Chapter 40 Bonnie
Bonnie
Iwalk out the front door smiling, but it instantly falls away. My alphas aren’t home. They’re probably on a run or something. I’m just going to drop home and have breakfast with Mum. The sun is bright. That’s the first thing I register, then the people all around me.
“Can you tell us what you’re doing with the Alphas?”
What?
“Are you in a relationship?”
What!
“Are they paying you?”
Pain lances through my chest.
“How do you feel about them leaving for the city?”
I whip my head around and find that journalist. He smirks at me. A knowing, happy smirk, one that is laughing at my pain.
“Omega Sanderson, how do you feel knowing your alphas got up at the crack of dawn, saw us here, and went back to the city?” he asks again.
His words don’t make sense, but they also cut deep, making a kind of crystal-clear clarity that turns everything inside me brittle.
“They left?” I ask.
“Yes.”
That single word shatters my world. It gets hard to breathe. I’m hyperaware of all the cameras on me, recording every single reaction. I try to think of what I have to do, but I can’t remember.
“What do you think of the fact that they left you again?” The journalist asks. She’s wearing pink lipstick. It’s ugly, but it’s all I notice about her.
“Well, what I think is that you should get off my fucking lawn before I have you all arrested for trespassing,” I snarl.
“It’s not your lawn, though, is it?” One throws back at me.
They scowl, but I’m not the eighteen-year-old omega they used to know. I glare at each of them, refusing to look away, until they, at last, shuffle back and onto the road.
I yank the door closed and stalk back to my mum's house with the crowd of them following me, taking a million photos. Each step is agony.
I open the red door.
“Pix?” I call plaintively.
He pops his head out. “Sup—oooh, where did they come from?”
“Call Detective Roseland and get him to come visit. He left some of his roaches behind.”
With that, holding my head high, I stalk into the house and leave the door open for Pix, who surveys his targets with deep loathing before he yanks the door closed and retreats to the safety of the house.
“Bonnie?”
I ignore them all.
“Bonnie!”
I shove the hands off me. It feels like my skin’s too tight, like I could scream, like everything inside me is cracking. I can’t blink. I can’t do anything but be trapped in this body as I slowly crash and crumble apart.
A sharp pain rocks my face to the side, and I open my eyes to see my mum staring at me with wide eyes.
“You do not,” she spits emphatically, “get to go there again. Don’t you let them wreck you.”
I blink at her. “I’m going to kill them.” The thought is so calm and so crystal clear.
“Good.”
I turn and go into my room, finding my knives and pulling them out. I take the steps two at a time, slinking down to the basement, where I shove aside the hidden door and go into the training room.
“What’s going on, Darling?” Dad asks.
“Mitchel!” My mum calls urgently. He gets up, watching as I pass him.
I ignore my dad and go to the throwing wall. I throw them in ten seconds and turn for more things to throw.
“What happened?” my father growls.
I pant and grab the rope, but he grabs my ankle and throws me off it. I land on my back on the mat and let out a shriek.
“I’m not letting you go. We’re going to talk or fight, what’s it going to be?”
I flip to my feet and rush him. He puts me on my back in three seconds. I lay there blinking up at the room, seeing them again.
They.
I land on my back.
Left.
I roll across the mat.
Me.
Dad gets me in a hold and twists my arm behind my back.
“Tap out.”
I ignore him, relishing the pain.
“TAP OUT!”
I refuse.
“TAP OUT, BONNIE!”
I scream and scream. At some point, he eases back, letting me go, sitting beside me as I fall to pieces again because of the same four bastard alphas.
I jerk up, running at the wall, climbing it with ease. I fling myself off, flipping in mid-air before landing in a crouch.
“Bonnie! Stop!” My mum screams.
I snarl and keep going.
“Stop!”
The alpha bark rolls over me but doesn’t do anything.
“Do something!” Meg shouts.
“I can’t! She’s too well-trained. We need to let her work it out,” Dad says.
“She’ll hurt herself,” Mum hisses.
“She’ll kill anyone who tries to stop her.”
I keep going, ignoring the sweat, ignoring my pain, chased by demons, chased by four alphas who refuse to disappear. Who went away and came back, who left me in front of the world again.
I slam my fist into the boxing bag and scream.
I hear their promises; I feel them inside me.
“Lies. All lies.”
With a growl, I walk to the bike and get on.
“Did you find them?”
“No, I couldn’t get in to see them,” Pix says in exhaustion.
“Well, we need to find them quick. It’s been two days.”
“Has she stopped?”
“No. Not yet,” Meg says and sobs.
“What is she doing?”
“Punishing herself for getting hurt again.”
They come and talk to me, but I keep my eyes down. I keep my focus. Refusing to stop. I’m on the treadmill, running now.
“Should we sedate her?”
“Try it,” I say in a hoarse voice. “Just you fucking try it.”
“There, you want to risk that?” Meg says, throwing a hand at me.
Pix is quiet. “I’m going to go and see if I can find them.”
He disappears, but I ignore him, focusing on keeping my body moving, on the pain inside me. On their faces right there and the words they gave me. Those words I believed.
“Bonnie, you have to stop!”
My mum is crying, but it sounds so far away.
I get off the bike, and my legs tremble. I walk to the wall and start climbing.
“Are you out of your mind?”
Someone grabs my ankle. I whip around, throwing all my weight at them. They fall backwards but roll out of the way of the knife I slash at them.
“Stop it,” the deep growl says, but I ignore it, lunging forward again and slashing some more.
He seizes my wrist and throws me forward, and when I blink, my knife is in his hands. He hefts it and throws it at the wall without looking.
I blink and really look at him.
“You!” I hiss.
“Yeah, me. What are you doing?” he snaps.
