With shaking hands, I wrote more, the words spilling onto the page faster than I could control them. "They called me a monster. Unnatural. Wrong. Three nights later they took me to a bus station, gave me twenty dollars, and left me there. I was seven. They said they couldn't keep something like me in their house."
The plants around us responded to my distress, leaves rustling despite the still evening air. A vine from a nearby cucumber plant stretched subtly toward my ankle, not touching but offering silent comfort.
Rooster's face darkened as he read, his jaw tightening beneath his red beard. For a moment, I tensed, ready to flee—but then I realized his anger wasn't directed at me. He was angry for me.
"What kind of parents abandon their child for having a gift?" he growled, the bear in him rumbling just beneath the surface. He closed his eyes, visibly collecting himself before adding more gently, "I'm so sorry that happened to you, Liam."
His acceptance, so different from the rejection I'd faced as a child, loosened something tight in my chest. I found myself writing more, revealing truths I'd never shared with anyone.
"I lived on the streets after that. The plants helped me. Showed me where to hide, which berries were safe to eat, warned me of danger. Without them, I would have died that first winter."
The grass beneath the bench curled upward, almost touching the wooden slats where we sat. A subtle confirmation of my words. I wondered if Rooster could see it—this silent conversation happening around us—or if it was visible only to me.
Rooster nodded as if he understood completely, though I knew he couldn't possibly grasp the depth of my connection to the green world. "They're still looking out for you, aren't they? That's how you found all those devices Victor planted."
I nodded, relieved he'd made the connection without me having to explain further. His acceptance gave me courage to continue writing, to unearth more painful memories I'd buried deep.
"Nobody wanted me. The street kids were worse than being alone. They hurt me. Tried to make me theirs." My pencil faltered, the lead breaking under the pressure of memories I couldn't fully articulate. "I learned to hide. To run. To trust nothing human."
The broken pencil point glared back at me, a fitting symbol for my shattered childhood. Before I could try to sharpen it, Rooster carefully offered me another from his pocket.
Our fingers didn't touch during the exchange, but the gesture itself—this simple act of making it easier for me to continue my story—meant more than any physical contact could have.
The new pencil moved across the paper with determination as I wrote about those first terrible years alone. How I'd learned to become invisible, to scavenge what I needed without being seen, to move from city to city when people started recognizingme or asking questions. How plants had become my only constants, my silent guardians and guides.
As I wrote, the setting sun cast Rooster's face in golden light, highlighting the compassion in his eyes. He read each note carefully, never rushing me, never judging. Just accepting. Understanding. His eyes remained fixed on the pages I handed him, giving me the privacy to compose my thoughts without the pressure of his gaze.
Outside the MC compound, I had been the feral kitten, the wild creature who survived on scraps and shadows. But here in this simple garden, with this man who looked at my brokenness and saw strength, I felt something unfamiliar beginning to take root. Not quite belonging. Not yet. But the possibility of it. Like a seedling breaking through hard soil toward the sun, fragile but determined.
The twilight deepened around us as I continued writing, the pencil moving faster now that I'd broken through the initial barrier of silence. I noticed Rooster shifting slightly on the bench, closing the distance between us by a few careful inches.
My body tensed automatically, but I forced myself not to move away. The closeness was uncomfortable but not unbearable—a strange new feeling after years of maintaining precise boundaries between myself and others.
The notepad felt warm beneath my fingers, absorbing my body heat as I pressed the pencil harder against the paper. What I needed to explain next was the hardest part—the source of my terror when Rooster had mentioned the claiming bite.
The memory I'd run from that night.
"When I was on the streets, older boys found me hiding in an abandoned building during a storm." My hand trembled as I wrote the words. "They offered food. Shelter. Said I could stay if I passed their 'initiation.'"
I passed the note to Rooster, watching his face carefully as he read. His expression remained neutral, though I saw his fingers tighten slightly on the edge of the paper.
I took the notepad back, my chest tightening as I forced myself to continue. Some things needed to be said—or written—no matter how painful.
"They held me down. Their leader bit me, hard enough to draw blood." My pencil dug into the paper, nearly tearing through it. "He said it marked me as theirs. Their property. When they passed out drunk later, I ran. I've been running ever since."
I couldn't look at Rooster as I handed him this note. Instead, I stared at the darkening garden, at the shadows stretching across the grass like elongated fingers.
The memory felt so fresh that I could almost feel phantom hands pinning my arms, the sharp pain as teeth broke skin, the helplessness of being claimed against my will.
The plants around us reacted to my distress—leaves curling inward, stems bending as if in shared pain. A nearby rosebush seemed to fold its thorns closer to its stems, as if offering protection.
When I finally gathered the courage to glance at Rooster, his face had transformed. The usual gentleness in his eyes had hardened into something dangerous—not directed at me, but at the memory of those who had hurt me. His bear was close to the surface, protective and fierce.
"That's not what a claiming bite is supposed to be," he said finally, his voice rough with emotion. "What they did to you wasn't claiming, Liam. It was assault. Violence. A true claiming is about connection, not control."
I nodded, having heard similar explanations from the omegas. But understanding something intellectually didn't erase fifteen years of visceral fear.
I wrote again, the words more hesitant now. "When you talked about biting me that night, all I could remember was being held down. Being marked as property. I couldn't separate the memory from your words."
