12. Sky
SKY
The longer I was in therapy, the deeper the sessions delved into my past. The deeper we went, the more uncomfortable it became. I left my appointments wrung out and exhausted, my eyes swollen and my cheeks tear-stained. Utterly exhausted.
But it was helping. At least I was pretty sure it was, anyway.
So I continued to go.
I sat down on the couch and grabbed the fluffy cloud pillow, clamping it to my chest, as I always did. Madeline took her spot in the opposite seat, her notepad in hand and a smile on her face.
I knew today’s session was going to be rough. I just wasn’t sure how rough until Madeline started off with: “Do you remember your first heat? Can you tell me a little about that experience?”
I choked on my next breath. “I—”
She offered a sympathetic smile. “I know it’s hard, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” Inhaling deeply, I thought about the past that I’d shoved deep down, amidst the skeletons in my closet. Hell, my past was the skeletons in my closet. Where did I begin? All of it was awful, just…filthy, shameful moments of my life I never wanted to relive.
“Take your time,” she reassured me.
“The memories of my first heat are hazy…but they aren’t happy memories,” I finally said, after a lot of thought-searching. “Dr. Thompson injected me with something, I think, to make the heat stronger or make me weaker. I don’t know.”
I remembered him, his white lab coat and purple latex gloves, and the stink of formaldehyde on his skin. He jabbed a needle into my fevered skin, and my limbs became very loose and weak.
Then he’d strapped me down to a table, my bare ass up and my legs spread. “This is for your own good. Trust me.”
I did not trust him.
He left the room. Shortly after, the door opened again, and River came in. “River! Please help me! Help me!” I’d pleaded, trying to struggle against the bonds, but finding my body too weak and unresponsive, and everything was so hazy.
My brother didn’t seem to hear me. Instead, he climbed on top of me, kissing me and rubbing against me—and that’s when I realized he was naked too.
“River? What are you… Stop! What are you doing? Help me. Unstrap me and let’s get out of here! River? River!”
He didn’t hear me.
My whole body thrummed with fever, with the heat hormones making me ache at the very core of me, and they were affecting him, too. I felt his hardness against the cleft of my ass as he rubbed himself against me, kissing my shoulder and neck, panting hot against my skin.
“Sky,” he moaned, his voice rough with hunger.
“River,” I whispered, tears burning my eyes when I realized what was happening, and that I was powerless to stop it.
It hurt. I cried and pleaded and begged him to stop, but he didn’t.
He took my innocence. He bred me. And the sick part was?
When it stopped hurting, it felt good, so I stopped fighting it.
I closed my eyes and imagined we were somewhere else, and that I was in River’s powerful arms, some place safe.
Some place where this wasn’t some sick experiment.
Afterwards, they took River away. I didn’t see him again for months. When I finally did, and he realized I was pregnant, the disgust on his face was palpable.
The shame sank into my bones, deeper than marrow.
I told Madeline all of it. By the time I got to the end, my stomach was a knot, and I felt like I might vomit.
“How many times did this happen?” she asked. “The…breeding?”
“Three.” My voice was a whisper.
“And every time, River acted like this?”
“Like he couldn’t bear to be away from me any longer, yeah,” I said. Like being apart for months and months had triggered our twin bond, and he needed me.
Or maybe that’s what I told myself, lying alone and pregnant on that cot in that too-bright room, imagining stories where I finally got a happy ending…
Madeline’s expression softened, turning sympathetic. “Sky... Could your brother have been drugged?”
I looked at her. “What?”
“You’ve said it yourself, that the scientists there were experimenting on you, using you like test subjects. They took your babies away. Do you really think your brother would willingly breed you? Instead of trying to help you escape?”
I rubbed my forehead, trying to remember. Those memories were hazy, a blur of emotions and feelings and visceral need.
“Drugged?” I stared at her, horror tugging at my heart.
“Perhaps forced into a breeding frenzy, one where he couldn’t help himself and it didn’t matter, at the moment, that you were his twin. Isn’t that was Dr. Thompson wanted? For Alpha-Omega twins to procreate, so he could find the cure?”
