CHAPTER 17
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The rest of the dayafter our showdown in the kitchen was relatively quiet. Theo had situated me on the couch with a remote and an extra tablet, and I logged into my kindle account and settled in for the day to read my favorite smutty romance of the week.
Cobb continued to work at the kitchen island, tapping away on his laptop until his phone chimed, and he left to answer the call upstairs in his bedroom. He hadn’t come back downstairs since.
Theo, despite his earlier cautionary words, was sitting across from me on the couch working on his computer, a pair of wire rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose as he tapped away. Every once in a while, I could feel his steely-blue gaze on me, but whenever I glanced up to catch him looking at me, he was typing away at his keyboard again.
Matteo was currently in the middle of what looked to be the comfiest nap that I’d ever seen. After working on his laptop for a bit, he had dragged a fluffy green blanket over and was laying his head in my lap, sleeping like he didn’t have a care in the world.
Eventually, I gave up on my book and began to doze on the couch. I ran my fingers through the soft strands of Matteo’s hair as we sat in comfortable silence. I couldn’t help but think about just how much had changed over the past twenty-four hours, and even though Theo had pissed me off he was right. Things were moving incredibly fast, but I didn’t know how to slow them down. Everytime I thought about it, I remembered how good Matteo and Aria had made me feel, how safe they made me feel last night so that I could get a full night’s sleep.
As I leaned my head on the back of the couch with my eyes closed, my thoughts moved away from Pack Simmons and back to the night that my life had metaphorically, and physically, gone up in flames.
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Nine years ago...
“What should we sayto her?” One of the nurses, a young blond beta, whispered to another nurse, who quickly shushed her. I had been sitting stiffly in a hospital bed for the last thirty minutes. Ever since the CPS agent, a nice beta woman named Emily had brought me to the hospital. I’d never been in a hospital before, at least not that I could remember. It was cold, and the gown that they’d forced me to change into felt scratchy against my sensitive skin. They’d given me a wet washcloth to wash the soot off of my face and arms, but I could still smell the faint scent of what I now knew was charred flesh still clinging to my skin.
Everything around me was too much on my sensitive omega nerves, from the random beeping from the various machines around me, to the light that was constantly on when I’d rather just wallow in the dark. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me, I felt like I was barely even present, letting the doctors and nurses lift my limbs and move them as they pleased without much protest. One of the doctors had said something about ‘shock,’ but I had no idea what electricity had to do with my current mental state.
I wished I could go back to the backseat of the black car that I was in with Theo, the man who’d carried me out of the compound. His minty scent had instantly put me at ease as he told me about his friends, Matteo and Aria, along with some of the crazy things that they’d done together.
I had always wanted to do the things that Theo had talked about, traveling, going to college, and finding a family that genuinely liked me. The thought always hovered in the back of my mind while I was doing my chores, or helping my omega sisters set the dinner table, that there had to be more outside of the chain-link fence of the compound. I was sure of it. I only had vague memories of my mother, her cherry soda scent, and a tiny little room that we used to sleep in. Sometimes I was convinced that I’d imagined it, and it was all in my head because, after all, Father Jordan claimed that the world outside of the compound was on fire with sin.
Now that I was looking around, though, I realized that all of that was all one big fat lie. Sure, things were uncomfortable in this hospital, and I didn’t really like how the nurses were staring at me...but nothing was on fire—and I sure as heck didn’t see any sin happening around me.
“Tabitha?” Emily’s voice came from the other side of the curtain, and the beta stepped inside of my hospital room. She had shiny, brown hair that hung silkily around her face, ending just under her chin. It was the shortest hair I’d ever seen on a woman before, and I was transfixed on it for a moment before forcing myself to focus on the woman’s words rather than her appearance.
I turned my full attention to her, still not quite ready to say anything yet. Emily seemed to understand this, and sat in the little chair next to my bed, “Tabitha, I’ve just spent the last half hour on the phone trying to find a safe space for you. We have a local omega foster home that has agreed to take you in, you’ll be safe and comfortable there while we wait for trial.”
I was confused by her words, “trial?”
Emily looked like she was trying to formulate the best response to my question, when a man dressed in a blue uniform stepped into the room. He was an alpha, like Father Jordan was, and like Theo is, but his scent smelled like the gasoline that we used to feed the generator. It immediately made my body tense up with fear, and I curled in on myself and let a loud whine escape my mouth as I covered my head with my arms.
“What happened?” The man’s voice was a deep baritone that sent chills of fear through my body.
“Get out,” Emily’s voice was sharp, and I heard the shuffling of feet. “Her equilibrium is all off, and you’re making it worse.”
“I can’t help it,” The man’s baritone continued. “What am I supposed to do about my scent?”
“Go and find a beta officer, but don’t you dare come back with any other alphas. I don’t think she can handle it.” Emily shooed the man out once and for all, and I stayed curled in on myself until his chemical scent finally faded from the room.
“Sorry....” I croaked, feeling bad that she had to kick the man out.
Emily just shook her head, “They should have known better than to let an alpha officer in here.”
“What’s a trial?” I asked the question again, though I wasn’t really expecting an answer. No one ever really answered my questions back at home, children were meant to be seen and not heard, that’s what I was always told. Though, ever since I perfumed, I wasn’t really a child...nor was I quite an adult in their eyes until my first heat. So, sometimes I got an answer, and sometimes I was brushed off. With Emily, I couldn’t tell yet how she was going to respond.
Emily sighed and folded her hands in her lap. “A trial is when someone does something wrong and people get together to decide what kind of punishment they should have.”
