CHAPTER 18
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The next week passedin a bit of a blur. Aria and Theo both had to leave the house to take care of whatever business they needed to take care of. I was pretty sure that it had something to do with me, but I had yet to convince them to let me in on the secret. A fact that steadily continued to annoy me more as the week went on.
I was starting to go absolutely stir crazy in the house with only Matteo and Jacob for company. Sure, I’d been essentially trapped inside of the omega academy for almost nine years...but at least I had been able to go down to the coffee shop and pretend like I was a normal person. Pack Simmons’s apartment was, by no means, tiny, but I’d already spent the week swimming in the little pool, reading books on my kindle, and cooking or baking until the pack had begged me to stop making cookies because there was no room left for them in the fridge. There had also been no sex happening in the house. The other two alphas, heeding Theo’s words, had pumped the brakes and slowed us down. They still came in and cuddled with me every night...but it was all very PG-13. I felt like, what I was sure, a typical middle schooler felt like. Not that I’d ever gone to middle school, but, kissing, over the clothes groping, and the constant anxiety about whether or not someone liked you were all a part of your stereotypical middle school experience. It was like we had been playing a really fun game of hot potato...except they’d thrown the potato at me, and then walked away while I was still holding it. My hormones flipped between being a-ok with slowing things down and needing to climb one of the alphas like a tree. Needless to say, I was spending extra time in the bathroom with a detachable showerhead as my only saving grace during these trying times.
But hey, at least I’d started to consistently sleep through the night, so that was something at least. Matteo and Aria flat-out refused to tell me how many times during the night that I woke up. I was pretty sure it was still happening, but I never woke up screaming anymore.
It was amazing how much a good night’s sleep could do for you. My body no longer ached for the first few hours of the day, and I found myself sleeping later than I ever have, curled up until midmorning with Matteo. Aria always got up and left early, pressing a kiss to my head before leaving to go wherever she was going for the day.
I usually spent most of the afternoon with Cobb, as I’d started to refer to him as in my head, which I think surprised the hell out of the both of us. When I first laid eyes on the beta, I was pretty sure we’d have nothing in common. I was far too wild for the buttoned-up FBI agent with big, brown eyes, but I found that a lot of my favorite hobbies were also hobbies that he liked too. For instance, even now we were sitting at the dining room table putting together a three thousand-piece puzzle.
Matteo had hung around for a bit, helping us find all of the edge pieces, but had quickly grown bored with the activity and wandered off, leaving Cobb and me in the dining room.
We chatted idly as we put together the puzzle, and I learned that he’d grown up in the Sacramento area with his grandma and mom. He’d never met his father and had no desire to do so, stating that his dad was an alpha who was getting his rocks off with his beta mother before moving on. He had been the top of his class in high school and had graduated early before getting his bachelor's degree at Howard University in Washington D.C. Cobb had originally been planning to go to law school after getting his degree but had randomly struck up a conversation with an FBI recruiter at an event and the rest, according to him, was history.
He had met Theo during his time at Quantico, and the grumpy alpha had been his training agent. My immediate thoughts went to ‘ooh student-teacher relationship,’ and I filed that away for later to think about.
“What about you?” Cobb asked, not looking up from the puzzle piece he was trying to find a mate for. I recognized the subtle shift in his tone from easy-going to probing and knew that he’d shifted into FBI mode.Sigh.
“I’m sure you’ve already read all about me in my file.” I couldn’t help the sharpness of my words, but I was enjoying forgetting all about the reason that I was stuck in this (admittedly) nice apartment. I wished Cobb would just let me live in ignorant bliss, at least for now.
Cobb glanced up from what he was doing, his brown eyes meeting mine, “I actually don’t have your file yet. We’ve been having a bitch of a time getting it unsealed.”
I was taken aback, they seriously hadn’t gotten my file yet? That meant that he probably didn’t know about...well shit. It also meant that, in the house, only Theo knew my whole story and he hadn’t told anyone. My throat tightened with affection for the alpha who was still protecting me, even from the people he loved. Eventually, Cobb would get ahold of my file and everyone would know, but at least for now I could pick and choose what I wanted to share.
Clearing my throat I started to share, at least a part, of my story. “Well, I know now that I was born in Los Angeles—and that my mom was a teen mother. She had me at fifteen and for the first couple of years that I can remember, things were ok, but eventually, one of her friends at work offered her heroin. Soon, we were living in her car and, eventually, we were approached by Hezekiah Jordan who was on a trip to LA. He said that God had shown us to him and that he was here to help us. My mom was maybe twenty at the time? I was still little.” Most of those memories were so blurry that I was never sure if they were actually real or if I had made them up, but my birth certificate listed a hospital in Los Angeles, so they must be true.
“Things were nice at the start, we had a little house on the edge of the compound, and it was super quiet, but eventually my mom’s drug use became too much. She died when I was eleven.” I didn’t add ‘when I perfumed as an omega’ or any of the other details. I wasn’t ready for that yet.
“I lived at the compound until I was fourteen and then Hezekiah Jordan poisoned most of the others at the compound, and finished the job by lighting them on fire. The rest is, well, history.” Literally. I was pretty sure it was in the history books that were used in public schools.
I made a little noise of happiness as I found connecting puzzle pieces and put them together, pleased with myself. At first, I didn’t notice that Cobb hadn’t continued the conversation, so wrapped up in the high of puzzling, but as I hunted for another matching piece, I realized that the other side of the table was quiet.
One glance up at Cobb told me that he’d forgotten all about the puzzle in front of us. His coffee-colored eyes were pinned directly onto my face, sympathy in their depths. I very nearly snapped at him to knock it off, but I remembered Aria’s words from a few days ago, and I exhaled a long calming breath before continuing.
“Please don’t think that I’m complaining. I’m very grateful for the life I have.” All of the years since leaving the compound hadn’t been bad. I’d met Eloise and Gary, and my world had expanded even more now with Aria, Matteo, Theo, and even him.
