Page 77 of Two For the Show
It’s like looking into a mirror into the future.
Dario and I look just like him. It’s a little eerie.
But I’m not here to get a peek at what I’m going to look like when I grow older.
“Why did you do it?” My voice is small, and for a moment, I feel like that seven-year-old boy again. It’s hard to hold back the tears as I stare him down.
My father drops his gaze to the tabletop. “I… Your mother and I had our problems, Dex. We kept them from you two as best as we could.” I don’t say anything, afraid that if I do, he’ll stop talking.
I missed his voice, and it makes me sick to admit that.
“I had several heats where I was left on my own for large parts of it. She was taking care of you two, or had to run into work for a few hours. She never made alternative plans. I begged her for another Alpha, to try to find someone to join our pack because I couldn’t go through another heat like that.”
“That’s not a reason to kill her!” I shout, slamming my hand on the table. The guard takes a step forward, and I shake my head at him, taking a deep, calming breath. “You could’ve found another Alpha and presented them as an option to Mom.”
“I tried!” he insists. “I introduced her to several Alphas that had scents that attracted me. She shot me down every time. The only reason she gave me was that she didn’t trust anyone else around you two.”
“This is all sounding very premeditated,Dad,”I sneer. “But Storm can’t be premeditated, can it?”
He scrubs his hand down his face. “I don’t expect you to understand, Dexter. Maybe one day, when you find your own Omega, you will. But I was miserable. Everything that makes me an Omega was neglected. I’m not saying I was perfect. I have my faults, and I struggled the first few years after you two were born. That put a lot of pressure on her. I thought that if I went off my suppressants and went into heat unexpectedly, she’d be forced to bring in another Alpha to help me while she made plans at work and with you two.”
He was trying to manipulate her to get his way. I push back from the table, about to stand up and walk away, when his hand darts out and grabs mine.
“Please, Dexter.”
The raw pain in his words has me sitting down slowly, unable to break eye contact or shake his grip away.
“That day, I felt like I was a rubber band in danger of snapping. I had a terrible heat spike, and in the middle of it, I was called to pick you two up from school. I had to keep it together to care for you two, and I know I didn’t do a very good job. I let the pain get to my head. Then your mom came home and said she was going to leave with you two. She had threatened before, when I wouldn’t drop the subject of getting another Alpha.”
He rubs his chest at the spot where we were taught in school that bonds manifest. I wonder what a bond feels like after your partner dies.
They never talk about that in health class.
“It still doesn’t explain why you killed her. Why were you calming down and then suddenly kill her? In front of us!” I know I sound hysterical, but I can’t help it.
I can’t get the image of our tan carpet turning dark with her blood out of my head.
“I can’t explain it, Dexter. I wish I could, but I can’t. All I can do is tell you what happened before.”
I don’t know what I expected when I came here. I was seeking closure, and, deep down, a way to forgive him.
But that was pointless.
There is nothing he can say that will let me excuse what he did.
Some things can’t be forgiven.
“Come back to me, Dexter!”Hands grip my shoulders, and burnt cake fills my nostrils. “Please, Alpha, it’s okay, it’s okay. I’m here.”
I open my eyes, my Omega hovering over me.
I flinch back.
The hurt in her eyes as she takes her hands off of me will live forever in my mind, but it was instinctual.
After reliving the trauma of what Dad did and dreaming about visiting him in prison, I struggle to catch my breath in her presence.
Unsafe. Omegas aren’t safe.
