Page 6 of The Alpha: Part Two
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True to Lopez’s word, there have been no more fights. It feels like a few days have passed, but it could be more than that. There are no windows, and I don't get to leave for even exercise. I gave up asking the guards, or whatever you want to call the assholes who slide food and buckets into my cell, what day it is or the time of day a long time ago. Time doesn’t have much meaning for me anymore. All I know is that my injuries have completely healed.
Maybe that’s the point. Give me time to completely heal so they can put me in the ring with a real monster. It doesn’t matter. Not really. Even if Michael is alive somewhere in this shithole, he’s probably no better off than I am.
Chapter six
Desie
I don’t know how I’m going to watch tonight. It’s been awhile since they were in the ring but Flores told me at dinner that there was a fight tonight. Whether it’s Michael or Ben doesn’t matter, it will be one of them and I don’t know if I can sit on the foot of this bed and watch them fight for their very lives without having some kind of breakdown. It makes me feel so selfish. I’m here in this penthouse, in a richly decorated and comfortable room. Clean, fed, and relatively safe, while they’re in such terrible conditions. I should be stronger than this. They have to fight for survival and all I have to do is watch.
I will watch, though. I look in on them every night before I lay down on the extravagantly dressed bed Flores provided. I watch Ben roll over onto his side and tracing designs on the wall behind his cot. I watch Michael do his sit-ups on the disgusting concrete floor. I watch them get beaten. I watch them lose something of themselves each time that I’m not sure they will ever get back. Not watching would dishonor them, no matter how awful it is to see. Seeing them on the monitor every day at least lets me know they’re alive, and that gives me hope.
This can’t be how our lives go. I refuse to accept it. If the boys can keep hanging on, keep fighting, so can I. I can find a way out of this for us. I have to. My heat is due in just a few weeks. I’m going to have heat spikes for about a week before it starts. I have to figure something out before then. I can’t let Flores and his pack touch me. I can’t let them try to cancel out Michael’s and Ben’s marks. I wouldn’t survive it.
Sometimes I can feel one of the twins through my bonds. Not often, and not for long, but every now and then I’ll get a flash of rage that I know belongs to one of them. It’s gone before I can focus on who it belongs to, but it’s there. And it gives me hope.
“Good evening, Miss Romero,” Flores says, slinking into my room in his designer suit.
I hate it when he invades my space. I hate it even more when he’s here to witness my horror and heartbreak during the fights. And my guilt. I think he enjoys my guilt more than anything else.
I don’t respond. I don’t respond to anything he says unless I’m forced to. I don’t speak to any of them. It doesn’t matter if I respond or not, he’s going to do as he wants and what he usually does is sit on my bed, contaminating it with his foul, greasy scent regardless. Yay for me. I get to wash everything, again, after the rollercoaster that this evening will be. Another late night with work early in the morning.
Lopez comes in after him. He’s been doing more of that. He doesn’t seem to want Flores to be alone with me, but he’s very careful about it. “Hello Desir’ee. How are you this evening?”
I don’t respond to him, either; but I’d rather answer his questions than Flores’s as a general rule. He seems different for the past week or so, ever since Flores made it abundantly clear that I was to be his omega before I would be the pack’s. I think that was the plan all along.
“We’re going out tonight,” Flores chirps. “Let’s put on a dress, something really nice. Some thicker heeled shoes would be better for the venue. We can’t have our lovely omega twisting an ankle.” He smiles at me on his way to the closet. There’s nothing garish or overly risque in there, so whatever he picks is what I’ll wear. It's not like I can get out of this outing and the less of my own effort I have to put into it the better. I don’t care what I wear anymore. It doesn’t matter.
Lopez is watching me very closely. There’s been a lot of that lately. Watching. They basically have me on lockdown, I don’t know what he feels like he needs to watch out for. It isn’t like I can do much more than go to work and there is always one of the betas lurking around to make sure I don’t try to slip away.
Flores comes out of the closet carrying a black cocktail dress with green sequin accents and a pair of simple black wedges. “This will be just the thing. Get changed. The car will be out front in twenty minutes.” He spreads the dress on the bed and places the shoes next to it and touches my chin on his way out the door. It takes all I’ve got to stop myself from wiping my chin.
Lopez lingers, looking from me to the dress on the bed, his expression pinched. “I was outvoted. Just know that. Bring a wrap, it might be beneficial tonight.” He doesn’t touch me when he leaves the room.
I put on the dress. I put on the shoes. I brush my hair, and I take the first wrap I come to in the drawer. It’s purple and doesn’t match the outfit, but it reminds me of the last blanket Michael found for my nest which is a small comfort. I don’t know where we’re going. As much as I hate seeing them fight, I feel like a traitor for going out with Flores and his pack instead of watching the twins.
“Perfection,” Flores remarks when I join him, Lopez, and James at the door. James smiles at me, but doesn’t say anything; and Lopez’s brows and mouth are still set as tightly as they were when he left my room. None of them offer me an arm when we make our way to the elevator or when we step into it, and I’m grateful because I hate touching them. James does open the door for me when we get to the car, and Lopez puts his hand on my elbow when I get in.
I watch the city go by without actually seeing anything. I assumed we were going to dinner somewhere, but the car turns onto the road that leads to the docks. This is the shady part of town. This is where most of the back alley, sideways things happen. Mateo and everyone else I know has drilled it into my head from the time I was little to stay away from here.
We pull into a gravel parking lot in front of what looks like a warehouse. The building is huge but nondescript. The kind of place you see in mobster movies. I hope we’re not here long.
Flores claps his hands together, startling me, and says, “we’re here. Let’s get up top before the fight.”
No.
Simultaneously, the bottom of my stomach drops into nauseating emptiness and my heart leaps into my tight throat.
I can’t be here. I can’t watch the fight in person. I can’t.
“Please,” I whimper. Yes, whimper. I might actually die if I have to watch them be hurt and be unable to go to them.
“Ernesto, this–” Lopez starts, but he’s quickly interrupted.
“Is an excellent learning opportunity,” Flores clips. “For her, as well as the twins.”
And that’s the end of the discussion. James gets out of the car and opens the back door. Lopez offers me a hand after he’s out but I can’t take it. I can’t move.
