Chapter 28
Idril
“You need to get this finished in the next few days.”
The door I’m standing in front of swings open. I’m assaulted by the smell of stale air, mildew, and… is that old sweat?
I turn to the side, keeping Cage in my sightline. If there’s one thing I’ve learned as he follows behind me from menial task to menial task, it’s that Cage is cruel.
He reminds me of Joffrey Baratheon. He thinks being cruel makes him powerful, when it only makes him obvious. He doesn’t have any true power—not like Vae or Silas or Daxen—but he’s convinced himself he does. He’s drunk on the idea of authority. And bitter that no one will hand him any.
“What is it?” I take a step back, but there’s nowhere to go. He’s right behind me, and I hate the way it feels having him at my back.
“This is The Lost Room.”
Cage flips a switch, and light fills the overflowing storage area.
The room is as big as my own in the attic, with ceilings twice as tall. Boxes are stacked in rows reaching all the way to the eaves, made of cardboard, wooden crates hammered shut with nails, and even metal lock boxes.
Dust glitters in the overhead light, tickling my throat.
“It’s what we do with the personal property of Bastards who die and have no next of kin,” he explains. “Most of the stuff in here came off corpses. Bastards who never came back from missions, or trainees who died during drills.”
“That’s so sad,” I whisper. This doesn’t feel like junk so much as a graveyard of forgotten memories. “All of this stuff belonged to males who died?”
“Don’t get any ideas, Omega.” Cage snarls.
I frown. What’s he talking about?
“I’m just saying, you’re not going to be the reason anything gets added to this room.”
I seethe silently. He acts like I’m here specifically to hurt others. I’m the one being hurt!
But that continues to escape everyone’s attention. Well… everyone except for Vaelenor.
Over the last few days, I’ve caught him watching me with a thoughtful expression on his beautiful face. Like he’s trying to work something out, but can’t quite get there. The male can be just as biting and cruel as the others, but there are also times when he’s almost… kind.
Like last night, when I caught him coming down the stairs from my room as I was climbing up. We both froze on the landing, next to each other. I wanted to ask what he was doing, but when I opened my mouth to speak, he turned on his heel and nearly sprinted away from me.
When I got to my room, there was a sandwich and two bottles of water waiting for me outside my door.
I was so overwhelmed with gratitude that I could feel it bubbling up through my chest. My Omega wanted me to chase after him. It soothed her, knowing the Alpha cared enough to take care of us.
The flame was disgusted by my gratitude.
Your jailer remembers to feed you once a day, how kind. Even dogs are fed more than once a day. He doesn’t even dare to do it where other people can see it.
And honestly, that’s a fair point.
I don’t understand Vaelenor. During the day, he’s cold. Cruel. He stands by while Silas mocks me, and Cage terrorizes me.
But when I find myself alone with him, he acts like he wants to help but is too much of a coward to do it where it matters. Or maybe he just doesn’t want anyone to know.
Either way, it’s confusing. It’s hard to hate him when sometimes he’s the only reason I eat all day.
But he’s also the one who showed me where the shower was, and brought me Band-Aids when he noticed the calluses on my hands.
And dropped hair-ties on the floor next to me when he noticed me struggling with my braid.
And his eyes… every time he looks at me, they soften just a bit before hardening again.
But I can’t trust him, either. Not when he’s kind in the shadows, but cruel in the light. Not when I don’t know which version of him is real.
Either way, my instincts are in too much of a riot to turn down scant nesting materials or the secret help of an Alpha.
Even if he isn’t mine.
At this point, anything might keep me from worsening. My bones hurt. It’s a deep pulsing ache in my marrow that never disappears. My mind is foggy all the time, like I’m living in a dream I can’t wake up from.
I’m also terribly, desperately sad. I’ve never experienced depression like this before. Constant soul-crushing, all consuming feelings of dread and despair.
The last two nights, I spent hours staring at the wall, letting my mind wander. I try over and over to send any strength I have to Caelan, but that stupid wall is always there.
Sometimes, half the night passes while I mentally wrap myself in our Bond. I blink, and the moon is high in the sky, and I have no memory of anything.
I’m losing time. Passing out while awake.
Earlier this morning, I pulled strands of my hair out while I was braiding it back.
I looked down to see clumps of silver hair wrapped around my fingers.
A terrifying weight in my hand that shouldn’t be there.
