Chapter Thirteen

Trigger Warning: really sad, implies rape

*** = flashback

KIAN

I stare at Bridger with wide eyes as he talks. He's calm but I can tell he's freaking out with the way he talks with his hands and the hint of anger behind his voice.

My whole body is stiff as I try to grasp onto reality but it's slowly fading away to the back of my mind. I can still hear Bridger but his deep voice is a hum to feel the silence that's weighing down on me. I can hear my breathing: big, rapid gulps of air. There's a weight on my chest. It crushes me and pulls me deep into the ground I didn't realize I'd sat on. I was standing just seconds ago.

The weight forms in my stomach and crawls up my chest, squeezing my lungs and sitting right on top of my diaphragm. It travels rapidly up my esophagus and settles around my throat. My eyes burn now. Have I blinked yet? I can't seem to find the ability to do so. I just stare at Bridger and then I glance over to Mika who has been curled up with Jenna for hours. He's crying. His small body shakes against Jenna's and Jenna holds him the best she can.

Katie is here but she stands in the back with her mate. Her face is hidden behind her shaking hands. Only her wide, blue eyes can be seen as she stares at Bridger.

"Peyton...he...he was taken back."

The sentence spins circles in my head. It's so fast. It's too fast. It churns in my stomach. I can't digest it. We were doing so well. We were going to get out of here and be happy and live. I was training to protect him and we were going to leave our past behind us. But then he got scared and he ran out of the clinic. If only he hadn't run out of the clinic. Why didn't he listen to me? Why didn't he trust me?

I stop breathing. No, I'm breathing too fast now; so fast it feels like I'm not breathing at all. My heart is hammering away at my chest and it shakes my whole body like a giant is knocking on the door of a tiny house. I sink further away from it all. My breathing echoes. It's so loud. My heart is too loud, it bounces off the walls. The walls are fading.

Peyton? Peyton, can you hold me again like you always do? Like you always have?

***

Through the blackness, I can see a boy.

He's curled in the corner, away from everyone else. His arms are wrapped around his legs, his head hidden between his knees.

I hold my coat Mommy gave me tightly around me. It's too big but it's warm and soft. She was always mean to me but this coat is really nice. She gave it to me before I came here. She told me it's a gift for being the perfect omega. I still don't know what she meant by that. She and Dad always hit me and told me things that didn't mean perfect. But anyway, I'm happy she gave me the coat. It's really cold in here.

The boy looks really cold.

Slowly, I stand up from my spot. I think everyone else is asleep, but the boy hasn't been asleep since we all settled. He should rest but I guess he can't because it's so cold in this room.

"Hey," I whisper. I don't want to wake anyone...they might get mad.

He looks up at me but his face stays between his knees. I smile at him. He doesn't smile back. That's okay.

"I'm warm," I say and point at my coat, "it's soft in here."

"Good for you," he grumbles. Oh no, I made him mad...

"Do you want to share?" I ask carefully. I'm not very good at talking. Dad says omegas don't need to talk. He'd slap me and make my teeth hurt if I talked too much. He would yell and hurt me. Talking is hard now, but I shouldn't do it much anyway.

"Your coat?" he asks. I nod and open it for him, to welcome him in. I can share some of my warmth!

Why didn't his Mommy give him a coat? My Mommy must have known it would be very cold in this room. Maybe his didn't. That makes me sad. But it's okay because he can have some of my coat.

"Are you cold?" I ask. "I can share you my warm!"

"It's I can share my warmth with you," he says.

"Oh...I can share my warmth with you!"

He cracks a smile. It's very small and I can barely see it because it's so dark in here. I feel him move against me and I wrap my warm coat around him. He is really cold! His cold skin makes me flinch when he touches my warm skin. But he'll be warm soon and we'll both be really warm together!

"My name is Kian!" I whisper.

He hugs me tightly, taking all my warmth.

"Peyton."

"Hi, Peyton."

"Hi, Kian."

---

It hurts. Goddess, it hurts. It hurts so bad. I can't move. My limbs are too heavy. Pain weighs them down and the slightest movement sends agonizing pain through my body. Crying hurts too much so I lie on the basement floor with tears drying on my face.

I'm almost asleep, the pain dulling my senses and dragging me into a temporary stupor before knocking jerks me back to reality. I stare at the wall in front of me. Maybe I just imagined it.

I want to sleep. I don't want to feel this anymore. The pain. The disgust. I can still feel Jason's hands on me. I can feel him everywhere. I don't want to anymore. I just want to sleep forever. Please, Goddess. Please. Please. Please. Take me away from here.

