Chapter thirty-four
Red
I thump down onto the leather couch and pop my heels up on the coffee table, partly out of childish spite and partly out of dominance. This room holds some unpleasant memories for me.
Dr Marilyn Woods eyes me over her glasses. “What did you want to see me about, Red?”
“I need my alpha,” I declare. Callisto’s request turned out quite simple: ask the Omega Center to get involved with Zack’s appeal.
“Okay,” Dr Woods says, folding her bony hands over her knees. “But before that, can you tell me how you’ve been feeling?”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Not so good. Trouble sleeping, lack of concentration, reduced appetite.” The last is true mostly because of how busy we are, driving back and forth from the prison for filming, and not having a proper kitchen—although both thumbs up to Pierce and Josef trying to keep us fed on packet foods.
Marilyn Woods smiles thinly. “We’re not reading out of a textbook here, Red.”
I hang one limp finger vaguely toward her bookcase packed full of psych manuals. “Pretty sure at least one of us is.”
She tugs her glasses off and spends a moment folding them up. “You’re right. I do have to follow a textbook because that’s the safest way to make sure we’re meeting the needs of our omegas. But—” She sets the glasses down on the coffee table with a soft plink. “I do admit we didn’t adequately cover your needs.”
I jerk upright.
“Your case reminded me we can’t put people in a box. In this field, unconventional behavior is seen as expressions of subconscious malprocessing, and when the severity increases, that’s a warning sign of a destabilized mind. In your case, the distribution of—” She tilts her head and eyes me up and down before continuing. “—let’s say, unorthodox behaviors reveals a different coping mechanism. And, it’s working for you.”
Talk about textbook mumbo jumbo, and yet I can’t help smirking. I might be stuck in a ravine, but I’m still climbing up.
“However,” she continues, raising one hand, “I’m caught between a rock and a hard place because with so much responsibility on my shoulders, I must follow due process here at the Omega Center.”
I grunt softly into my palm. Sounds like fancy bullshit saying she knows she fucked up my rehabilitation but wouldn’t change anything if she got a do-over.
Dr Woods sighs and reaches for her tablet. “That said, I’m opening a new subdepartment here at the Omega Center, which I’m calling Alternate Therapies.” She air-quotes the department name. “We’ll be working with some international organizations using experimental approaches as well as art, music, and animal therapy. My hope is, it’ll give the omegas who aren’t settling inwell an opportunity to try a different approach.” Her pen flips in my direction. “People like you.”
I hum under my breath. “Awesome. Do you want a trophy?” We both know there’s no one like me, but hopefully this means other omegas won’t be driven to contemplate murder in this office.
Her dry expression falters, revealing a hint of a smile. Makes her look less like a stick in the mud. “I’ll pass. I’d be afraid of what you might inscribe on the plaque.”
I chuckle.
“So, let me start over.” She taps her stylus on her tablet like a judge calling the court to order.
I perk up and nod, pulling my feet off the tabletop.
“I will happily lend my voice to getting your alpha out of prison because I can see the growth journey you’re on. Coming back to the Omega Center of your own accord when under extreme stress shows maturity in your ability to find coping solutions.” She lifts her brows, a deeper smile tugging at her thin lips. “Unfortunately, I need some significant psychological data to write in my recommendation. Data that comes from actual facts, not Omoogled descriptions, if you please.”
“Fine.” I sigh and thump my elbow down on the armrest, leaning my chin on it and staring across the room. Thinking for a minute doesn’t really untangle my thoughts, but it gives me a starting place.
I cock my head and eye the doc. “At times I believed what they said, you know? That I was crazy, and no one was coming for me. I’d lie in restraints, my own filth pooling around me while I burned with fever, and wonder if maybe I was a phantom, existing in some other dimension where only demons lived—somewhere no human could ever reach. But then I’d feel this little tug.”
I spread my fingers across my forehead. “Voices. Not saying anything, but low hums. One was calm and collected. I guessed he was reading a storybook or giving speeches.” I shake my head and grin. “Turns out, he was putting criminals behind bars.”
Marilyn’s pen flicks across her tablet in short strokes as she listens.
“The other one was softer, always laughing or crying. He felt like someone I wanted to hug over and over. And the third? He snarled like a wild thing, day and night.” I throw the doctor a half smile. “I reckon you can place which one is which.”
She studies me. “And how did you recognize the voices when you met them?”
That’s easy. “The voices went quiet for the first time when we stood face to face. Then, when Zack bonded me, the voice or presence, whatever we call it, moved from up here . . .” I tap my skull. “. . .to here in my chest.”
“How many do you feel through the bond?”
