I blinked hard, pushing back the sting in my eyes of memories I had long since lost. Crying wouldn’t help. Crying has never helped me here.
I dropped the brush again. Scrubbed more. I tried to pretend the room didn’t feel like it was swallowing me whole.
I knew what happened in this room. Everyone did it. You didn’t have to see it to understand. The walls held the memory of it — the fear, the noise, the way Omega’s cries could echo long after he was dragged out.
I tried not to think about the pain someone must’ve felt being strung up by their arms like that. Thinking about it made my stomach twist.
None of us forgot what happened to the ones who broke the rules. None of uscould.
The first rule they taught me carved itself into my bones faster than anything else.
Don’t speak unless spoken to.
Mama used to tell me not to interrupt people, especially the Alphas. She said it was polite. Respectful. But here, it wasn’t about manners. Here, even answering too quickly, even trying to explain oneself, could earn a sharp smack to the side of the head.
That first time stunned me so badly I couldn’t breathe for a second. After that, I didn’t try again. Not that I talked a lot these days anyway. Talking felt like asking for trouble. So, I kept my head down. I kept my mouth shut.
I swiped a wet hand across my forehead, pushed a strand of hair out of my eye, and tried to empty my mind. I tried tothink about anything other than what I was scrubbing off the floor.
With enough effort, my thoughts drifted somewhere else — somewhere warmer, softer. I refused to let this place take it from me.
The details weren’t as sharp as they used to be, fading around the edges like an old picture, but the feelings were still there.
Safety. Happiness. Love.
All the things I missed most.
All the things this place couldn’t strip out of me, no matter how hard it tried.
I let the memory pull me in, gentle as a tide. It wasn’t sharp anymore, more like sunlight through a window, warm but blurry around the edges. Still, it was enough.
I remembered the way the air smelled back home, clean and sweet, like pine trees and the soap Mama used on laundry days. I remembered a boy’s laugh, who was loud and bright. I remembered how safe I felt walking beside him, how his hand always found mine without even thinking about it.
I remembered being happy without trying.
Back then, the world felt big in a good way. Full of things to explore, not things to fear.
I held onto it now, those feelings, as I knelt on the floor in a place that didn’t know what warmth was. I held on because it was the only part of me that still felt real.
Ten years of me being here, learning therulesof Lockswell Boarding House. Rules that were meant to be broken, because there was never going to be a way for me to be that perfect.
Don’t speak unless spoken to.
Don’t take what isn’t given.
Obey all orders from Alphas.
Must always have perfect posture.
I knew I wasn’t perfect, not to the standards that were expected of me here. And I paid the price for it.
Many times.
It didn’t matter if I failed anymore; the handlers always found something I wasn’t doing right. There was no winning here, no way to be perfect enough.
Pulling myself out of the memory before it swallowed me whole, I glanced over the floor one more time, checking for any trace of dried blood I might’ve missed. My hands were shaking, but I forced them still. Stillness was safer. Stillness meant I wasn’t breaking any rules.
The door clicked open behind me, and my entire body went ridged.
