I’m so weak I can’t sit up, and simply gaze up at Riley.
I don’t know his last name, and he’s maintained a stoic demeanor throughout every therapy he’s watched. He doesn’t participate unless Dr. Kind feels it’s necessary. It doesn’t change the fact that I fucking hate him too.
“What… Is this a trick?” I ask, gazing at my hands and rotating my ankles. I don’t get to exercise unless it’s life or death in the water tank where I have to tread water with my hands tied behind my back for hours.
As a result, my muscles and joints ache.
“No, and there aren’t any cameras in this room,” he murmurs. “I need you to listen to me very carefully, Nina, because this only works if you let me in completely. You need to forget your alphas. This is killing you. I know you’re already beginning to forget little things, right?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “That doesn’t mean I want to forget the rest.”
I’m unsure why we’re both speaking so softly, but I do it anyway. It feels wrong to speak about erasing my alphas from my mind. The shame I’m weighed down with is heavy enough as it is.
Every therapy session I’m forced to participate in hurts, and I’ve had countless nosebleeds from the electro-convulsive therapy. My body is exhausted, and where I have never had thoughts of suicide before, I have them all the time now.
What if I just didn’t tread water one day? What if I just stopped fighting?
I know no one is going to save me from this. My alphas can fight for me, throw the full letter of the law at the institute, but I’m never getting out until the doctors and my mother get the results they want.
“So maybe I die here,” I rasp, a tear escaping from my eye.
My soul is exhausted. How much more can I take?
“No,” he growls, moving from the end of the couch to lean over me so quickly I screech.
“You’re not fucking dying here, Nina Marie Sterling.
For once in your life, don’t be stubborn.
I know I don’t deserve your trust, but I’m here for you.
Your alphas sent me here to watch over you, do what I can.
They want you to let go of them and save yourself. ”
“They don’t want me anymore?” I ask, sniffling.
“They’d prefer that you live,” he says seriously. Reaching out, he smooths away a tear. “Try it my way, okay? Forget them.”
“How do I know that you’re telling the truth?” I ask.
“Ethan calls you Rainbow Brite, and has since he met you,” he says. “We’re friends, and have been since we met in undergrad. The rest is for him to tell you when you meet again. I believe in fate, Nina. Trust in that if you can’t trust me.”
I can hear the truth in his words, and my heart pounds as I nod. It feels profound, as if I am selling my soul away.
“Good,” he says softly, moving away. Riley doesn’t call me a “good girl” which is a positive because if I’d had the strength, I would have slapped the shit out of him.
I don’t think I’ll want to be called that for a long damn time .
“Tell me every interaction between you and the two of them that you’ve had as an adult,” he says, grabbing a pad of paper and a pen.
Slowly, painstakingly, he jots down notes as we talk. My cheeks heat as I tell him about some of the spicier and more intimate moments, but he doesn’t comment on it. He simply prepares to take them all from me.
“Now, I want you to close your eyes and take deep breaths. We are going to go back to the time where you first met Cooper and Ethan at school. Instead of remembering that Cooper was your teacher, you’ll recall that you had a substitute teacher your freshman year for a class, but not remember who it was or what class,” Riley says.
“It’ll remain shadowy and unclear, the way the past sometimes can become over time. ”
“Okay,” I say, barely moving my lips as I feel my body relax.
He speaks to me as he sends me back to the memory when I first met Cooper, my mind transporting me to that moment. Riley hardly has to say anything for me to remember it all. It’s a moment I haven’t forgotten, and now it’ll be gone.
“ Forget,” he barks. His alpha bark has the memory disintegrating, and then he asks me to go to the next moment with Cooper.
Systematically, every second that I’ve spent with him is removed from my mind, and then Riley ruthlessly moves to Ethan. I’m calm because he told me to be, his hands rubbing my feet to keep me semi conscious.