It feels like it’s been hours since the doc left, and I did exactly as I was told. I ate the food, dressed in the grey sweatpants and sweater, and put on the socks and oversized boots, which baffled me entirely as to why I needed them and all the undergarments in the bag. I’m now pacing my cell, wondering if I imagined they had any importance. Maybe he was just being thoughtful and giving me items to aid comfort, and I was looking for something that was not there because I was so desperate for an out. I rummaged in the bag and food, wondering if maybe he left something for me, like a key card, and came up with nothing except confusion, convincing myself I imagined it completely.
I can’t stay here like this, watching her sleep the day away, and if all he is going to do is take tests and fill me in with stories that screw up my head, then this is hopeless. I’m trying to process all of it, and I can’t swallow it right now, so I do what I do best and push it to one section of my brain for a later date when I can handle how awful it makes me feel. Right now, I need to stay focused and find a way out of here on my own.
When Juan gets here, I’m useless against him and his men and can’t do crap about anything, especially not him, as long as this damn building holds my ability to turn captive. And Sierra over there ‘hey, thanks for rendering my gifts useless at a time in my life that I could actually really be using them, and then getting yourself knocked out so I can’t access them. Stellar planning!’
What kind of seer is that? A seer who doesn’t predict the possibility of not being able to give a girl back what’s hers if your beloved mate comatose you! And what kind of witch binds her child and leaves them motherless for ten years if she saw it all coming? If Colton could see things and not be bound, maybe he could have found her a long time ago and avoided all of this. None of this was smart planning on her part. It’s seriously messed up.
I try to stop my erratic mind brewing, only to watch that same female come and tend to Sierra’s machines, stopping my manic foot-stomping around my small space. She disappears just as quickly, without looking my way. I can sense her apprehension the whole time she’s in there. Keeping her eyes averted, obviously uncomfortable they have a prisoner down here, and I watch closely what she does before scampering off, acting like I wasn’t over here staring. Not that she did much to watch. Pressed some buttons, checked some fluids, moved Sierra’s bed up and down, and rearranged her position to avoid sores. Prop her pillows, turn her on her side before pressing more buttons, change her bedsheet, and leave her alone again—basic care and nothing too exciting. I guess I’m thankful they do at least show her some compassion and tend to her frequently, turning her and such.
No matter how much I stand and glare at Sierra, like some kind of creepy psychopath, nothing is waking that woman up, let alone willpower. I can’t imagine what eight years in an induced coma has done to her, to be honest. What state her mind and body would be if we woke her up and now? I doubt if that is plausible at all. For all I know, the drugs over the years have wasted her mind to mush, anyway. Her body has been inactive for so long that I’m assuming instant recovery is not going to happen, or if it’s even possible to wake her after so long. In a building where her powers are bound, she’s basically mortal and susceptible to all the damage and harm an induced coma could do to a human in eight years.
Not to mention the fact she’s lost almost a decade of her life; what would be the consequences of waking her now? The last time she saw Colton, he was a nine-year-old boy, and now he’s a stocky, arrogantly handsome man ... or has the makings of one, at least. That’s bound to confuse her and disorientate her if she wakes up, and ten years ago was just yesterday in her mental timeframe. The world has changed so much, and her mate has brought our mountain to ruin during that time: class and worth divide our people, and the Santos rule with fear.
Maybe I’m not supposed to wake her up. Perhaps she left another way to get back my gifts, and I just had to find her?
My train of thought is interrupted as a lunch trolley is pushed down from the elevator and left outside my door shortly after the woman exits, but the guard, another Santo looking asshole, shrugs at me with a distasteful smug expression, butts up against the glass with his shoulder and lets his eyes walk over me lazily. Pure creep oozing from every pore. It’s the idiot who was sitting at the desk upstairs when Deacon informed him I was to be fed the same mealtimes as the rest of the facility.
