Page 19 of Ruin Me Knot
My voice slips to a whisper. "Are they happy?"
A body shifts against the door and Jax says, "Emma lives by the beach. She has sun, sand, freedom."
The memory of Emma painting word pictures about waves and salt-air sharpens behind my eyes. She made it real.
Ronan chimes in. "Mira started an Omega rehabilitation center at Pinnacle Therapeutics. A place just for Omegas like you, like her. Survivors who need time and safety to find their feet again."
That name stings, confusing and sharp. "Pinnacle?" Hardwick constantly cursed the company. They manufacture the suppressants she wanted to stop from reaching the people who needed them.
"Mira’s Alphas own it. Adrian’s the founder and CEO. They’re making real progress with the Mortalis Strain, too. Adrian’s always wanted to fix the Omega birth problem at the roots, but now he finally can."
The words swirl, too big to grasp.
The Mortalis Strain. The nightmare in my veins.
Cold numbness spreads from the center of my chest because the Mortalis Strain was the first thing Hardwick injected when she dragged me from that ravine. I’m her biggest success. The Omega who survived when so many others didn’t. Both a quandary and a reason to keep experimenting.
I’m infected with the virus that killed countless Omegas and doomed my future.
I always wondered why she would work on a virus that exterminates Omegas when, being an Alpha herself, she should want more Omegas born. There’d be no need to fight over Omegas. No need to covet or control.
If I lived in a world like that, I might never have known the hells of Haven. The terror of the facility. Endless heats, the agony of my body being pulled apart month after month.
I shouldn’t be alive. And yet I am. I survived it all when so many others didn’t.
The truth slams through me.
No matter how soft these Alphas speak, how much hope they promise, I can never see Emma or Mira again. Not ever. The strain lives inside me. And if I’m near anyone I love, I’ll send death to them, too.
Chapter Ten
Leah
The sounds start small. Nothing more than a catch in my throat, but it grows into something I can't swallow and, oh Gods, I can’t let them hear me. I press my face into the sopping pillow, pushing so hard the material nearly suffocates me because I never,never, lose control like this. Not even in the basement at Haven. Nor in my cell at the facility. I stuffed every drop of blistering emotion beneath the fury that kept me strong. The rage that kept me fighting. Kept me quiet so I didn’t show the guards, or Hardwick, or Wallace, what they really did to me.
I refused to give them thatsatisfaction.
Silent defiance was all I had left. They stripped away everything else. It was the only part of myself I could still claim.
And now that’s slipping away too.
The cotton goes cold against my mouth as muffled sobs tear from me anyway. I twist my fists in the fabric. My legs draw tight until I’m curled into a ball. Snot and tears run together, soaking through the material. I choke them down, but the harder I fight, the worse the sounds get.
Staying angry was easy.
Anger was something to stack between me and everything that wanted to break me. Rage kept out hope because I had none. It gave me rules when everything was chaos. I could count on the burn of it, but now, suddenly, I’m not at Haven or the facility and there is no structure anymore.
There are Alphas.
Who talk and not bark at me.
Who listen and not demand.
Who wait for answers I don’t want to give.
And I…I don’t know how to fucking take them.
I reach for familiar fury, try to stoke it, but all I find is a scorching twister inside my head. My thoughts crash into each other. Run. Fight. Scream. Give in. I’m safe, but not. Free, but trapped. Maybe this is what safety feels like. Unbearable. Unstructured. Nothing but soft things too fragile to grip. I don’t know how to want comfort. I don’t know what I’ll become if I let the anger go, if I drop my guard and let this ache show.
