Page 45 of Defiant Beta

I angle my head to face him. “Why?”

“Becausethatis Della Jackson. A beta.” Blaine nudges his black-rimmed glasses up his nose, old red burns on his wrist, briefly capturing my attention. “Her sister asked us to find her when she disappeared after dropping nearly two grand in a perfume store. Whatexactlywas she doing as a student in Haven Academy?”

Chapter 15

Della

Not for oneminute do I close my eyes.

After what happened to me the last time I shut them, I am never sleeping again.

At first, the silence is welcome.

No voices, no footsteps, and no laughter mean my torment is over.

For now.

As the seconds, then the minutes, then hours stretch out, the silence becomes an oppressive, heavy weight that presses down on me.

I should stop cowering like a wounded animal and escape like I need to. But my mind keeps dragging me back to waking on the floor, my skirt up over my hips, as an alpha did up his pants.

Did they all take turns as I lay near drowned from having my head shoved down a toilet?

How many times?

I force myself up from the floor, breathing heavily, my eyes dry and itchy.

I look around me for the millionth time in case I missed an easy way out of this hellhole.

But it’s still just me, a locked door, and no easy way out of this at all.

My eyes slice to the door, to the keyhole, a tiny bead of faint light bleeding into the room.

My footsteps aren’t as steady as I’d like them to be as I walk over to it. I think over every crime show I ever watched, everything I might have seen or learned about how to break myself out of a locked room.

I try everything.

And when nothing works, I scream at the door as if my rage will blow it open.

Defeated, I sink to my knees, turn so I have my back to the door and rest my head on it.

I think about how hope feels a lot like desperation.

I never needed hope to sustain me.

I had drive.

That’s all I needed to succeed.

Everleigh disappeared. No. She wastakenby an alpha who abused her. I didn’thopeI would find her. I knew I would. It would just take time. It didn’t matter what it cost me. College? Who cares about that when your sister is missing?

All I needed was a way to get into Lawrence Wentworth’s house, create an opportunity to speak to Everleigh, and get her away from that prick before I set fire to him.

Easy.

“This is the same thing,” I whisper. “Don’t waste time on hope.Do.”

I get up again because it isn’t hope I need, it’s that same drive.

---