Chapter 17
I wake up to sunlight stabbing through the curtains.
Wrong. Something's wrong. The light is too bright, the angle too high. I grab my phone from the nightstand and squint at the screen.
I never sleep this late. Never.
My body reminds me why before I can fully process the time.
The ache hits first—deep, throbbing, radiating from between my legs up through my hips.
Every muscle protests when I try to move.
My thighs are sore. My back is stiff. And when I shift even slightly, the sharp sting of torn flesh makes me gasp.
Right.
Last night.
Zero.
The memories flood back in fragments. His hands. His voice. The weight of him behind me, inside me, taking something I can never get back.
This is what omegas are made for.
I press my palms against my eyes until I see stars.
Don't think about it. Don't feel it. Just get up. Just move. Just survive another day.
The process of standing takes longer than it should. I have to roll onto my side first, then push myself up slowly, every motion calculated to minimize the pain. My legs shake when I finally get vertical. The room tilts, then steadies.
I catch my reflection in the mirror above my dresser and immediately look away.
I don't want to see what I look like right now. Don't want to catalog the evidence.
Clothes. I need clothes.
I pull on the loosest sweatpants I own—soft cotton that won't press too hard against anything. An oversized hoodie that swallows me whole. Armor. Protection. Something to hide inside.
My phone buzzes.
Margot: Good morning sweetheart! Richard and I are at brunch with the Hendersons. Back around 3. There's food in the fridge. Love you! ??
I stare at the message. Read it twice.
She has no idea. No idea that her son got fucked raw in the basement last night by her stepson. No idea that I'm falling apart. No idea that everything she thinks she knows about me is a lie.
I type back: Love you too
Then I shove the phone in my pocket and try to figure out how I'm going to make it downstairs without dying.
The hallway is empty.
I stand in my doorway for a full minute, listening. The house is quiet. No footsteps. No voices. No music pounding from the basement.
Zero's door is closed. No light underneath.
Is he in there? Sleeping? Avoiding me?
Does he regret it?
Do I want him to?
I don't know the answer to any of these questions.
The stairs are torture. Each step sends a jolt of pain through my body. I grip the railing so hard my knuckles turn white, taking them one at a time like an old man with bad hips.
Halfway down, I hear something. Movement in the kitchen. The clink of ceramic. The hiss of an espresso machine.
I freeze.
It could be Zero. It could be him down there, waiting, ready to look at me with those ice-blue eyes and remind me of exactly what I am. What I let him do. What I wanted him to do.
My heart hammers against my ribs.
I could go back to my room. Hide. Wait until whoever it is leaves.
But I'm hungry. Genuinely, painfully hungry. I haven't eaten properly in days and my body is running on empty. If I don't get food soon, I'm going to pass out again.
I force myself to keep moving.
The kitchen is bright. Sun streaming through the windows, glinting off stainless steel appliances and marble countertops. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust.
Not Zero.
Bane.
He's sitting at the island, laptop open in front of him, a cup of espresso steaming beside it. He's dressed casually—gray t-shirt that stretches across his shoulders, joggers, bare feet. His golden-brown hair is slightly mussed, like he hasn't bothered to style it yet.
He looks up when I enter.
Our eyes meet.
The last time we spoke, he told me I was nothing. Nobody. That even my parents didn't want me.
I wait for the cruelty. Wait for the sneer, the cutting remark, the reminder that I don't belong here.
It doesn't come.
Bane just... looks at me. His expression is unreadable. Not hostile, but not friendly either. Just neutral. Assessing.
"Coffee's fresh," he says. Then he looks back at his laptop.
That's it.
No insults. No attacks. Just... acknowledgment.
I don't know what to do with that.
"Thanks," I manage. The word comes out rough. My voice is wrecked—probably from the sounds I made last night, the gasps and moans and that one broken scream when Zero first pushed inside.
Don't think about it.
I move toward the fridge, hyper-aware of Bane's presence. My body protests every step. I try to walk normally, try not to limp, try not to show how much everything hurts.
The fridge is stocked. Of course it is. Rich people don't have empty refrigerators. I grab the first thing I see—some kind of fancy yogurt in a glass container—and a spoon from the drawer.
The island has six stools. Bane is at one end. I could sit at the other end, maximum distance between us. That would be the smart choice.
I sit two stools away instead. Close enough to be social. Far enough to be safe.
Or so I think.
