Page 20 of Knot All That Glitters: Part 2

“What?” Hale snaps.

Jude’s eyes scan over whatever he’s seeing, a furrow in his brow.

“Jude.”

He shakes his head and types something, tongue darting out to lick his lips.

“Jude, you better start fucking saying something.”

He lifts his gaze from his laptop. “The compass rose group…” I stiffen at that. Has he been kicked out of the system? Did they catch on to what he’s been doing? Though the only thing we’ve been doing is watching our girl. The idea of not even having that makes my alpha roar louder than he has been.

“What about them?”

“They reached out. They offered to help us get Haven for a price.”

The five of us look at each other, but it’s Ren who leans forward. “What’s the price?”

Chapter 7

Won’t People Talk?

I spend all of my time in my bedroom.

Well, beyond a few brief forays to the gym where I spend far too long on the treadmill, I do. I’m grateful for it if I’m honest, even if it’s incredibly boring with nothing to do but stare at the wall. I’d rather be tucked away in here than out there with the senator and Brian Coogan, doing god knows what.

It’s been two weeks since my father abducted me from the hospital, and I keep expecting there to be some kind of fallout. For someone to come looking for me. Surely the hospital would report it to the police, and they’d come and ask some questions of my only living relative. Even if Ren couldn’texplicitly tell them who took me, I’m sure she’d find some way to communicate that. But there’s been nothing.

Doesn’t stop me from waiting, hoping, expecting…

Or at least, I keep expecting it when I can bring myself to care about it. But I don’t, I can’t. Everything in my body is muted. All of my emotions and normal reactions are faint and wispy, ephemeral. I know I should feel a lot of things right now. Anger. Fear. Panic. Longing. Worry. Heartache. Pain.

I don’t.

When I can make myself think about it, I suspect that the injection my father gave me at the hospital is the culprit. Not only does it knock me out, but it dulls everything. Makes me feel even more like a shadow of myself than I did when I was under his thumb before.

I only parsed this out in the hour or so before he or Brian injected me with it again, when the fog begins to lift, and my thoughts become clearer. But then, of course, the drug hits my system and I’m back to this.

I suppose this time he’s not taking any chances I might act out, might embarrass him. My going into heat in ‘public,’ has him terrified that I might tip someone off that I am exactly what he doesn’t want me to be: an omega with normal omega instincts and biological needs.

Horrible, I know.

There have been no news reports about me disappearing from the hospital, or at least, not that I’ve seen. But I’ve only watched a few minutes of TV here and there. Not enough to watch a full news rotation. My father doesn’t want me to have any form of entertainment. The television has been moved from my room. I have no laptop or phone to browse the internet. I don’t even have any books. Just the walls of my bedroom and this fuzzy state of being.

So maybe there is some hubbub around where I went and who I’m with. I just have seen no evidence of that.

Really, is it such big news that an omega disappeared? Or I guess that an omega’s father brought her home from the hospital? No, it’s not.

Omegas disappear every day. And I haven’t disappeared at all. Not in the traditional sense. I’m still right here in full view of anyone who bothers to look. I’m just… not myself.

I can recognize that much, even in my drugged state.

To everyone else, he’s the perfect doting father. Everyone thinks he loves me, but he absolutely doesn’t. I can’t imagine the way he treats me is because he cares about me. If he does, he really needs to go to therapy and figure his shit out.

Even then, I know without a doubt that his love is selfish. Or it would be if he was capable of feeling it. He’s only interested in how I make him look, how I make him feel, how the world views him as a father, a caretaker, a man who only wants what’s best for his child. He doesn’t give a shit about how his actions affect me.

There’s a knock on my bedroom door and I turn my head to watch as it pushes open slowly. I don’t bother to get up from my seat on the edge of my bed. I’ve been ordered to sit quietly and not make a peep, to not cause trouble.

If my father had given me that order, I would have been able to disregard it, but it was Brian Coogan, his aide, that barked at me how to spend my days, so this is what I do now. Gym, breakfast, sit quietly, lunch, sit quietly, dinner, bed.

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