He held up his hands, ink on everything but his palms. “I was already planning to, asshole. I’ve got shit to do today, but if you wanna game again tomorrow, I’ll leave the door open.”
“I’d rather bleach my fucking eyeballs,” I snarled and slammed the door behind myself, wishing it felt as satisfying as it sounded.
Come on, you were supposed to be fun, a challenge. You can’t be broken already. Thought you were gonna fight me, Lynn. What happened to all that attitude, huh?
I shook my head until my brain rattled and made me dizzy, stumbling too fast down the hallway. I ignored my body as it whined, then protested, then screamed at me to slow down. I didn’t stop until I was in the sanctuary, in the room where I should have died.
Maybe if I had, I wouldn’t have had to hear the wordhysterectomy.
8
Lynn
Iwoke up sweating, cold to the bone, and shaking so hard my teeth rattled. For the tenth night in a row. My subconscious was a dick, and refused to let me rest. One more night of this and I’d punch myself in the temple just to get sweet relief. True and total unconsciousness.
I missed my coma.
I tried to sleep one last time, finally succumbing around two a.m. One hour of blessed unconsciousness; that’s all my brain allowed me until the emptiness of sleep filled with the scent of slick and cum and rancid piss. Whimpers attacked my ears, morphing into pleas, then screams, then silence. I wished those noises came from the other betas, but this time they were mine. I was the one screaming, sobbing, as pain tore through me.
I came awake with all the violence of an explosion, throwing myself sideways out of bed, the covers tangling around my legs. I landed on my ass, instinctively throwing most of my weightonto my shoulder so I didn’t fuck up the stitches that held me together.
Pain shot like a bullet through my pussy, ripping tears from my eyes, and I splayed there for long, long minutes. It passed quicker than it used to. I took that as a sign I was healing, like Ndidi said at my check up this week. I didn’twantto go to the check up, but I was a huge fan of the pain killers Giant kept in his clinic and a purple-haired gnat had annoyed me into going.
ChaCha was infuriatingly hard to shake off. She glued herself to my side, invited herself into my room even when it was locked (I had yet to figure out how,) and insisted on dragging me into the sanctuary to ‘socialise.’ Mostly, I stood in the kitchen and ate their stock of Lunchables while they all bickered and gossiped and spoke about the sad selection of DVDs the Knights provided, or the men themselves. I’d learned more about their families and side-pieces and their wives attempting to murder them over the discovery of said side-pieces than I cared to.
It was kinda fun sometimes. And the girls were… honestly kinda decent. Not judgemental or bitchy or snide, mostly because ChaCha glared at anyone who made a too-personal comment until they apologised. I’d met one of the other people rescued from the farm, Thora, an omega who seethed with rage. I understood that feeling. The deep, scorching fury that razed a path through my chest seemed to match hers.
Someone was probably awake right now. I untangled my legs from the comforter and debated going into the main sanctuary room. I didn’t want to talk about my nightmares, but there was comfort in knowing I wasn’t the only one haunted by them. Mostly, I wanted comfort food, and some fucking idiot with a Lunchables obsession had eaten all the boxes of the only food I wanted to eat right now.
(It was me. I was the fucking idiot.)
I massaged the ache in my shoulder as I got to my feet, expecting the pain inside to be a lot worse than it was. Maybe I’d gotten lucky. Maybe the scars the farm left on me really were fading. They refused to leave my brain, though. I was exhausted. Short-tempered. Frustrated and raging and ground down by the nightmares. I praised myself if I got through a single hour without seeing hay strewn with blood and vile alpha fluids when I blinked. I couldn’t imagine getting through the whole day without remembering it, let alone sleeping through the night.
But that was all I wanted right now, as I threw an oversized hoodie over the leggings and loose shirt I’d slept in—all the pyjamas were pastel colours or fucking frilly—and trudged into the hall.
I just wanted tosleep.My head pounded those words over and over, pressure building in my sinuses. I was in a foul mood, so when a door opened deeper in the clubhouse and a half-naked woman stumbled into the corridor, clutching a low-cut silk top to her chest, her golden legs bare and trembling, anger hit. She whipped around to face me, her eyes like a doe’s—big, spooked, a little watery. She was dishevelled, her honey-blonde hair a mess, and her makeup had run down her face.
I went still inside a moment before my steps froze. She was clearly shaken, frightened, and fleeing someone’s room.
“Are you alright?” I asked, quickly closing the distance between us, my rage a lit match inside me, the flame catching on a fuse of dynamite. A slow, dangerous threat. “Did someone hurt you?”
She swallowed and shook her head, but the movement shook tears free of her eyes. I watched them fall down her cheeks and my chest filled with understanding and fury. The flame travelled closer to the explosives inside me. “I-I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“It’s my fault,” she said with a breathy, self-deprecating laugh that made me angrier. “I thought I could handle it that rough.” At the horror on my face, she shook her head. “It’s not what you think. I knew… what to expect.”
“It isnotyour fault,” I hissed, close to grabbing the woman and doing something truly stupid like hugging her.
“It’s not like I didn’t know,” she said with a shrug. “I’ll be fine, I just didn’t realise it would be so…”
“Intense,” a low, smoke-raspy voice finished.
Cold skittered down my spine like an ice cube, clashing with the incendiary rage inside me, and I whipped around with my upper lip curled.“You,”I seethed when my eyes clashed with green venom.
“Me,” Cobra agreed, his expression too fucking neutral for someone whose bedroom had just produced a crying woman in too few clothes. “I told you to stick around until you’d calmed down,” he said to the shaking blonde woman, his tone almost gentle.
“I’m fine,” she dismissed, taking a few steps away. “Really. Sorry about—chickening out.”