I can feel myself deteriorating, and I don’t even think that if I told anyone, they would care.
Is it happening because they’re keeping me from my Mate? Or is it the lack of proper food, water, and comfort items my Omega needs to feel secure?
I simply don’t know. And I don’t have anyone to ask.
The worst part—worse than the fear, the hunger, the pain—is how desperately I miss Caelan.
My heart feels heavy without him. I know he’s here somewhere, but I don’t know where. The wall he put up also prevents me from feeling where he was.
Yet another way I’ve been ‘proven’ a liar.
Vaelenor and Silas think it is very convenient that I have a Bond that told me exactly where my Mate was the night he got hurt, but I can’t even pinpoint the direction of his room now.
I want to scream. Tell them I don’t even care about proving anything to them—I just want my Mate. I want to be with him and feel his arms around me. My body feels like it’s going through withdrawal without him.
“Your job is to go through everything in this room and categorize it. Clean it, place it in the specified piles, and write their description in this ledger.”
Cage tosses a yellow legal pad to the floor near my feet, his voice pulling me out of my spiral.
Okay, so… this is busy work.
Sighing, I crouch down to grab the paper and the pen he tossed next to it. Because he couldn’t have possibly just handed them to me.
“Is there any specific place I should start?”
“Why don’t you use your fucking brain, Omega. Start with the things that look heaviest, so you don’t have to move ‘em again later.”
That’s the least efficient way to do this.
“That… is certainly one way to start. I think one of our staff at home once said it’s easiest to clear a space before piling things into it, maybe….”
Cage rounds on me, backing me into a stack of wood crates. He wraps a fist in my shirt and yanks me into his snarling face. I hold my breath, so I don’t get a hit of his pheromones. I want to grab onto his arms to keep myself from falling into him, but I also don’t want to touch him.
My arms fly out to steady myself, but he pulls me up higher, until my toes barely touch the floor.
“You think you’re fucking smart, don’t you?” he snarls.
I don’t answer. This is one of those times where it’s better to keep my mouth shut and hope it’s over quickly.
I hate that I’ve let myself be turned into a girl who doesn’t fight back.
“If you think you know how to do it better, then shut up and get started. Clear a space, don’t clear a space, I don’t give a shit. Just get it done.”
When he lets go, he shoves me. My feet tangle, and I trip, flying into a stack of boxes. The corner of a crate catches me in the stomach. A sharp stab of pain starts in my abdomen, then punches up through my lungs.
I hear a crack right before I feel something give.
Then I’m on the ground, my legs refusing to hold me. My fingers dig for purchase on the smooth concrete of the floor.
The pain is all-consuming. I can barely breathe through the bright, sharp waves of it. My hand flies to my stomach, where I can already feel a bruise forming under the fabric of my shirt, one I know from experience will continue to swell before turning the color of the night sky.
A sharp whine of pain echoes around the room, which only makes the Alpha angrier.
“Get up,” Cage barks.
I don’t argue. I don’t dare. Cautiously, I stand on shaking legs. I wipe my face as tears run hot and fast down my cheeks.
“Stop crying,” he snaps, snatching the paper and pen and shoving them into my chest.
“I suggest you get started. You’ll spend your days here until it’s finished.”
He exits the room with a cruel smile on his lips. Once he’s out of sight, I don’t even try to hold back my tears. I know, logically, he can still hear every broken sob. I just don’t care.
I’m tired, hungry, thirsty, and my bones ache. My head is pounding, and now my stomach feels like someone took a crowbar to my side to pry it open.
How much more of this can I put up with?
Three days of meaningless tasks. Three days with barely enough food to keep me upright. I’m under constant guard, my Mate is unconscious, I haven’t seen even a glimpse of him, and these Alphas watch me like I’m a bomb about to detonate at any moment.
Except when they want their questions answered, of course. Then they’re battering rams, slamming against the walls of my sanity.
“What is your father doing? What are his plans? Why did he hide you away? How did he know about Caelan?”
On and on, until their words blur and my eyes lose focus. The more truthful I am, the more convinced they are that I’m lying.
And why waste my time convincing them I never betrayed my Mate?
I’m already losing moments. Reality fractures around me, like broken shards of glass spinning in slow motion through the air.
The minutes, hours, days… they all blur together, until life is only hunger and pain, loud voices and scratchy material.
With no end in sight.
There’s no pleasing the Alphas, and certainly no fighting them.