Knocking again. I guess it's real. Everything is real. Everything is too real. The pain is too real. The disgusting feeling of him is too real. The only thing that isn't real is Goddess Herself. I wish I wasn't real.

I wish I was a fake deity that helpless omegas prayed to every time their owner attacks and rapes them in the basement. I wish I was a fake deity so that I could ignore those prayers because I will never know what it feels like.

I wish I was the dirt on the floor. I might as well be. But the dirt on the floor is never in pain.

I wish I wasn't real. Then I wouldn't feel this pain or the disgust or the self-hatred or the self-pity or anything. I wouldn't feel anything. I wouldn't be anything.

Knocking. More knocking. Too much knocking. Too much.

It's too much.

"Stop," I croak out. Stop stop stop. Stop, it's too much. I want to be unreal. Let me be unreal. Like Syrus. I want to be like Syrus. Taken by a fake deity to a fake world where he wouldn't have to feel this real pain.

More knocking.

"STOP!" I yell and it hurts. My belly, my neck, my legs, my arms, my back, my head, my heart, my lungs. The blood rushing to keep me alive hurts, gravity crushing my body against this floor hurts.

"Kian!"

Peyton's voice. It's Peyton. The knocking is Peyton.

He's real.

I can't move to let him in. He knocks some more and I imagine myself raising my hand to show him that I'm alive. He can see me through the window near the ceiling. Usually, I'd use a broom to hit it open and he'd jump in. But I can't move.

"Peyton," I say but he can't hear me because he's outside. "Peyton, it hurts."

He'd know what to do. I just have to let him in.

I open my eyes. They've been shut all this time. I swore they were open. But that's no matter, they're open now. The first few seconds are the hardest. I imagine myself moving but my brain seems disconnected from my body. I can't move. It's like sleep paralysis.

But then, I manage to move. And Goddess, it's agonizing. But I manage to get up on wobbly, naked legs. I forgot that I'm nude but it doesn't matter now. I grab the broom and raise it. At least, I try to. It feels like I'm lifting one million pounds as I raise the broom above my head and bang it against the window. It's broken so it opens pretty quickly.

I fall back down; crumbling into a nasty pile of flesh. I near Peyton squeeze himself through the window and fall to the ground. Before I know it, his blanket is wrapped around me and he pulls me into him.

"I got you, Kian," he whispers.

"Hold me, please," I whisper back, scared that if my voice were any louder, it would break me.

"I will," he says, "I'm here."

***

When I wake up from a nap I don't remember taking, I immediately notice Bridger. I'm in my room, in the packhouse and he's sitting in the armchair across the room. I frown, wondering why he's here before I turn my head to the side to see if he had been talking to Peyton.

When I see Peyton's neatly made bed, something awful settles inside of me. And when realization punches me in the gut, I cover my mouth as a sob builds up in my throat.

"Hey, hey," Bridger is beside me now, crouching so that our eyes are level. "Just breathe with me, Kian."

He breathes in through his nose and then out of his mouth. We do this together for what feels like forever until the dread that had been consuming me slowly fades away, as if crawling back into its cave and waiting to get me again.

"You had a panic attack earlier," he explains, "after I told you the news."

"Peyton—" I can't even finish my sentence. "Th-They're going to hurt him."

He stares at me with his lips pressed in a thin line. He can't deny it or try to make me feel better because he doesn't understand. They will hurt him. They're probably hurting him right now. He was always there for me when I was hurt and now he's alone. Goddess, he's alone.

"No," I say as I sit up in his bed. "I have to go back."

"No way, Kian," Bridger argues.

"Peyton is alone!" I cry, "he needs someone – he needs me. We've always had each other, y-you don't understand."

"Then help me understand," Bridger says, "but Kian, please, you can't go back there. Peyton needs you to stay–"

"You don't know what he needs!" I don't mean to shout but I do and I immediately apologize, "I'm sorry for yelling, it's just...Peyton and I have always had each other. We met when I was taken from my family and we became best friends. Peyton acts hard and angry but he's so kind and he risked it all for our escape — we all did — but he planned it. It was the first time I had ever seen him so hopeful, he even shared his plans about our new lives. And now he's back with those terrible people."

I feel sick as I imagine what he could be going through right now. Peyton is strong, stronger than me but I still feel awful not being there with him.

"Kian," Bridger begins. I look at him and I can tell he's struggling to find the right words. "Both you and Peyton are incredibly strong, but you're here and he's there. You need to stay here, we need to continue training, and when it's time for you to leave, I have a feeling that Peyton will find his way to you. You have to trust me on this, Peyton will get through this and you will see each other."