The moment I lower myself onto the stool, pain lances through me. Sharp. Blinding. I can't stop the hiss that escapes between my teeth, can't control the way my face contorts.
Fuck.
I grip the edge of the counter and breathe through it. In. Out. In. Out.
When I open my eyes, Bane is watching me.
Those hazel eyes are sharp. Tracking. Taking in the way I'm sitting—perched on one hip, most of my weight on my left side, obviously avoiding pressure on—
His jaw tightens.
Something flickers across his face. Too fast to identify. Gone before I can name it.
He looks back at his laptop without a word.
The silence stretches between us. Heavy. Loaded.
I eat my yogurt mechanically. Vanilla. Expensive. I barely taste it.
My mind keeps cycling back to last night. To Zero. To what it means that Bane is being almost... civil. Does he know? Can he tell? Is it obvious that I got fucked six ways from Sunday and left bleeding on the basement floor?
The thought makes heat crawl up my neck.
"You look like shit," Bane says.
I blink. "What?"
He doesn't look up from his screen. "You. You look like shit. When's the last time you slept properly? Or ate?"
"I'm eating now."
"Yogurt isn't food." His fingers move across the keyboard. Typing something. "There's leftover pasta in the back of the fridge. Margot made it yesterday."
Is he... is he telling me to eat more?
"I'm fine."
"Sure you are." His voice is flat. "That's why you're sitting like you've got a stick up your ass and wincing every time you breathe."
The blood drains from my face.
He knows. He has to know. There's no other explanation for—
"Relax." He glances at me, and there's something almost like amusement in his expression. "I'm not going to ask. Whatever you did to yourself, it's your business."
Whatever I did to myself.
He thinks I did this. Thinks I'm the cause of my own pain.
I should let him think that. It's easier. Safer.
"Bad workout," I say. The lie tastes like ash.
Bane snorts. "Right. Because you definitely look like someone who works out."
"Fuck you."
The words slip out before I can stop them. Defensive. Automatic.
Bane's eyebrows rise. For a second, I think I've crossed a line. Think he's going to snap back with something cruel, remind me of my place, tear me apart the way he did before.
Instead, the corner of his mouth twitches.
"There it is," he says quietly. Almost to himself.
"What?"
"Nothing." He closes his laptop. Stands. Stretches—arms above his head, back arching, the movement pulling his shirt up just enough to reveal a strip of tanned stomach.
I look away quickly. Too quickly.
"I'm actually going to the gym," Bane says. "Try not to die while I'm gone."
He leaves.
I sit there, yogurt half-finished, trying to process what just happened.
That wasn't... hostile. It wasn't kind, either, but it wasn't the cold cruelty I've come to expect from him.
It was almost normal.
Like I was just a person. Not an intruder. Not a charity case. Just someone eating breakfast at the kitchen island.
I don't know what to make of it.
I finish the yogurt. Rinse the glass. Set it in the dishwasher because I don't know the rules about dishes in this house and I'm not about to give anyone a reason to complain.
My body still hurts, but the food helps. Just barely. Just enough that the world stops tilting every time I move.
I should do something productive. I have Professor Montley's assignment due Wednesday—a short story, five thousand words minimum, and I haven't written a single one. Haven't even thought about a premise. The blank document has been sitting on my laptop for a week, cursor blinking, mocking me.
I grab my backpack from my room—laptop, notebook, the dog-eared copy of Bird by Bird that Professor Montley recommended at the start of the semester—and head for the library.
It's on the third floor—a room I've only seen once, during Atlas's initial tour. Floor-to-ceiling shelves. Leather chairs. The smell of old books and furniture polish.
It feels safe here. Quiet. Removed from everything.
I sink into one of the oversized chairs—carefully, so carefully, hissing at the pressure—and set up my laptop on the side table. The screen glows to life. The blank document stares back at me.
Five thousand words. A story about something real. Something honest.
Professor Montley's voice echoes in my head from last week's lecture. Write what scares you. If it doesn't make you uncomfortable, it's not worth telling.
Everything scares me right now. That's the problem. There's too much material.
I start typing. Delete it. Start again. Delete it again.
Twenty minutes pass. I have three sentences. All of them terrible.
I switch to my notebook instead. Sometimes longhand loosens something that typing can't. The pen feels more natural. More forgiving. Less permanent, even though ink is harder to erase than pixels.
I write a character sketch. A boy who lives in a house that isn't his. Who hides something about himself that he can't control. Who—
Too close. Way too close.