Page 82 of Escalating Alpha

“I’m sorry,” I said before I realized it.

“That’s not for you to be sorry for,” Zeno said as he came into view. “We have children because we want them. You are a loving child who would have appreciated that your birth was difficult on them if they had been the parents they should have. But never, not ever again do you apologize for anything to do with your birth. It was not a choiceyou made.”

Fair enough. It was still shocking to hear. For all of the things they’d yelled at me for and—my parents had never told me that my birth was a bad one.

“Even when we figured it out, she wouldn’t take the bottles and was crying constantly,” Clayton continued. “Finally, I couldn’t take it and yelled that I had a headache and to please just stop. She did. She stared up at me that she understood and saw it all. I knew right then that—”

I burst out laughing, fully understanding what Phobie had been doing and wanted me to see. It took me a couple of minutes to settle and I couldn’t hide that I was laughing at Clayton. “You were projecting. You projected your fears that I would be crazy like your dad onto your newborn baby. Wow.”

“I did not!” he snapped. “You have no idea or can say that like you know any—”

“I can tell you with a thousand percent certainty,” I said firmly as I stood too. “Ican seethings. I saw Topher’s mind when I took him from you. He was a few days older probably than what you’re talking about, and he could not have made that realization or understood. And he’s more powerful than me getting two sets of clairvoyant genes.”

“What? No, you’re lying, and I don’t need to—”

“I’mnotlying, and I have no reason to. And yes, you need to fucking hear this because—if I’m listening to you for real, then you’re going to do the same because we’re fucking adults. Or I ask Zeno to beat your ass. Your choice.”

“What’s your proof?” he bit out as he plopped back down.

“Topher,” I said firmly. “You gave me too much understanding as a newborn. He wouldn’t have comprehended that. All he knew was what was good or bad—comfort. Fear. Babies feel fear that young, and if you screamed in your newborn daughter’s face, I absolutely felt fear. And what did I used to do when I was scared of you, Clayton?”

“You froze,” Phobie put together. “Everyone thinks fight or flight, but there’s also freeze. You froze as a newborn feeling your first fear.”

I nodded. “It took Topher months to understand my migraines and that was because I could show him I was in pain. It wasonlybecause of how we can communicate since we both are clairvoyants. That’s the only reason.”

“Yeah, laugh it up,” he snapped. “You really want to know about Stacey trying to kill you and how I saved you? So maybe I wasn’t the worst father ever and you should be more grateful.”

I lost my amusement and relief in a flash and was back to being dead. “You left me in the fucking ghetto hours before that office opened. It’s a miracle that I wasn’t taken or dead to talk tothe first guy. And now you’re going to read my whole file to see what I went through. See how your ‘good parenting’ was when you fucking ditched me to go have a normal kid that—”

Jason grabbed my hand and pulled me to sit. I could have resisted, but I didn’t want to make it a thing and I sat down. “Don’t give him—he’s not worth it, and he definitely doesn’t need the information or ammo against you.”

I snorted. “He’s never getting out of there. Who is he going to tell?”

It was true, but he wouldn’t want to take the chance.

Fair enough… And smart.

“How exactly—what happened and how did you save Sera?” Phobie asked, getting back to the reason we were there and letting Clayton feel special.

Clayton sighed like he was over all of this. “She said several times we should give her up for adoption. I said—I should have been more understanding now that I know more about postpartum. But it was constant and Sera was actually a quiet baby. Freaky but quiet. Then she wasn’t. It was strange and I couldn’t figure it out.

“But her diapers were—something was wrong. Stacey told me it was all in my head and we weren’t going to the doctor. Then I saw her make a bottle with twice as much water as that amount of formula should have. She was making Sera sick, and I reminded her that babies that young couldn’t have water. It could kill them.”

And from the haunted look in his eyes, she’d known that. She’d been trying to get rid of me without getting caught… But he’d still stayed with her for years and chosen her and to have a new, better child with her.

Ouch.

He told us about how he confronted her and made it clear that he would prepare the bottles from now on and he knewwhat she was doing. To stop or he would turn her in because he wasn’t going to jail for her, and even if she hated me, I was their child.

I was grateful that Jason had made me make this call, it was actually not as bad as I thought… Almost.

“And then there were the times Stacey had left Sera alone in the bathtub,” he continued when I thought we were done. “Luckily, I’d gotten infant CPR certified when I found out Stacey was pregnant. It was free through work and—it sounded smart. I didn’t think I’d have to use it. She said it was an accident.

“The first time I could understand that. We were exhausted and—the phone rang I think or—something stupid and accidents could happen. I think that was how she got the idea for it though. I’d forgiven her and said accidents happened, just like that and she agreed. And then did it again two weeks later and was pissed when I caught on fast.”

“How could you stay with such a psychopath?” Jason seethed. “What is wrong with you? You could have just let Sera be adopted as a baby. People do it all of the time—”

“People knew we had a kid,” Clayton interrupted, completely unremorseful. “I wasn’t dealing with the embarrassment or pain of explaining we couldn’t handle being parents and let her be adopted.”

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