Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Isolde
I’m destroying the end of my braid, my fingers tearing at it as I walk to the restroom. I feel so overstimulated, but not because of Leila. She’s an angel baby.
No, my issue is the way people keep poking their head into the doorway of the room I’m in and stare as if I’m a circus animal. It would be different if they said something, but they all walk away whispering to each other.
It feels gross and violating. I haven’t said anything because Lucas would “handle” it, and I know that human nature can cause people to act in ways they wouldn’t normally. I don’t want to be responsible for his protective instincts coming out.
Grant checked on Leila and I often today, making me wonder if he could feel any of my anxiety. It didn’t seem like he could, mostly because I have a feeling he would have said something.
Grant isn’t always the best at being discreet about my wellbeing.
He’s a bull in a china shop instead. I’ve been doing my best to block both Lucas and Grant from my thoughts and feelings through the bond.
No one talks about how entwined you can end up becoming with your pack once you bond with them.
This is their world, I want to fit in. It’s just harder than I thought it would be.
I finally shut the door when I did due to not being able to handle the stares anymore. I was so overstimulated at the time, and Leila was getting antsy. The poor girl is sensitive to my anxiety.
Leila doesn’t need to be worried about me. That’s my job.
I locked the door since I knew I was going to lay with her on the ground until she fell asleep, but I didn’t plan to fall asleep. Lucas startled me, and my hand went for my knife automatically.
If someone was coming through that door after I locked it, they were going to learn where my motherfucking boundaries are and how dangerous breaching them is.
Now. I just need a goddamn second away from everything.
I avoid everyone as I rush into the bathroom, and find an empty stall. It’s not difficult since it’s currently a ghost town and I do need to pee.
I’m just finishing up and reaching for the toilet paper when the door slams open. I have no idea what gets into me, but I immediately raise my legs as people enter in an attempt to not attract attention.
The doors are completely flush against the hinge and lock in this restroom, which means that no one can see me unless my feet are on the ground. I can see a pair of heels as a woman leans over to check for any occupants before she begins to speak.
“Tracy, no one is here,” a woman says nervously as the other woman paces back to her.
“Well I don’t want to lose my job because I need to talk about the skank that the boss is dating,” Tracy hisses. “My God, is she pinning this baby on him too? Mr. Reid has been goo-goo over this kid. We have never seen either of them before.”
Rolling my eyes, I remain in my very awkward position because this is a train wreck I can’t seem to stop listening to. Lucas hasn’t formally announced who I am because it’s none of their goddamned business.
It’s one thing to be transparent with your employees, and another to parade your personal life in front of them. He’s never been one to do that based on my previous research.
Why would he begin now?
“Her clothes are atrocious. Who braided her hair, the baby? If she’s trying to keep up with an alpha like Mr. Reid, she’d better step it up,” Tracy complains.
Chewing my bottom lip, I begin to wonder if Grant will clean up my murder scene if I were to kill Tracy as my ass gets cold. I need to clean up and get the fuck out of here before I scream.
“She’s pretty,” the other girl says slowly. “I also think there’s something odd about her.”
“Maybe she’s messed up in the head and Mr. Reid feels sorry for her, Miranda! Or she’s a gold digger and we need to save him,” Tracy screeches way too excitedly.
Since there are serious things wrong with my brain from my past trauma, this hits too close to home.
Pulling toilet paper loudly, I clean up and stand as I flush. Pulling up my pants and buttoning them, I slam out of the stall.
“Oh shit,” Miranda breathes, seeing me. “You’ve been here the entire time.”
“Even if I wasn’t,” I say, pushing Tracy aside so I can pump soap into my hands from the dispenser. “Lucas knows everything that goes on in his building.”
Scrubbing my hands viciously as if it’ll rid me of the awful words these girls have been saying, I rinse my hands under the water.
Embarrassingly, I can feel heat building behind my lids. I’m clearly getting soft while being with my pack. I should be angry about that, but I’m not.
I am learning to heal from really shitty things that these two betas will never fucking know about. No one wants to abuse them, and there’s some privilege to that.
Pulling paper towels as I shut off the water, I attempt to take a deep breath and find that I can’t. Fuck. Just your friendly neighborhood psychopath having a panic attack.
Drying my hands, I suck oxygen into my air starved lungs to control how much my anxiety is riding me.
“One last thing, chickadees,” I say, taking one last parting shot before I leave. “In order to be a gold digger, you’d have to be poor, and I make more than both of your yearly salaries together in one job.”
I don’t know if that’s exactly true since I don’t know their salaries, but damn does it sound good. Facing them, I toss my paper towels in a controlled manner into the garbage can because I really want to throw them in their faces.
I’m better than a rabid dog. I will not lose my shit in this goddamned bathroom. These girls are the ones in the wrong. The moment I overact is when none of that matters.
“I hope you enjoy the last hours of being employed, ladies. Lucas is my alpha and we are bonded. He probably already knows what’s happening as we speak.”
I’m shielding as hard as I can, though I have no idea if it’s actually working. The bond is too new for me to be able to use it effectively. They either hear every thought and emotion, or nothing at all.
However, based on the horror on Miranda and Tracy’s faces, they don’t know any of that. How could they when they’re no one special?
My life revolves around my alphas and Leila. Everything else doesn’t matter unless I’m contractually obligated to give a fuck.
“It takes zero effort to be kind, ladies. I hope that lesson tastes really bitter.”
Walking past them, I pull open the restroom door to escape. I hear them call out for me to stop, but since they never bothered to learn my name, I refuse to.
