Just me, and somehow, that’s worse. A lot worse.
Dragging a hand through my hair, I pace back and forth, allowing my thoughts to run as much as they need before stopping again. “…Now what?”
Only silence answers me while it presses in, and I exhale slowly, but it does nothing to settle the tangled emotions inside me. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt this conflicted or aimless before.
A few weeks ago, everything made sense. Not necessarily in a good way, or a way I liked, but it was clear.
I knew who I was, what I was supposed to do, and where I stood. There was Wraith Peak, my father, Hayes, and the pack to contend with, and I knew my place in it.
Even if I hated parts of it and felt trapped, I understood it. There was a purpose and direction, but now, everything’s fractured and unrecognizable. Being taken started me down a path I didn’t know how to navigate, and since then, everything has spiraled out of control.
Putting two fingers against my temples, I let go of a shaky exhale and try to focus, even if it’s fruitless.
With Zane and the others, I’m not just something to be used. I’m not just a piece on a board being moved around at will, and I’m not just the Alpha’s sister or an Omega fading in the background.
Regardless of everything else, I’ve been able to exist as me, and the realization hits harder than it should.
It shouldn’t feel like a revelation. It should be normal and almost obvious, yet it isn’t. It never had the chance to be before.
I let out a hollow laugh and mutter, “Fantastic.”
But the humor doesn’t stick because the other side of it is still there and still clawing its way up from the depths within me.
Even if I can still hear my father’s voice and his expectations, along with everything he drilled into me and everything Hayes reinforced, I know now I was used and conditioned. I was shaped into something that served their goals, and I’m not blind to it anymore.
I know the way I acted and the things I did weren’t entirely my own, but knowing that doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t erase it, and it definitely doesn’t quiet the part of me that still feels like I have something to prove.
Clenching my fists at my sides, I can’t shake the loud and demanding part that still exists in me.
You’re not done. You can’t just walk away…you have to show them.
Show Hayes, the pack, and everyone else that I’m not weak or expendable. That I’m not just the Omega they can overlook and discard when it suits them.
But there’s also another voice now that’s quieter and more uncertain, like it hasn’t fully formed yet. It keeps asking me the same question:
What if you don’t have to?
I freeze while the thought sits there uncomfortably like an unfamiliar thing, because if I’m not proving myself and if I’m not fighting for that place, then what am I doing? Who am I?
The questions hit harder than anything else, and I don’t have an answer.
Instead, I stare out at the trees with a heavy heart full of everything I’m struggling to carry at once.
“I don’t know,” I whisper, noting how wrong the admission feels.
It’s like I’ve just stripped something away that I can’t get back. I hate the fractured emptiness it leaves behind.
More so, I hate not knowing and feeling like I’m standing between two versions of myself, with no idea which one is real or which one is safe.
The bond pulses again, softer this time, as if Zane’s reaching out to me. He’s still there, waiting and watching, and feeling more comforting than he has any right to.
Part of me wants to block it out, but the other needs it to keep steady.
Exhaling slowly, I don’t make any effort to hide my turmoil. No matter how frustrating he is, or how much we clash, he sees me differently, and he always has.
In his eyes, I’m something that matters. Someone to protect and worry over, even when I’m being stubborn.
The thought unsettles me still, and I don’t know what to do with it.
