Chapter 4
Kasey
Time slipped the way it always did—soft around the edges, unreliable. One moment I was somewhere, the next I was coming back to myself hours later with no memory of what happened in between.
It happened again.
The last clear thing I remembered was leaving the gym; still shaken by the way an Alpha I’d never met had spoken my name like he knew it. Then everything blurred.
And now… I was standing in a hallway, staring at a closed white door, no idea how I’d gotten there.
A shove from behind got my feet to move forward as the door opened, as though whoever was on the other side expected my presence.
“This one again so soon?”
Again?
I didn’t bother to reply; didn’t bother to look up to see which handler was now in charge of my body.
“Lockswell requests that this one is cleaned inside and out. Special occasion tomorrow. Special treatment.”
My eyes went wide, thankful that these two men couldn’t see my expression right at that moment.
The term special around here was anything but that. It meant pain. It meant that I got the attention I didn’t ever ask for.
“Sure thing,” the handler huffed, a little too pleased to be the one in charge of my being.
Why couldn’t the blank moments come now, when everything hurt too much? Why did my mind only drift when life was tolerable, never when I needed an escape the most?
The past year had been nothing but a steady slide downward, each day heavier than the one before.
I’d stopped keeping track of how many times I’d been brought to this room, how many times I’d been pushed past the point of feeling. Numbers didn’t matter anymore. Time didn’t matter. I didn’t matter.
I didn’t want this life. Not the pain, not the fear, not the constant ache of existing in a place that stripped everything away. And standing here now, I couldn’t shake the thought that maybe I wouldn’t make it through much longer.
Maybe that was the only mercy left.
“Strip.” The order was given with a snap of fingers. The sound was loud in the room, and I couldn’t stop the jerk of surprise.
With my heart in my throat, I did it as an order. Each layer, shirt, pants, underwear and socks, each taken off my body and folded into a neat pile, placed on a metal table nearby. This wasn’t unnormal.
Monthly, Omegas were to be weighed, measured, and assessed. It was always marked down in the system, along with any notes that were needed.
I remember the first time I was documented. I was eight, afraid of my own shadow and confused about what was going on.
Going from a happy moment with family to a moment of cold and sterile room wasn’t a thing any child should have to go through.
Yet, I had been.
I’d been made to undress before, stripped without ceremony; my clothes taken from me like they were never mine to begin with. The handlers back then, just like now, didn’t care if I cried or begged. As long as I followed orders, my emotions were irrelevant.
So, I learned.
I learned to swallow my tears. I learned to stay silent. Most of all, I learned to obey.
I stepped onto the scale, the cold metal biting into the soles of my feet. The measurement bar pressed against my back a moment later, sending a chill straight through my skin. The overhead light flickered as it hit my eyes, leaving little bursts of color floating in my vision.
I stood still through all of it, the way I’d been taught. The way I had to.
I tuned out the handler’s comments. None of them mattered to me anymore. He talked about needing to build muscle, but didn’t he realize how impossible that was here?
Three meals a day sounded generous until you saw the portions. I was always hungry, always waiting for the next bite of fruit that never did anything to quiet the ache in my stomach.
Those first weeks were the worst. I’d never felt so empty, so I was constantly aware of how little I was given. I still didn’t understand how anyone thought those tiny servings were enough for anyone — let alone an Omega expected to keep up with everything demanded of us.
The handler didn’t waste time.
“To the middle of the room, on your hands and knees.”
Kneeling on the cement floor, close to a drain of all things, I let my body relax as much as possible into the pose that was requested.
I felt exposed, my back towards the handler, as he fiddled around behind me. Plastic opening, the tablet being set down, his shoes moving as he got out what he needed.
I knew what was coming before anything happened. It wasn’t the first time, nor would it be the last.
That didn’t mean I was going to enjoy the torture that was about to enslave my body. But I would endure it. Because there were no other options but to.
“I’ve had many boys in this position,” the handler mused. “Some cry, some don’t. You’ve only ever cried once, I believe.”
Probably that very first time, I thought. I kept my voice to myself.
“I wonder if I can get you to cry one last time for me.”
A cold pit opened my stomach.
If someone here decided they wanted that, it would happen. That was how this place worked.
I didn’t want to cry. Crying always made me feel like I was coming apart, like I was eight years old again and wishing I could run into Mama’s arms for a hug that fixed everything. Or curl up beside my best friend and pretend the monsters weren’t real.
