4. Delilah
Chapter four
For the first time in a long time, eating in the cafeteria after one of my sessions isn’t the worst part of my day.
I don’t have to speak much, as Mr. King does plenty of talking for the both of us.
The longer he goes on, the harder it is to decide if he doesn’t have a filter or if he just likes the sound of his own voice.
Either way, I don’t mind. It means I don’t have to talk.
“So, Miss Delilah, what would you give our meal? Three stars?” he asks, scraping up the last bit of mashed potatoes from the little plastic bowl on his tray.
“Um…I guess that’s fair,” I mutter, pushing around some of the sugar-free pudding I’ve barely touched.
“You don’t have to sugar-coat it,” he laughs, putting up his hands and pretending like he’s typing on a computer. “Love Wins Cafeteria had some of the worst service I’ve ever seen. Bland food, clearly microwaved, and not handmade. At least it was hot. Three stars.”
I laugh again at his antics, looking down at my half-eaten tray.
I’m fuller than I have been in a while, almost uncomfortably so.
A wave of nausea hits me as I realize I’ve been eating as Mr. King talked, mirroring him subconsciously.
It takes me a moment to fight past the panic, hearing phantom words in a voice I can’t acknowledge in the back of my head criticizing, but I push my tray away and turn to look at King again.
He’s talking again, this time about the worst food he’s ever had, with no signs of slowing down.
I’d forgotten how chatty some people can be after spending so much time with no one but the nurses and the other patients for company.
But it’s not annoying, or anything. King has a voice I feel like I could listen to for hours and never get bored. That accent of his makes it so easy.
Which might be more terrifying than how much I ate today for lunch.
But before I can think more on that, movement draws my attention over King’s shoulder.
“It’s time for group, Mr. King,” his nurse, Cindy, says from his elbow.
He looks up at her for a moment before he turns those strange and beautiful eyes onto me. I freeze, my breath catching, not moving as he searches my face for something. He must find it because he flashes another one of those rakish grins at me.
“If you’re all set, we can head out,” he says to me, basically ignoring Cindy.
“Oh, Delilah doesn’t—”
Mr. King cuts off Claire’s interruption with a growl so strong, I could have mistaken him for an alpha if I didn’t know any better. But there aren’t any alphas at this facility, not as patients at least. I glance around, finding several heads now watching the standoff.
“I–I don’t usually go to group,” I mutter, turning my gaze away before setting down my spoon and shoving the tray away even further.
“Why not?”
I look up at King as he asks the question. I expect judgement or critique, but there’s nothing but honest curiosity in his expression.
“I’m…my treatment plan is different,” I reply, swallowing hard.
That’s not entirely true. I used to attend the group therapy sessions, but they were deemed to be ineffective because I refused to participate. I refused to do a lot of things when I first got here, not that it did me much good.
“Come with me, luv. I’d miss you too much if you didn’t,” King says with a wink.
My cheeks flush hot, and then I look up at Claire. My afternoons are clear, so there isn’t anything that I have to do instead. She sighs and looks at me with a soft, patronizing smile.
“It couldn’t hurt, I suppose. We’ll just—”
“Alright, let’s go!” King says, jumping to his feet.
I flinch back as he moves toward me, but he doesn’t attack. Instead, he circles behind my wheelchair and grabs the handles, wheeling me out of the room at a jog before either of the nurses can stop him.
I laugh as we burst through the cafeteria doors, and King chuckles along with me.
“Jailbreak!” he cries, earning him several concerned looks from other patients and staff, not that he cares.
“No! That way!” I point, directing him toward the group session rooms.
King makes the sharp turn to correct course, making the sound of squeaking tires with his mouth. My face hurts from smiling, and there’s a lightness in my chest I haven’t experienced in a long time, at least not since I came to be here.
Claire and Cindy catch up with us, barely able to corral King long enough to get him to push me through the right door. When we enter, there are five other patients, all male omegas who look at me with immediate distaste.
“Mr. King! Thank you for joining us! Miss Montgomery, you can go—”
“She’s with me, Doc. Showing me the ropes,” King says, cutting across David, one of the counselors here.
King parks me in the space next to the last empty chair, throwing himself down and spreading his legs almost obscenely wide as he stares David down, daring him to say something.
The other omegas keep throwing me dirty looks, and I drop my head a little in submission.
Male omegas tend to be a bit more territorial, and I am technically invading their designated space and therapy time.
Though I’m fairly certain that if I tried to leave right now, the barely contained chaos inside Joker would unleash itself again.
David clears his throat and flips his legal pad open and makes a note, not that King cares. “Then let’s get started.”
“Is this the part where you show me a doll and ask me where the bad man touched me? Because I promise it was all consensual,” King says, speaking before David can even open his mouth.
Several of the other male omegas pale, and cover their mouths, turning away even as King cackles at his own twisted joke.
I turn and look at him in alarm too. Of all the things to talk about in a place like this, he had to bring that up, just to stir the pot?
He’s either truly insane or hasn’t heard of the consequences for acting up like this during sessions.
“Mr. King, if you please!” David exclaims, fully aghast.
“Aww you beg so pretty, Mr. Quack,” King banters back.
I have to put both hands over my mouth to stifle my giggles, a nervous response. King throws me a wink and a lopsided grin. Why is that so attractive?
“What is your deal, dude? Some of us are trying to heal,” one of the omegas spits.
“My deal could fill several books, mate. And you, if you’re lucky,” King says, licking his lips seductively.
My face turns hot as I look away. Yeah, definitely attractive, like the way some soap looks edible even though you absolutely shouldn’t eat it. Dangerous to my health, but somehow I can’t make myself leave or protest.
“If you aren’t going to take this seriously, then I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” David says, trying to regain some semblance of control of the room.
King slaps his thighs, getting to his feet.
“Say less. Good talk,” he says, moving behind my wheelchair and pushing me out of the room without a backward glance.
“You’re insane,” I laugh once we’re out of earshot of the group rooms.
“How do you think I ended up here, beautiful?” King says smoothly, and my heart skips a beat.
No one has called me beautiful since my alphas…
My smile slides off my face as memories start to creep forward, and I can hear my heart pounding in my ears. I look unseeing as the hallway ahead of us starts to stretch and twist–
But then I’m snapped back to reality as King pops a wheelie with my chair, making me shriek in a heady combination of fear and delight.
“Give me the tour, yeah? I bet you know all the secrets here,” King says, turning a corner blindly.
I look up at him, expecting that mischievous grin, but find something softer, more genuine pulling at the corners of his lips. He flashes a smile of perfectly straight and white teeth, and I relax.
There’s more to Mr. King than meets the eye, it seems.