Page 15 of Petals and Strings
My heart ached at the sight, and it took everything in me not to break down in front of the therapist. I didn’t trust him yet and I didn't want anyone to see the level of hurt aching within me. I’d always been good and hiding it and I couldn’t stop now.
Not unless I knew I could trust him.
“Look at them, Audrey. Really, look,” he urged. “Try to picture her.”
God, the omega was everything I wasn’t. Her smile was sweet, the freckles dotting her face and wide-innocent eyes gave her the illusion of being innocent.
But she wasn’t. She stole my pack.
Pain turned to anger swiftly. Outrage burned hot and volatile in my gut, making my hands shake and my body vibrate against it.
“Calm down, Audrey, or I’ll have to sedate you,” he warned as he wrote a few notes on the paper in his lap. “Your medication should have evened your emotions out.”
There was a sharpness to his voice despite the mask of indifference. It held a warning. This man tried to appear kind, but right now he was acting like he’d rather control me than help me.
Would he rather I act like a zombie? No emotions, drugged out of my mind, drifting around like a ghost? I’d seen other patients like that. They barely looked coherent, being led around by staff like they didn’t even know where they were.
I didn’t want that. That wouldn’t get me out of here and into a life I deserved.
The meds were awful, but necessary. That part I understood. I didn’t feel like myself yet, but I couldn’t deny that my head was clearer now. My thoughts sharper than they had been in a long time.
Memories? Not so much. That was still blocked, as if my brain refused to grant me access outside of my time with the pack.
“No,” I growled, my teeth bared as I glared at Theo. I wanted to lash out, to hurt him like he was trying to do to me. “I’m allowed to be angry. I never even moved or attacked you, so threatening me is low and makes you look weak.”
His eyes widened in surprise. He simply stared at me for a second before his features softened and he deflated a bit.
I had a feeling more lies were coming.
“I have to protect myself. It’s not my preference but you have already lashed out at staff members and I am telling you information thatcouldset you off,” he pointed out.
It was blunt and he waited, letting the words hang between us.
“They’re my pack. I don’t know who she is, but it’s all a lie,” I said. My voice was an angry hiss that had him letting out a sigh.
“We were afraid you’d think that. Do you remember what happened to you before you met them, Audrey? Where you were?”
Before.
My mind was a void. There were memories buried but they wouldn’t surface, even when I tried to force it.
“No.”
“I’m sorry to have to do this. We don’t want you to suffer, but you have to know the before, to deal with the after, Audrey.”
Dread pooled in my stomach as I watched him shuffle papers on his desk to reveal another folder. I saw my name scrawled across the top, a black and white photo of my face secured with a paperclip on the front.
It was wrong. I looked… different. Frail. Dirty. Haunted.
He carefully placed it in front of me. When I refused to move, simply staring at the ghost of my former-self, Theo leaned forward to open the folder so I had no choice but to view my grim past.
Several pictures were placed in front of me, Theo spreading them out so they were all displayed. Bruises. Mutilated bite marks. A black eye. Bleeding cuts on the bottom of her feet and legs.
The worst was her… no,my, face.
As I stared, I could feel the phantom pain of it all. The grime lingering on my skin. It wasn’t the kind that builds up from hard work, but the kind that accumulates over time, leaving it sinking into your soul and tarnishing it forever.
My feet were bare and the nightgown I wore was torn, streaked in blood and fluids, and nearly see-through it was so worn.