“I was told to give you lunch, but Doc stopped me and said you can’t eat anything until he’s taken some sample, so … I guess I leave it here and it gets cold—enjoy. Not that I would advise eating it later.” He smirks, clearly happy with his sad position of power. He is a total omega wolf, low pecking order, and looking for any kind of upper hand to scrape him from the bottom.
I scowl at him, the smell of steak and soup wafting through the glass, and even though he thinks he’s getting some sort of power kick by leaving it out of reach, I don’t even want it. I ate the food earlier, and it confuses me that the doc would insist I ate that and not this. It’s not been long enough to feel hungry yet. I don’t get the sudden urge to tell me not to eat now.
I guess Deacon has briefed his sub-pack on who and what Juan says I am, and they are all part of the Alora fan club right now, given the way this asshole is acting. I can almost taste his dislike and the creepy way he’s eyeing me up like the main course on his dinner menu, giving me bad vibes. He reminds me of that jerk Damon who used to watch me all through school and tried to get at me in the hallway for a grope and forced kiss. He was a perverted creep who liked control over girls, much like this idiot.
“Why don’t you have it? You could use some extra energy boosts. I mean, if the chase in the forest was anything to go by.” I give him the same friendly passive-aggressive attitude that I give Deacon, and he grins, ear to ear, as though he’s too stupid to realize it was a dig. Annoyingly smug, and if he weren’t such a jerk, he would be kind of cute, in the whole Colton way.
Damn, I need to stop doing that. Comparing every hot dark-skinned Latino to him then finding fault because it’s not him. I get it. I still give a rat’s ass, and I still miss him constantly, and every dark-haired, dimple-cheeked, and dreamy-eyed, hot Colombian, brings him back to the forefront; but God—timing. If he were Colton, he would let me out in a heartbeat, and he would never throw such a smug look at me for something so absurd. If Colton were here, he would know what to do about this whole mess. He always seems wiser, like he has all the answers, and would probably be handing this idiot his genitals back about now.
I can’t fault that part of Colton, even when he was a jerk in our youth. Apart from that one time when he shoved me out of his way for epically tripping in front of him and his entire rabid crew, he was never an ass to people for no reason. He was always so effortlessly superior and seemed aloof and quiet like he was better than us. It was all in the looks he gave rather than the verbal content, but I guess he has an intimidating way about him, even when he doesn’t mean it.
He was a proper bro type who hung with his pack, played sports, and walked around like Danny from the movie Greece. Everyone looked up to him and kissed his ass when he waltzed by. I guess maybe he was not very sociable with those outside of his sub pack because that’s not who I know now, and his memories don’t show an asshole like that either. Colton doesn’t like to get close to people outside his circle. I guess it’s because he lost so many in the war and his mother.
He has a wall up and keeps everyone outside his pack on the other side of it. I think it’s why he tries so hard to make his father proud; he loves him, even if he’s not worthy of being loved, and that’s not Colton’s fault. That’s Juan’s. Colton’s flaw is trying to be this perfect Santo wolf, with a weight of responsibility on his shoulders that one day he will lead. He follows the rules, the laws, and the Alpha's word without conflict, as he’s meant to, and even puts all of that over his own desires. I guess a leader has to be that way, innate greatness, where his heart can’t always lead, and it only further cements the fact that he’ll be the best for his people one day, but for us, not so much.
I get back to my previous activity when smiley, smug guard walks off, getting bored with my disinterest in him, and I go back to pacing the room and looking for any kind of tool, or valuable item, to get out. It didn’t last long and enforced that he’s an omega and low on the scale of things. Used to being ignored and dismissed, he quietly slinks off. Thankfully, as I have no mind space for asshats. I’m uptight, worn thin, and agitated about my current predicament, with so many warring emotions coming at me from my mind.
The cupboards are full of medical crap, bandages, and nothing even sharp or useful. It’s practically an empty room, and anything with real weight is bolted down into concrete floors with steel pins. There’s nothing that could be of any real use, let alone as a weapon of sorts, and I end up throwing my cushions against the glass in frustration when my anger bubbles up and I can’t contain it anymore.