I attack him, swiping his legs out from under him and getting him in a chokehold. He snarls, but before I can finish the kill, I’m ripped off him and pinned to the mat.
“Did you just give up on us that fast?” Cyn snarls.
“YOU LEFT!” I roar.
Kota crouches in front of me. “So, you decided everything we said meant crap, and we weren’t coming back? Didn’t you check your phone?”
“You left me!” I scream again, and all the pain wells up.
“Fuck this.”
Rory knocks Cyn off me and rolls me onto my back. He grabs my wrist and pins it to the mat, then the other.
“You’re not ever going to believe us, so let me show you,” he says in a dark voice.
“Rory, what are you doing-” Meg screams. “Stop, don’t-”
Rory shoves my face against his chest. “Bite, Omega.”
I cannot refuse his bark. I sink my teeth in deep. He pulls me off him. Blood runs down his chest, so red, so dark. I stare at it, shuddering as he yanks my head back in slow motion. Each breath feels like a lifetime, and then his teeth sink into the side of my neck.
The bond grows between us, rising like floodwaters, violent and aggressive but unstoppable.
He’s steady, impossible to ignore, too big, too powerful, he’s just there inside me. He’s angry, but he loves me.
“We were coming back.”
“No,” I protest.
Rory yanks me up and shoves me at Cyn. He wastes no time, sinking his teeth deep and ordering me to do the same.
“Why are you doing this?”
“So you stop hurting yourself,” Cyn hisses. “So you hear us.”
Kota grabs me from behind, shoving his wrist in my mouth while he leaves a bonding mark on my shoulder.
Vale is the last, but by now, I’m weeping openly, barely able to do anything more than shake in their arms.
Vale tilts my head up, staring into my eyes. “You were just hiding how broken you were, weren’t you, Bonnie? Did you think we wouldn’t find out? Did you think we’d care about your jagged parts? I’m sorry we left.”
“You left me!” I howl. Tears pour from my eyes, blinding me. My voice echoes in the house. The pain silences everyone.
“Yeah, it won’t happen ever again,” Vale promises.
I start to sob.
“Come on, almost done.”
I shudder, but he guides my head to his chest. “Bond me, Omega. Let’s get it over with.”
The words make me flinch, but I can’t disobey, so I bite deep. He leans down and sinks his teeth into a spot just under my jaw.
The connection to the four of them swirls around me, but the pain is gone. Well, not gone, it’s not sharp, it’s dull, throbbing under the presence of them.
I’m carried up and out of the basement.
“Her room is free-”
“No, she stays with us now,” Vale says coldly. “You should have stopped her.”
“No one could have stopped her,” Dad snaps back.
“Regardless, our omega got hurt.”
“And whose fault is that?” he growls.
“Why didn’t you show her our calls, the texts?”
“We tried. She wouldn’t hear us because of you.”
“Yes, that is our fault. We’ll take care of her now,” Cyn says coldly.
My father huffs, but my mother steps between us and nods.
“You’ll take care of her.”
“Of course.”
“Fine. Go. She needs to sleep.”
Vale moves outside, and I hear them and stiffen.
“Get fucked.”
“Can you tell us-”
“I’m not telling you shit. Get that camera out of my face, or I’ll break it,” Rory snaps.
“But you left-”
“Clearly, we were coming back, but now, we are here. Let me be clear, every single company here will be hearing from our lawyers for causing damage to the omega we were courting.”
“You can’t do that-”
“I’m pretty sure you’ll find I already have. So I strongly suggest you stop filming, get out of this city, and leave us alone.”
“It’s free speech.”
“Yes, it is. But there are lines and consequences and responsibility,” Cyn snaps.
“And you crossed the lines, and while our omega might not be able to lock you all up in court, we have the funds, the means, and the will. I’ll keep every single one of you in a courthouse, tied up in paperwork, until you’re ninety-nine.
No one will hire you. No one will touch you. ”
They back off; I can feel the fear in them.
What makes these alphas so terrifying to everyone who isn’t me?
They carry me back to their house.
Vale sets me down, and Rory starts cutting my clothes off me. I snarl, but he snarls back louder.
“If you hadn’t fucked yourself up so much, you could stop me, but here we are.”
“You don’t get to be pissy at me,” I say hoarsely back to him.
“Yeah, I do. You said you trusted us. You said you believed us. We left for two days to handle some business, and you lost it, but instead of killing someone else and letting us clean up the mess, you tortured your own body. Why?”
“I hate it,” I admit in a hiss.
“Why?” Rory snarls.
“Because it hurts.”
“Because you worked for two days without sleeping.”
“No, it hurts when you leave!” I shout at him and swing. The blow hits him in his face, and I don’t feel better, I feel worse.
The feelings flood back, all the ones I've been trying to ignore, and suddenly, four alphas are pressed to me.
“We weren’t gone, and we aren’t going to leave you ever again. You don’t need to feel that ever again,” Kota whispers.
I shudder, and my legs collapse, but before I can do more than dip, Cyn has me. He carries me into the shower and washes me carefully but thoroughly all over. Before I know it, I’m sitting in their bed, and Vale is forcing me to drink electrolytes and eat an energy bar.
I’m so tired, though.
I have nothing left in my tank.
I’m half asleep while I’m eating and boneless when Rory tugs me down in the bed and tucks me in.
For a few seconds, all I can feel is them as they shift around the room, and then Cyn climbs into the bed and spoons me from behind.
“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. It’s all going to be okay, Bonnie. You’ll never have to feel that way again. I promise.”
I’m too tired to argue with him, too exhausted to do anything but feel relief.
“You promise you won’t leave?”
“I promise,” Vale says gruffly. “We’re never going to leave you again.”
I close my eyes and relax for the first time in two days.