I want to scream at Bridger and then I want to scream at Goddess. Why do we have to suffer? What has Peyton ever done that's so terrible he has to suffer now? What have I done? What have any of us done? But it's no use, Bridger is trying to help and Goddess won't hear me. Bridger is right, I need to stay here and get stronger for myself, Peyton, Katie, Jenna, and Mika. It's the least I can do for Peyton who helped us escape.

"We won't be training today," Bridger says, "but I do have something for you."

He walks over to his bag by the armchair and reaches in. He pulls out a black box and walks over to me with it in his hand. I stare at the box as he hands it to me. There's a drawing of a lighter black rectangular object in the middle. On the bottom of the box, it says Galaxy s23 Ultra.

"What is this?" I ask, "another lesson? About the galaxies?"

Bridger stifles a laugh as he shakes his head. He takes a seat on my bed and takes the box from me before opening it.

"No, it's a smartphone," he says, "it helps you keep in contact with people and be entertained. Werewolves usually don't use them since we have the mind link but you and I don't have one."

He pulls out a thin rectangle with a glossy screen, like a tiny TV. There are five circles on the back and I wonder what they're all used for. I've never seen one of these before.

"I figured now with Peyton gone, you might get a little lonely — of course, you have Mika, Jenna, and Katie, but I was just...I know you and Peyton are really close. I got this for you so if you ever need someone to talk to you, you can talk to me anytime you want."

He stumbles over his words a bit but I ignore it. "How?" I ask.

He pats the bed beside him and I quickly sit down as he holds the smartphone in front of him. I can see my reflection through the screen: messy. I look terrible and suddenly I'm embarrassed for looking so bad. I half expect him to be disgusted by my appearance but he hasn't said or expressed anything about it. I avert my gaze to my hands so I won't have to look anymore.

"Phones are very simple to use," he says, "humans invented them and they are very slowly infiltrating the supernatural species on Earth. But nonetheless, I'll teach you how to use it and maybe it'll help take your mind off of Peyton."

_____ _____ _____ _____

I knew that as soon as it became dark out and everyone had settled down, it would be the hardest. I wanted to ask Mika to stay in the room with me just so I could be near another person and not in this big room alone but then I thought about Peyton and the punishments he must have already faced. Alone.

Then I felt sick and when I took a shower, I felt even more sick because how could I try to comfort myself when Peyton is in trouble? Who is comforting him? But I let myself stay in the shower a little longer than usual. I let the scalding hot water run down my head and back. It got so hot in there that I could barely breathe or maybe that was because I was crying. I felt so selfish but I couldn't find the energy to move out of the shower.

Now I'm lying in my bed, eyes trained on the dark ceiling above me. The weight that has settled on me since the news isn't as heavy as it was but it's still there, forcing me to take short gasps of air.

I turn my head to face Peyton's side of the room. His bed is still neatly made, his night clothes near the edge. His towel from his morning shower is lying across his dresser. Peyton has always been very neat and tidy. The room that he had in our old pack was small and disgusting but he fixed it up to the best of his abilities, saying how his parents never wanted a messy house. He rarely talked about his parents but when he did, a sadness so deep would wash over him so much so that I could feel it.

I curl into a ball, still facing his side. I want to sleep with him again and hug him tightly and feel warm and safe. Goddess, he might as well be dead now. What if Bridger is wrong? What if I never find him again?

Peyton is my best friend. He'll never admit it but we are each other's best friends. And what if we never see each other again?

What if they kill him?

That thought opens the gates for far too many memories from our pack. They flood my mind and all I can see is myself lying on the ground, bloody, and nasty and Peyton was always there. He'd clean me and hold me and whisper that one day we would see better days. I see Peyton after his third time giving birth, sitting on his worn-down mattress. He's tired, exhausted but not from giving birth. From everything. He's staring off into space and it was then that I saw the tiny sliver of hope he once had fade away right in front of me. I remember holding him too but I couldn't promise anything. Just warmth, that's all I could give.

No, no, this is too much. I feel the panic creeping onto me. I clutch my blanket but it's too late now, I can't stop the panic from grabbing my throat. I choke out a sob as I sit up straight as a board. It's too dark in here. It's too silent. I just want to crawl into bed with Peyton so all the evil thoughts will go away.

Goddess, I'm so weak.

Bridger will never be able to change that.

Bridger...

I look over at the phone he gave me earlier today. The black object lays on the nightstand underneath the lamp with a cable — a "charger" — attached to it. I quickly grab it and carefully put my thumb against the spot Bridger taught me. It turns on immediately and I waste no time going to the "message" icon where I find Bridger's name. He had "texted" me earlier to show me how these messages work and I stare at the "hi :)" for a while. Taking a deep breath, I type a quick message and press send.

He answers back almost immediately.

---

Word Count: 3149

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