I have so many swirling emotions I don’t know what to do with. Vibrating energy pulsing through my core, and I’m mentally up and down and all over the place. One second, I want to cry, lie down and sob, and then the next, I’m angry, furious, boiling over, and want to slash Juan into a thousand tiny, bloody pieces for everything that brought me here and my entire life since they went to war. Just when it feels like it reaches overwhelming levels and I can’t breathe for the suffocating need to expel this hatred physically, in the next breath, I’m calm and logical and trying to plan a way out. I can’t keep up, and it’s exhausting.
Time alone to think and let it sink in has done nothing except get me riled and upset, and yes, I’ve cried buckets. I sat in a huddle in the corner for a good twenty minutes and sobbed my heart out while it felt like it was breaking again, much like when I left Colton and found myself alone without him and had no choice but to keep going. Soon as the doc left, it was all I could do—for me, my mother, brother, and father, family, and pack. For the mate I can never have.
I cried until my nose ran, and I couldn’t breathe, and I drenched the upper part of my gown because I was still wearing it at that point, and the cold wet spreading across my chest on thin fabric was strangely comforting. Mirroring how my soul felt and how it was seeping into every pore. I felt hopeless, weak, and broken, and I have no idea how to get past that.
It was for Colton and Sierra, too, for their pain, loss, and this whole goddamn mess. For the life I should have had, the family I should have still been with, and the mate I would have imprinted on and been allowed to be with. It would have still been Colton. That’s what the Fates decided a long time ago, but I would never have had to leave him, and I would be with him now, safe in his arms and calmed by his touch. Guided by that wise part of him that always seems to know what’s going on. Only it failed him when he needed that gift the most.
I miss him so much it kills me, even if I can’t get past what he’s done to our bond, and he still breaks me. It adds to my urgency in looking around for some kind of pointer on what to do. I shake myself and remind myself that the girl I was she’s dead. Little Alora of the Whyte pack at Elren farm, peacefully living a carefree life. The war saw her parents’ unplanned departure, and Juan saw they never returned. She died a long time ago when her life was turned upside down, altering everything she knew. Her path disintegrated, and all those dreams and hopes fluttered away in the breeze.
That unwanted, rejected, and feeble little no one who imprinted on a boy ten years later, who stood in her place—also dead! She couldn’t be allowed to love her fated mate because of what she was. She never really existed anyway. She was a lie that was fed to me and made me live under a mask of my own making because I never knew the truth, and this girl, this one right here, she’s the Alora who’s been holding her breath and waiting for me to find her.
She’s the daughter of a warrior. The daughter of a prophetic Queen who was slain for her power. She’s the heroine of a prophecy, and she’s a goddamn white wolf with red eyes, which makes her some kind of hybrid with gifts. Gifts that a witch thought so powerful, she bound them until a time came when she needed to get them back. A witch who sacrificed her life and her son's sanity to protect her. She’s someone to be reckoned with; she needs to find a way to bloom.
That doesn’t sound like any kind of weak no one to me, not a reject, or unworthy of an Alpha mate, and I need to own that shit. A black cloud of shame and failure has overshadowed everything I’ve done in my life for the past ten years, and believe I was never good enough because they told me so—but now it’s gone. Almost like someone lifted that lid and finally uncaged my soul. There’s nothing over my head weighing me down now, and that little voice that second-guessed it all—it’s dead, too. That was never my voice; it was theirs in the world around the mountain. I am deaf to their sounds now.
This girl has a right to stand up and be counted as someone worthy, and the Fates, for whatever reason, led me here, and I need to see it through. They knew me before I existed, and I was part of the plan. They know what I’m capable of, and they set me on my way to ensure I showed everyone else. If they got me this far, they might have a plan, and I should stop fighting and listen. Close my eyes and let the Fates send me some message through the cosmos and the air because this is not how it ends.
