Page 12 of Chosen Beta

Her expression falters as she processes my questions.

That fighting spirit is still there, but it’s obvious she needs help.

She’s got to know that.

She’s not okay.

She doesn’t even remember her own name.

“I … I don’t know,” she admits.

She pushes away from the wall, and takes a wobbly step toward us, toward me.

“I don’t know, but you do. You brought me here! You need to take meback!”

Her accusatory stare makes my stomach lurch.

“Take you back?” Ezra murmurs, as the true horror of what she’s saying hits home.

This woman isn’t asking to be taken back to her family.

She wants to go back to the people who hurt her.

One more unsteady step, and she stumbles, dropping her weapon.

Ezra moves forward and catches her before she can slip to the ground.

She lets out a pained groan as her head falls against his chest.

“I just … want … to go home,” she mumbles.

He lifts her up with both arms. “You will. Once you’re better.”

It’s a lie and we both know it.

The “home” she’s asking for was her prison.

The people there didn’t look after her.

They weren’t her family.

They were her abusers.

She can never go back there.

She sighs before she passes out in Ezra’s arms.

The energy that made her spark come back has fizzled out.

She’s exhausted. She needs to rest, and I need to find someone who can help her understand the place she’s thinking of as her home wasn’t safe. It’s not going to be easy to get her to a point where she can accept what happened her.

I don’t envy the psychologist the Alpha Alliance finds for us one little bit.

I move out of Ezra’s way so he can put her back to bed.

Picking the sharpened toothbrush up from the floor, I make a mental note to bring her a new one. Hopefully one that she can’t sharpen into a weapon.

When I step back into the bedroom, she’s on the bed and Ezra is checking over her medication.

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