Page 118 of Captive Omega

Nothing to release this pain splitting my heart in two.

A tear splashes my cheek. I dash it away.

“He was supposed to wait for me,” I breathe.

Another tear slides down my cheek.

Then another.

“I was going to get out and he would be there…” I whisper. I don’t know who I’m talking to, don’t know why I need to get these words out, but I have to. Maybe they won’t keep hurting me if I get them out of my heart.

I stand near the bed, staring out of the window, but I see nothing outside.

I’m in the past, reliving the happiest day of my life.

It was our second anniversary in a restaurant so fancy I had three forks with no idea which one I was supposed to use first. I remember Henry’s soft smile, the coolness of the ring he slid onto my finger and the applause that filled the restaurant when I’d said yes. He’d risen from his bent knee and kissed me.

I ruined my makeup. How was I supposed to know when a guy takes you to the best restaurant in town you wear waterproof mascara because it means he’s getting ready to propose?

I was a mess.

But I was so, so stinkin’ happy I didn’t care that I was leaving trails of mascara down my face, on my dress, and in my soup. I didn’t care because I was in love and the guy who loved me back wanted to build a life with me.

It was a beautiful ring. Emerald stone with a slim platinum silver band. Too beautiful to risk losing it. I never wore it to the free heat clinic. I would slide it off my finger, tuck it somewhere safe: my desk drawer, the jewelry box at home, a safe place so I couldn’t lose it while I was out of my mind in heat.

Except that last day.

Henry was at a work conference. I had been on my way to work that morning when my heat started. I called in. My boss was understandably pissed, but that was nothing new. I was always doing something wrong. There’s no way I could go into work when my heat was starting. If any alphas caught my scent, it would cause a riot.

I’d needed to get to an air-controlled room as soon as possible.

My regular heat clinic was full. I drove a little farther away and parked my car, leaving my engagement ring tucked in my center console as I went on a desperate quest for another heat clinic.

Mom and Dad would have looked for me. Maybe they went to the cops like Jerome Walker’s parents did. Would the cops have found my car and engagement ring, assumed I’d run off and decided not to bother? Or did they search for me and could never find me?

Maybe Henry thought I was dead for him to have moved on.

My first month, I tried never to think about Mom, Dad, or Henry. When you lose everything you love, thinking about it is hell. It just hurts.

I could never escape the rooms that alphas would lock me into. Could never escape from my heat when it would have me begging my captors for their knots. So I learned to bury my pain and my fear and show them nothing but rage instead.

But I never stopped hurting.

Not once.

I told myself I would escape, make all the alphas who hurt me pay, and I would go home and raise this unexpected child as best I could. I’d go back to my life. But that life isn’t mine anymore.

If I went back right now and Henry broke off his engagement to Emily, would he want me when I’m not the same girl he said he wanted to build a life with?

Would that life still even feel like mine if I stepped back into it and everything was exactly the same as I left it?

Would it?

I’m terrified I’d be like one of Garrison’s puzzle pieces that someone was struggling to fit into a spot that wasn’t the right one.

Is the problem the puzzle or the piece? My old life or me?

It’s not safe to call my parents, but right now I just need to hear their voice. Even if it’s just once.

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