The noise of the elevator interrupts my train of thought, a noise so perfectly on cue. I blink and open my eyes, and my head spins towards the source. Half expecting Deacon to stroll in and make my day worse, if that’s even possible; it’s the doc, and he’s pushing a cabinet on wheels with all manner of things sliding off the top as he dashes to Sierra’s room. I’m drawn to the wall to watch him, suspicious of his behavior, and forgetting my pep talk and internal boosting of confidence.
He seems different somehow. Wired maybe, a little erratic, his walking around and hurried movements abrupt. He drops a scattering of implements on the floor, the noise of cascading metal and hard objects clattering and echoing in this large space as he abandons the cart outside Sierra’s door and swipes the panel to open it. He stops before entering, picks them up, and throws them back on top. Scooping any more he disturbs with his ungraceful and somewhat rushed movements and then runs into her room and starts frantically pressing buttons on machines by her head.
I can’t do much else but watch, and as he picks up small mobile devices and sits them on her bed, his face severe and ashen and entirely focused on what he is doing, I realize he’s not just checking on her. Something’s up. His expression says it all; there’s no hint of the gentle, pleasant, eccentric doctor at this moment. He looks frayed and afraid.
Even from here, I can see he’s sweating, his forehead blushed and shiny, and his white jacket's underarms are darkening with excessive body heat. He’s in a state of panic, and I look around, expecting his staff or the guards to come flooding down, suddenly worried about why. My nerves hitch as my stomach ties itself in knots, and I end up flat to the window, palms pressed by the sides against the glass, breathing heavily as I watch, anchored to my spot.
Maybe Sierra is crashing. Maybe all I was to do was witness her die. God no, please, Colton needs to see her one last time. She can’t die; he needs her! I can’t stand the thought of him losing her without saying goodbye. I need to know what I’m supposed to do now.
The doc unhooks her from the machine, keeping her heartbeat monitored loudly, and I hold my breath, inhaling sharply as the beep, beep stops so suddenly the air becomes unbearably silent. I don’t get why he would take that off, but when he yanks another box from under the bed and plugs her into that instead, I exhale, slightly confused. That familiar beep, beep, starts up again in a subtler tone from a different machine, and he moves to the next and the next, replacing everything he can with smaller mobile devices as my brain pulls together amid my frantic fear and gives me a shake.
He’s not trying to save her or take her off the machines; he’s making her mobile so he can move her.
He stops, rushes off out of sight as he heads into the elevator once more, abandoning everything he’s left in chaos. A moment later, he comes crashing back ungracefully, pushing another bed. This time it’s on wheels, back to her room. I press my cheek to the cool, smooth wall in front of me, eyes locked on and heart rate hitching as it filters through. He catches me watching him, notices me with a second snap of his head as though he didn’t see me the first time, and makes a weird waving gesture with his hands that translates to nothing. I don’t understand.
“What?” I yell back, unsure what he’s doing, and he does it again, waving two fingers in the air, which I can only assume means two minutes. I move back, confusion taking over, but intrigue is the dominant feeling. A thousand questions about why he’s moving her replaces everything else that had been coursing through me. I watch as I’ve nothing else to do, and over here, it’s all I am capable of anyway, as he struggles to get her from one bed to the other and shakes his head in defeat, face getting redder and sweatier as he does. He pulls out a handkerchief from his top pocket, pats his face, and puts it back while he seems to take a moment to size up his plan. He clicks his fingers in mid-air like he just had a ‘Eureka’ moment and then abandons her, turning and heading towards me at speed. A complete look of determination on that furrowed brow, an overly serious expression, as he dashes at me.
He crosses the bay so quickly and without hesitation, opens my door, and gestures with flicking hands for me to come with him. His face is almost beetroot and soaked with sweat. He looks like he’s just run a marathon.
“What’s going on?” I eye him warily, unsure how to feel about his current behavior, and try to figure out if he’s drunk. He’s breathless as hell and can barely talk.