But here… none of that existed.
Here, crying only left me alone in a room for hours, trying to pull myself back together while wondering how life had turned so unfair.
My throat tightened, but I forced the feeling down, pressing it into the same place I hid everything else.
I breathed slowly. I kept my eyes fixed on a spot on the floor, letting my eyes blur the gray into nothingness.
If I didn’t react, maybe the pressure in my chest would ease. Maybe the sting behind my eyes would fade.
But it didn’t.
It sat there, heavy and hot, threatening to spill over if I even blinked too hard.
I curled my fingers against the floor, grounding myself in the tiny bite of pressure. All I could do was wait. Wait and know that the tears would fall, with or without my consent.
“Spread your knees, Omega.” A pat to my bare butt got my legs to move an inch further apart, just enough for the handler to have access to what he wanted.
I clinched my eyes tight, breathing in even gasps of air, as something cold and slim pressed into me. The plastic gave way as the handler pushed it further in, letting the tube settle in my anal cavity.
There was no warning as cold water began to flow into me, filling me up slowly.
Experience taught me that the colder the water, the worse the cramps that would come with it. Hot water was worse, though, burning me from the inside.
“Be a good little boy and stay right there.”
Like I had a choice, I thought, shifting my weight on my knees as the water pressure increased.
I knew the drill.
Staying still was the best option, along with holding the water in as long as possible, no matter how much pain came from doing so.
It didn’t take long. Maybe a few minutes before the cramps began. They were weak at first, easy to ignore as my stomach began to round up from the liquid. But they grew stronger with each passing second.
A single tear leaked out, and I forced my body to stay on all fours.
My instinct was to curl up in a ball, to cry and beg and plead. To pull out the tube and let the water out.
So focused on breathing through the pain, I yelped as something hard and unyielding smacked me across my back.
It came again, Wack after whack.
My body reacted before I could stop it, flinching away from the hurt even though I knew I wasn’t supposed to move. My mind was a storm of noise, begging for everything to stop, begging for a way out that I didn’t have.
By the fourth blow, something inside me just…let go.
I stopped fighting. I stopped hoping. I stopped trying to hold on to anything that made me feel like a person.
I gave myself back to this place, to the people who seemed determined to grind me down to nothing. Any scraps of hope I’d held onto, that I might escape; that life might get better, slipped away like they’d never been real.
I just gave up.
Tears broke free before I could swallow them down, and sobs shook through me in sharp, uncontrollable waves. Every movement made everything ache, inside and out, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t pull myself together. I couldn’t be quiet the way I was supposed to.
All I could do was fall apart.
My breath stuttered, my vision blurred, and my chest tightened in a way I couldn’t control.
A soft sound escaped me, but it was enough to break whatever fragile balance I had left.
The tears spilled over. Hot and unwanted.
I squeezed my eyes shut, but that only made them fall faster. My shoulders shook, and every inhale came too quickly, like my body decided for me that it was done pretending.
“Well, that was a disappointment,” the handler huffed, tossing the instrument he had been using off to the side. “I thought for sure that’d take you longer to break. You are weak.”
With the last words, my upper body was pushed down, forcing my butt to stay in the air.
Turning my head to the side as I sobbed, breath hitching every few seconds, the tube was roughly pulled out before something larger. Something ice cold, pressed into me.
I cried, a high-pitched sound, knowing I would have to suffer even longer.
Please, have mercy on my soul, I begged as my hair was grasped in a hard handful, forcing my body to kneel upright.
All that did was put pressure on my insides as they screamed at me to release the liquid from within.
“Omegas cry so beautifully, though.” The words slid under my skin like a cold blade.
I locked my jaw, trying to hold myself still. I tried to keep the trembling in my chest from showing but knowing I was already failing.
Crying felt like I was handing over something private, something I didn’t have much left of.
I hated it. I hated how easily I fell apart. I hated that I couldn’t stop it once it started.
But I couldn’t hold myself together anymore. Not this time. Not after everything. The weight of it all pressed down until I couldn’t breathe around it, couldn’t think past it, couldn’t be anything but a shaking, crying mess.
And the worst part? Knowing it was exactly what these people here wanted.
They wanted to see me broken. See my soul shattered.
If I hadn’t been broken already, this surely would have killed me instead of just cracking me open a little bit more.