Chapter 24
Kasey
I don’t remember moving. One moment I was standing in front of Evander, staring at the floor like it might swallow me whole, and the next I was kneeling on the living room rug, hands resting on my thighs just like I was trained.
Those pictures…Evander…none of it made sense. If he didn’t want me to pretend to be that boy in the photos, then why show them to me at all? Why tell me I was him?
I wasn’t that boy. I couldn’t be.
I wasn’t anything except a lonely Omega who’d been raised to serve Alphas and nothing more. That was the truth I knew. The only truth that had ever been given to me.
So, what did a handful of old photos change?
It didn’t matter that Evander somehow had pictures of my parents. There was an explanation, logical ones. Ones that didn’t require me to rewrite my entire existence.
First, he was an Alpha. Alphas made the laws and had access to anything they wanted. If he wanted pictures of my parents, he could get them. ?
Simple.
Second, pictures could be altered. Faces could be swapped. Memories could be manufactured.
If he wanted me to believe I was this…. whoever that child was…. he had the power to make it look real. ?
And I knew I wasn’t him.
I’d been given to Lockswell after my parents died. That was the story I’d been told for as long as I could remember. It made sense.
There had been no family to come for me, even when I still had the hope that they were out there.
Handlers repeatedly told me that no one wanted me; that there was no living soul out there to claim me as their Omega child.
And the handlers didn’t lie. They were cruel, yes, but they didn’t lie.
No one had wanted me then, so why would anyone claim me now?
I didn’t react as Evander took a seat and made me take a pill. My body already knew what to expect from it before he placed it on my tongue.
I wanted to beg, to plead, to tell this Alpha that I’d be whatever he wished me to be, again and again, but I knew better.
Pleading would get me nowhere. It was better to accept whatever happened. He was the owner of my body and mind. And if he wanted to play games, then I’d endure it.
As I closed my eyes, the pictures popped up again before me. The pictures of a boy who looked like me. Of a boy who laughed, smiled, and leaned into the Alpha like he belonged there.
But it wasn’t me.
Sure, I remembered tiny fractions of time where I could see where this Alpha could play mind games with me. My parents and I went camping often. There was my best friend, too; his face was too far out of reach to recall.
But mostly, I remember the fear. The cold hands. Dark rooms. And voices that didn’t sound like this Alpha’s.
I never liked the dark rooms at Lockswell, but they served their purpose.
A soft sound escaped me, something between a breath and a sob, and I pressed my palms harder against my thighs, grounding myself in the pressure. Evander’s hand stilled in my hair, then resumed its slow, steady motion.
He didn’t say anything; he didn’t have to. The silence between us felt heavy, but not cruel. Not like the silence I’d learned to fear.
This one felt…. Waiting. Patient. Like he was giving me space to come back to myself. Or space and time for the pill to kick in, making me burn with a need I loathed more than simply pretending to be someone I wasn’t.
I wanted to tell this Alpha that he was wrong, that I wasn’t that boy. The words were right there, pressing against the back of my teeth.
But before I could force them out, the pill hit me faster than I expected.
My eyes widened a little as the tension drained from my muscles, my shoulders loosening, my thoughts blurring at the edges. A warm, heavy calm washed through me, softening everything it touched.
And instantly, I knew. This wasn’t the Drive Hold medication.
That didn’t make me feel like this. That heightened the panic and arousal. It made everything brighter, closer, and my blood boils with a need that wasn’t ever filled.
This was something else, something meant to help, not control.
My chest eased instead of tightening. My thoughts didn’t disappear; they just shifted, softer around the edges like someone had turned the volume down on the panic.
I blinked slowly, trying to focus. I tried to speak, to tell him he’d given me the wrong thing, that I didn’t deserve anything that made me feel better, but the words tangled somewhere in my throat.
Evander’s hand was still on my hair, steady and careful, and the warmth of it spread down my spine.
I didn’t know what to do with that. I didn’t know what to do with any of this.
My body felt heavy, but not in a way that scared me. More like…safe. Or something close to it. Something I didn’t have a name for.
I swallowed, the motion slow and thick.
“Evander…” his name slipped out before I could stop it, soft and uncertain.
I didn’t know what I meant to say after that. I didn’t know what I was asking for. I didn’t even know if I was asking for anything at all.
I just knew that whatever he’d given me wasn’t meant to force release after release from my worn-out body.
I hated feeling so out of control, yet I hated accepting the help of this pill just as much.
Because it stopped me from thinking clearly. It stopped me from fighting against what my body desperately wanted. And it made me feel smaller in the world than I already did.
Without my say so, my body leaned against the couch, surrounding the touch in my hair as my eyes slipped close.
I wasn’t tired, yet my body was betraying me in keeping protocol.
“Would it help if I got your full record from Lockswell?” Evander asked quietly, his hand still moving gently through my hair.
I lifted one shoulder in half a shrug. I didn’t bother to answer. Whatever he found wouldn’t change anything. The file was just a file. The paper didn’t rewrite who I was.
“The file will have everything,” he continued softly. “How you became a ward of the boarding house. What was documented? All of it.”
“Parents died. Car crash. Me taken there.” The words came out slurred, thick on my tongue as the medication pulled at the edges of my awareness. I tried to stay upright, but the darkness kept tugging.
“If your file says that,” Evander said, “then I’ll accept that you aren’t who I think you are.” He paused, thumb brushing lightly behind my ear. “But I’m still going to request a blood test. So, we both know where you came from.”
I wrinkled my nose. “It’ll be in there.” Lockswell did blood tests all the time. Yearly. Sometimes more. They always said it was required.
“I want a new one,” he said firmly. “I don’t trust Lockswell’s doctors.”
Fair enough, I thought hazily. My knees were starting to ache from kneeling; the weight of my body was too much to hold up. I shifted, trying to ease the pressure, and of course Evander noticed.
He guided me up gently, steadying me with a hand at my elbow before rising himself. “Come on,” he murmured, voice low and warm. “Let’s get you to bed.”
The word bed sounded far away. I nodded without thinking, letting him lead me toward the hallway, my body moving on instinct more than intention.
“Okay,” I whispered, the word barely holding shape as the haze pulled me deeper.
I didn’t know if I was agreeing to rest or agreeing to trust him or just too tired to fight anything anymore.
Maybe all three.