Page 25 of Petals and Strings
The time in between alphas was almost calm for me. They fed me, hosed me down, but didn’t let anyone touch me.
I was useless until I was healed and fertile again.
Then it was more insults, anger, and beatings when I failed to produce what they wanted.
Their bruising hands became sharp smacks, bone-breaking punches, and kicks from steel-toed boots.
Nothing healed right, especially my mind. I stayed retreated the best I could, fracturing a little more each time I was bonded and broken until only shreds of myself remained.
I couldn’t remember my family’s faces. Who I was. My entire being was gone. I didn’t have a favorite color, favorite movie or show, favorite food. I didn’t know my friends growing up or places I visited.
I was a shell. Dissociating out of self-preservation.
My only real, coherent thought was the satisfaction I felt each time I failed them. My unintentional victory.
Eventually, my captors gave up. I was ordered to be killed, but they were careless and assumed my frail body had no strength left.
But someone found my discarded body.
They saw me as trash, left me in a ditch in the middle of nowhere, like I never mattered. The cold water seeped into my bones but the will to survive had me dragging myself to the edge of the road.
I needed to know there was more out there for me.
That’s where a trucker found me. His rumbling voice promising help was on its way. Soothing words as I curled in on myself.
Then it was a whirlwind of doctors and beeping hospital machines. People asking questions I had no answers for.
My family’s frantic voices were next, trying to find the girl they once knew and not understanding that she had been killed over and over in that prison.
I’d left her body behind in that cell.
Or maybe it was the ditch.
The memories after were even more distant than the blurred heats. I couldn't remember much other than the flashes of my pack and the truth Theo had laid out in front of me.
That my mind found a way to give me what I longed for, even if it was fake and temporary.
When the final weeds were pulled and the last of my memories faded until I was fully in the present, the sun had dipped down beyond the trees. I probably missed dinner but I couldn’t find it in me to care.
My body needed this more than I needed food.
I tossed my gloves aside and stretched out in the grass. Right there in the fading sun I mourned for the life I never got to live and the girl who had to endure so much hell at the hands of twisted alphas.
My chest ached as the tears fell, dripping onto the grass below as I stared up at the passing clouds.
Val had been right. There was healing here in this garden, a way to strip out the pain and lay a fresh foundation for growth.
Now, I knew the truth.
I was broken, yes, but I was also coming out of the fog.
They weren’t my pack. I didn’t even know them. She really did belong with them.
My mind tried to revolt that thought, to cling to them, but the longer I was on meds, the less prominent they were.
Regret was sharp and painful. I’d scared that pack. Brief flashes of the knife in my hand and the terrified looks on their faces haunted me.
One day I’d be brave enough to tell them how sorry I was.
