Page 2 of The Beta: Part Two
I lay very still, very quiet, in my nothing-bed for a long while before the doctors start coming in. They poke and prod and ask so many questions. I answer them all as well as I can. I don’t have much information for the officer that comes to inform me that my rape kit will be processed as quickly as they can get it done.
I don't have anything to say to that. I ran those bastards by every camera in the woods. Nathan will pick out their faces and he'll find them. Then they'll die. There's no need to involve the authorities. Jasper's pack will eliminate the rogues who wanted to hurt him, not any judicial system.
One doctor, probably a beta, wants to know if I'm in any pain.
I take the time to really decide whether I am or not, and decide that I'm only a little sore. “I’m fine.” The doctor exchanges a look with my nurse. That look tells me they either don’t think I’m fine, or they don’t trust my judgment. Whichever it is, it doesn’t matter to me. They can think what they want.
Then a female doctor who had been standing at the rear of the group starts asking me questions about my feelings and mental status.
We all decide together that I'm in shock. Weeks of denying my designation and finally being forced to accept it after living my entire life as a beta have taken a toll on me. And the horrors that I endured when the rogues took me, that I am more than grateful to have been unconscious for the majority of, have damaged more than just my body whether I recognize it or not. Accepting my new designation, and starting a life as an omega is actually more upsetting to me right now than knowing four rogue motherfuckers tried their best to murder me with their penises…peni…penes? Whatever the plural for more than one dick is.
I fight back a giggle. Funny words or not, if I start giggling about my inner monologue they’ll think I’m suffering from a lot more than shock, then I’ll never get out of here.
I don't know how to be an omega. Intellectually, I know all about how to care for an omega. I know the proper foods, nutritional drinks, beneficial teas and herbs, exercises, how to recognize when heat is imminent; but I do not know how to operate and function as an omega.
A few nurses and one very pretty omega psychiatrist, who introduces herself as Dahlia, try very hard to explain to me that I need the pack I don't have and an alpha, that I also don't have, because I am an omega. They explain that I will feel much better if I build a nest.
That just makes me mourn for Jasper and the nest in his room that I'll never sleep in again, so I remain even more still and try to become like the nothing that I'm surrounded by.
They keep telling me their names like they matter. The more names they throw at me, the more determined I am to forget them. Their names don’t matter, they never will. Once I leave here, this chapter, hell, this entire book of my life will no longer exist. I will burn the fucker and scatter the ashes of its experience to the winds as I walk away from the only thing that matters to me. The only thing I’ve ever wanted for myself, the only thing I’ve given my whole heart to, has been ruined, has been ripped away from me. Because I’m an omega now.
The next morning the pretty omega psychiatrist is back in my room. She brought flowers and a massive chocolate croissant.
“Thank you,” I say, but I’ll puke if I try to eat the croissant, and the flowers are so bright and happy that I can’t stand looking at them. “Do you mind putting them on the table? I’ll save the croissant for later.
She purses her lips, but puts the vase and the little box on the bed table. “I need you to try, Miss Graves. I know horrible, terrible things have happened to you, but you must try.”
Sure thing, doc. I give her a nod and a weak, and probably watery smile. I’m trying as hard as I can right now. Trying is exhausting. And I don’t want to ruin her day by telling her that her pretty efforts are being wasted on me.
I spent the night dreaming of Jasper; mostly of him calling out to me over a vast sea of darkness, and no matter how I screamed for him or how I tried to get through the black chasm I couldn't reach him.
“You look tired, Talia,” the psychiatrist, or maybe she’s a counselor, I’m not really sure, and I don’t care, tells me. “I would think the treatments you’re receiving would be pushing you toward recovery a little better than this.” She flips through the pages on her tablet and makes a variety of faces before she purses her lips again. “I’m going to add a new course of vitamins that have helped other omegas with similar circumstances. You weren’t malnourished when you came in, but you’re losing more weight than I’m comfortable with. Are there any particular foods that you enjoy? We can have almost anything added to your menu.”
She keeps talking to me, asking perfectly acceptable questions given the circumstances, and doesn't show the frustration she must be feeling at my lack of response.
I just can't care about any of it, and I don't know how to make her understand that I really am not bothered by what the rogues did to me outside of the physical pain I'm only barely feeling anymore.
The nurses who have come in to check and change out my IV fluids and meds have explained several times that the transfusions I've been given are the kind that greatly increases healing in both speed and efficiency. I remember the pain I was feeling when Devon and Kaleb found me and when I briefly woke up in the hospital when the nurses were scrubbing the filth off of me after collecting samples for the super important, mega effective rape kit that probably won’t amount to a hill of beans, but all I feel now is a ghost of that hurt. And I tried to tell the professionally sympathetic beta doctor that came in during his rounds that I really was feeling better, and that I wasn't awake enough to be really traumatized by the rogues, but he wouldn't hear me so I haven't bothered speaking much since.
“I'm going to call your mother, Miss Graves. Someone should be here with you. Your mother will comfort you and help you through your ordeal.”
That earns a response. I do not want my mother here. She will make this already horrid situation ten thousand times worse. “No, please don't. It would only upset her, and I really will be fine,” I say, holding the doctor's gaze.
I know that isn't enough of a reason and I'll have to concede to call someone, so I suggest my father. “If you would feel better calling someone, call my father, Marcus. It would be good to talk to him.”
This is the right thing to say, the doctor is visibly relieved and is a little too quick to dash out of the room, probably to get a phone to call my father as there’s no phone in this room.
I understand why she would suggest a call to my mother, most women in my situation would probably want to hear their mother's voice.
It isn't that I don't want to talk to my mother, it's that I know my mother will not handle any of this well, or calmly. She would first fly into a violent rage, and when that got her exactly nowhere, she would jump head first into a long chain of I-told-you-so's while she went on an alpha shopping spree to find the perfect pack to take care of me.
She would most likely send my fathers after Jasper's pack for apparently triggering my omega switch and then abandoning me in this hospital room. She wouldn't listen no matter how many times I told her none of them knew I was an omega; she would insist that at least one of them must have known based on scent alone.
My mother would also insist that I'm far more traumatized than I am. Actually, I would agree if I wasn't the one who was supposed to be traumatized. If another omega went through what I did I would be doing everything I could to make them feel safe and well cared for. I would be all over any sign of distress; exactly like the staff in this hospital is treating me. But I've never been an omega, and I don't know how to be traumatized like one. I only know how to process this as the female beta I've been my entire life.
The truth of it is that I don't feel very traumatized about what the rogues did. I knew what would happen to me when I stripped off my clothes to put on Jasper's. I knew what would happen to me when I choked down the suppressants as I was running through the field toward the woods. I knew what would happen once they caught me, and I planned the route so that every camera would catch them as they chased me. I knew what would happen as I planned the path I would lead them down to get them away from Jasper, and I knew what would happen once they caught me.
I'm just surprised they didn't kill me once they discovered they caught a beta. Except I'm not a beta. They did catch an omega, they were just too hopped up on belligerent rage to see past my taunts.
