Knot As It Seems (Trash Haven #6)

One

My heart restarts right alongside my reflexes, sending my muscles into motion. I dart and climb, my whole focus locked in on tunneling to my safe space. If they don’t know I’m here, then I’m safe. If they find me, I’m not.

In my haste, I send something tumbling, the sound loud enough to make the intruders curious. If they heard it. I certainly don’t have time to correct my mistake; I’ll be damned if the empty paper towel holder will be the thing that gets me caught. That’s too pathetic, even for me.

I’ve just barely closed the cabinet behind me when they get close enough for me to scent, and even through the wood it’s overpowering enough to make me want to rethink my strategy. I’m stronger than that, though.

I work on pushing myself into safety, inch by dark inch, scarcely breathing because I’m completely trapped right now. I’ll have no way of fighting back if they discover me.

I know I’m too good for them. I just need to wait them out and then everything can go back to the way it was.

Goddammit. Must they hang out in the kitchen? My domain?

“This is fucking stupid. How does her scent still smell so damn fresh? The fuck did she do in this room that it’s still so strong?”

Another voice. “Why the hell did she even keep this dump-ass property? It’s disgusting in here; the whole thing ought to be razed to the ground. And I don’t see any damn dog that we’re supposedly the guardians of. Looks like the bitch lied. Shocker.”

Some of the cabinets start opening around me, but I’ve gotten far enough down that I can start going vertically, very, very carefully, down into my room.

I use my fingertips and my toes to grip the narrow column of wall my sister installed just for me, as a birthday gift actually, using every ounce of control I possess to keep my body from giving into gravity.

It wants to just fall down and land how it lands so that I can hide properly, but that will make too much noise, so I’m stuck doing it the hard way.

It’s agonizing, inverted the way I am, and my muscles are starting to shake, but my will to survive wins out over the pain.

When my fingers finally brush against the small open closet-like room, I nearly sigh in relief that I can now brace my arms against the cushioned floor and give my muscles a break. Just in time, too.

I don’t know how to explain it, but I can sense the alphas perfectly. Every one of them. I know how close to my wall they currently are, and I don’t like it one bit. It’s going to take me days to feel safe in here again.

In the past, every time I’ve gotten their scents under my nose, it’s meant pain. So maybe this is a fear response, something trained into me by the sister that only ever wanted me because I got her the pack she wanted, but I can’t ever trust these alphas.

A third voice. “I don’t know, I kind of dig it. The town kind of sucks, but I see the potential in this house, can kind of understand why Winslow didn’t want to get rid of it, even though she went and died on us.”

Heavy sounds tell me someone just got punched, and the violence of it is enough to send me shaking.

I’ve never done good with violence. I hate the way it makes me feel nauseous, how it curls up my insides without permission.

Winslow always hated how weak I was. Probably why she was the one living outside and I was the one never allowed to leave the house.

The voices start fading, and I tiptoe through my secret hallways that go everywhere the house does, trying to stay near the unwanted guests so I know what they’re doing.

They’re in my home, and that makes me incredibly uneasy.

I wish I wasn’t a useless omega, because then I’d be able to show myself and tell them to get the fuck out; Winslow always told me these alphas only wanted one thing though, and I am so not interested.

They find the stash of food my sister arranged deliveries of, the shelf-stable shit that somehow all has the same texture, along with the shelf stable blood companies package like juice boxes for little kids because that’s all my sister ever saw me as.

I do cry when the alphas laugh at the stash and start drinking it all, reminiscing about how they hadn’t seen them in years and how the sweeter taste of stabilized blood brought them back to their childhood, but that’s…

all I had until the next shipment comes.

Weeks from now. These fucking alphas just took my entire…

I rush to the vent that will give me a bare hint of their faces, ignoring how terrifying they all look and how many there are, just to be sure they’re doing what I think they are.

I bite into my hand watching them destroy every last box of blood, dumping some out onto the floor because they ‘aren’t hungry’. Then they set their sights on my actual food, and destroy that for fun, too.

They can’t know I’m here so it’s not like they’re doing it on purpose, but I hate them like they are. I’m going to die in this house, and these assholes might have just signed my certificate.

When they’re done bro-ing it up, they finally start heading back upstairs to leave, but I don’t have it in me to keep pace with them.

I follow along the internal hallways brokenly, panic attempting to take over, making it to the window above the entryway that no one should be able to access, just in time to see them piling into a blacked-out SUV that definitely costs more than I’ve ever seen in my life put together.

I don’t think before my palm is slapping against the window, shouting obscenities at a retreating car full of alphas that don’t give two shits about anybody but themselves.

I scream and I scream and I beat against that window, cussing them out, only stopping when I make eye contact with somebody that happens to look in the side mirror at the right time.

Immediately, the brakes slam on and dust flies as the car turns around, but I know something they don’t.

The wards will protect me now because if there’s one thing I know well, it’s the terms of my prison.

Repeated entries are never allowed within such a short time frame, a rule even my sister had to abide by.

I knew she was keeping me in, but it also dawns on me now she was simultaneously keeping others out.

Her alphas would have had a code to get in initially, but they change frequently and without pattern. This means I’m safe from them. For now.