My eyes filled with tears. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but this is good,” Madeline insisted, squeezing my knee. I blew my nose loudly into a tissue. “It’s painful, but sometimes you have to flush the bad stuff out before you can heal.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. It didn’t feel good. It felt shitty and awful, and the thoughts kept circling round and round.
Two days later, it still clung to me. The memory of my heat was a ghost, whispering nothings in the darkest corners of my mind. Calling to me, to draw me deeper into the blackness.
I couldn’t stop thinking about River. His body on mine, his hands all over, panting hard, kisses hot and sloppy, unrefined. Desperate. Was he drugged? Was that why they had strapped me down? So I couldn’t fight back? So I couldn’t fend him off?
God, it consumed my thoughts. Day and night, it haunted me. Plagued my waking hours and my nightmares.
I woke up cold and sticky with sweat, gasping for breath and terrified that I was back in that awful place, that Dr. Thompson had me on a leash, a chain around my throat, and he was slowly tightening the noose…
It was still dark outside, but I threw the covers off and got out of bed. I didn’t bother turning the lights on as I made my way to the kitchen.
Standing in the glow of the open refrigerator, I grabbed the orange juice and drank it right out of the carton. The citric acid burned all the way down.
My bare feet scuffed over the tile floor as I paced the length of the kitchen, turned on my heel, and went back the way I came. I ran my hands through my hair, gripping at strands as River’s wild, glassy eyes filled my vision.
Fuck it.
I grabbed my phone and in one last desperate attempt to prove to myself that I was wrong—or maybe that I was right, I didn’t even fucking know anymore—I texted River.
I hadn’t reached out to him in months. For all I knew, he could’ve changed his number, or blocked mine. But I texted him anyway.
Hey. I know you probably hate me, and I don’t blame you. I kind of hate me too, but I need to know something. In the facility, when Dr. Thompson bred us? Were you drugged?
I pressed send. Watched the little dots go from sent to delivered, so at least I know it reached him, but there was no answer.
My phone remained silent.
With a sigh, I slipped it back into my PJ pocket and sat down at the table.
It was probably too early for him to be up. Not quite five in the morning, and the birds had barely begun their chatter. Still… They had a baby in the house. Surely it kept them awake all hours of the night.
Maybe I’d get a text later.
Or maybe he’d just ignore it, leave me on read. I couldn’t really blame him if he did. I tried to destroy his family after all.
After checking the most recent stuff on my social media feed, I got up and put a pod in the Keurig. Setting a coffee mug on the tray, I pressed the round “brew” button and waited for the aroma of French roast to fill the kitchen.
I had just gone to fetch the creamer from the fridge when my phone dinged. I froze, my heart suddenly clawing its way up my throat, beating there, merciless.
River?
I pulled out my phone. It took me a moment to focus on the screen, my eyes were blurring so badly. But there it was, in stark black and white. A direct response to my text.
Every. Damn. Time.
No…
The phone fell from my hand, my grip on reality loosening.
My heart bottomed out, caving in at the same time that my chest did. My knees threatened to buckle, to spill me on my ass. I clapped a hand over my mouth to stop the sobs from escaping.
No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening to me.
They drugged River. River never wanted me. River never loved me. All those storylines I patched together in my mind, pacing the floors of that cold, white cell room, of myself and River escaping and living happily ever after… They fractured and splintered, shattering like glass.
Unable to hold it back any longer, a low, tortured wail erupted from me as I collapsed in a heap on the kitchen floor.
I hugged my arms to my sides, hunched over my midsection, sobbing so hard my ribs felt cracked. God, how could I be so blind? So fucking stupid?
Another cry burst from me, gasped out, when suddenly a shadow fell over me. I jerked back, baring my fangs, but it was only Adam.
“Sky? What happened?”
The next onslaught of tears blurred his face, but his scent was familiar, and when he reached for me, I sank into his arms.
I clung to the Alpha and sobbed, strangled, broken sounds. Adam rubbed my back and gently rocked us back and forth, whispering, “It’s okay.”
But he was wrong. Nothing was okay. Nothing would ever be okay again.