Let’s be honest, I’d probably ignore them even if they had.
I refuse to make any eye contact with those around me as I walk.
I need time and space to think. I feel out of control and know I’m a liability at this time.
All of these feelings remind me of one of Lucas’ experiments.
If I don’t work through the anger and frustration from the past few minutes, then I’ll explode on someone who doesn’t deserve it.
I’m feeling murderous, and I can’t think of anyone who needs to die at the moment.
There’s an exit sign in front of me and I don’t think twice about it.
I simply push it open to get out of the fishbowl that I’m currently in, where people are staring at me silently as I stalk out the door and walk out onto a parapet that connects the floor I’m on to a stairwell.
It’s freezing and I don’t have my coat, but I stand out there and force the clawing panic to dissipate as the door slams shut behind me.
If this was any other time, I’d be tempted to cut myself in an attempt to quiet the noise in my head. It’s as if every demon I have is awake and screaming terrible things. I’m not the type of woman that the world thinks Lucas should be with. Even with the toned down clothing, I’m not all polished.
I don’t fit in here.
Pulling a pin from my braid, I lean against the short retaining wall on either side of the path between the stairwell and Lucas’ company to stare out at the city.
Being this high up makes me feel tiny, and for a second, I wonder what would happen if I jumped. It’s an intrusive thought, something I haven’t had happen in quite a while.
Fucking bitches. Sucking in a breath, I hope Lucas does fire their asses. My fingers play with the sharp knife-like pin as I think, but I accidentally sink it into the pad of my finger as the door beside me opens. I wasn’t expecting it since I was so far into my thoughts and it startles me.
I’m way too jumpy at the moment.
“You were way too easy to find. Ophelia said you’d be a hellion,” a man says.
Those words pull me out of my own thoughts, my pity party, and my panic attack. My hand reaches for my knife as the pin falls out of my finger and blood splatters along the wall.
“She was right,” I say, spinning to find three large beta assholes in front of me. “Aww, is all this for me? She shouldn’t have.”
My body remains on guard as I watch them, waiting for their next move. I don’t know how they found me, but nothing really surprises me anymore. One of my own clients could have sold me out for all I know, even though I don’t share personal information with them.
It was just a matter of time. I hate that this shit is going down while I’m happy and bonded to all of my alphas but one.
Why couldn’t this have happened at any other time to spare them?
I won’t attack until they do. I know in my soul that if things come between me and my family, I’ll sacrifice myself. Despite how awful Lucas’ staff has treated me, I won’t let Ophelia’s men get past me.
They’re headhunters, and anyone will do when it comes to a payday.
“I don’t give a fuck if you come the easy or hard way, Ophelia has a bone to pick with you,” one of them snarls, walking forward to grab me. “It’s making her grumpier than usual.”
Now that he’s made his move, I jump at him and shove the knife into his fat neck and twist it before pulling it back out and jumping away. The idiot falls to his knees and then to his side as he chokes on his own blood.
I’m not an easy mark. The only reason I’m not running in the opposite direction is because there are innocents inside. I don’t want to bring this into the calm office life where my pack is either. I’ll handle this myself or fight until I can’t anymore.
“It’s always the loud ones that fall first,” I mutter.
Those are the last words I say as the other beta glares dispassionately at me and tasers me.
I don’t care how strong you are, it’s nearly impossible to fight through that type of pain when you’re malnourished.
“Did you set that fucker to high?” the other beta laughs. “Dance little omega, dance! Watch her go.”
I gasp for breath for a different reason than earlier as I drop to my knees, my fingers numb as they release my weapon.
There are so many things I can fight, kill, stab, yet electricity isn’t one of those things. My nerve endings are on fire as my heart stutters in an alarming way. There are different settings for a reason, and as my eyes roll back, I see that the cruel fucker holding the taser is very smug.
The prongs are digging into my skin, pushing electric pulses over and over into my body, and the beta won’t stop hitting the button on his torture device.
I scream in my mind for my alphas, struggling to drop the walls that I had sky high to mask my angst. I don’t want to go with them! Every fear I’ve ever had crashes over me as the reminders of why I escaped Ophelia fill my mind.
Some of these are the feelings of dread, others the phantom pain from my remembered forced heats where I was mindless and feral, and that I’m simply a thing to be fucked for the enjoyment of others. I am a person!
Why can’t I be treated like one?
Over and over, I tell my alphas how much I love them, and thank them for honoring me as a human being and their omega. I thank them for being patient with me, never blinking when I came home with a baby that wasn’t biologically ours, and I apologize that I can’t stay.
“Stop hitting the button, stupid!” One of the betas yells, punching his partner in the arm.
I fall face first into the blood on the ground that’s leaking out of the dying beta that I stabbed. He attempts to hold the blood inside of his body, but I can’t tell him that it’s useless to try. The words are locked behind the chattering of my teeth from cold and shock.
The blood soaks into my clothes, stains my skin and braid, and I’m glad for it.
This is one more thing that will piss Ophelia off.
Maybe she’ll even kill her little lackeys for dirtying me up.
Perhaps I won’t wake up for hours and hours, something that’s possible as exhaustion and oblivion threaten to overwhelm me.
There are too many possible outcomes, and if I focus on those, I might be able to escape the clawing fear that’s running through me.
No one is going to save me. I suck as an omega, and my alphas can’t hear me even just feet away from me.
I’m so sorry I have to leave you. Find me if you can.