Page 42 of Hangman's Knot
But she should go. She doesn't belong here. She should go somewhere where she will be safe. Where she won't be at risk of being raped and murdered every minute of her life.
She'll still be in danger out there. She's an omega. She'll always be in danger. But he can't think about that.
Anything is better than this hellhole.
That's what he tells himself as he sees the door shut behind her.
Chapter Fifteen
Eden
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She can't say she does well on the outside after being released. It's hard to think that she would struggle more outside of prison than inside it, but there it is. Their absence is like a gaping chest wound, sucking in all the air around her.
She returns to her old apartment, unable to stop her instinctual need to return to what was once her safe place. Her breath catches when it still looks exactly the same as it did before she was arrested, even as Eden feels like an entirely different person as she steps inside it.
The dead plants and rotting dairy products in her fridge are the only difference from how she left her home, her nest. She devolves into deep, belly heaving sobs as she cleans up the wilted brown leaves off the floor and throws out her yogurt from the fridge.
She had paid the rent in advance when she had gotten a rare overtime bonus from the school last summer, so when she gathers up the bills waiting for her in the mailbox, she's only behind on water and electricity.
Her lawyer had set her up with a new job as a secretary for a female beta lawyer she knows, so at least she'll be able to start paying off some of those bills. She'll be able to feed herself and restart her heat suppressant prescription at the very least.
Even if her mates were not there. Even if every step she takes feels like her limbs have been hollowed out and filled with cement.
She looks at herself in the mirror hanging next to her front door. Her face still looked the same. Same puffy full lips and round face and big blue eyes, but her gaze looks hazy and distant and lost now. She feels like she's staring at a stranger.
Her hair is still choppy from where the guards had cut it during her intake and she feels a sob build in her chest. Of all the things to cry over, her hair seems stupid, but she can't help it. She's too scared to try and even out the haircut, so she keeps it pulled back into a bun all the time.
She had always worn her hair down in prison to cover her neck, not wanting the other prisoners looking at it, not wanting them to think about her as an unmarked and unbonded omega, free for the taking. She knew it was a paltry defence, but anything felt better than nothing.
But now with their bites around her like a necklace, she wants everyone to see them. She wants everyone to know she's theirs.
She goes through her life in a daze. Everything seems too bright, too cold, too sweet, or too soft. She cannot believe that there could be anything that she could miss about it, but every day that goes by, she misses the prison. She misses them.
She doesn't sleep more than a few hours at a time, and they're almost always plagued by disturbing and frightening dreams that she can only remember glimpses of when she wakes, heart pounding and nausea roiling in her stomach.
The bond is the only solace, pulsing at the back of her mind like a second heartbeat. She can feel Julius' sturdy presence, feel Luke and Tenor's reassurance.
They call her a day after she gets out, and she nearly cries to hear their voices.
"I don't know how I did this before," she cries, her voice catching and hiccupping even as she tries to pull herself together for them. "I went to the grocery store and I had a panic attack and I had to come home. I didn't even end up getting any groceries. I'm eating canned pears from my cupboard."
Their purrs sound tinny and wrong over the phone line as they ask her about her day, her plans, her apartment, when she is starting her job.
They keep her talking as long as they can until the line goes dead when they run out of minutes. She stands there listening to the beeping of the dropped call for what feels like an eternity before she can command her limbs to hang up the phone.
Her job is mind numbing. Copying, filing, taking the minutes of the lawyer's meetings. She throws herself into the busy work, and then comes home and collapses in her nest.
She finds herself crying at weird times in the day, like while she's in the shower or cleaning her floors or walking home from work, the tears falling silently down her face without even realizing it until one falls in her mouth or her nose starts running.
The only brief moment of light in her days is when they call her in the evening, passing the phone between them as they ask about how she's doing, what she's eating, what she did at work, what was she wearing? Has she done her laundry? Is she okay? Does she need anything? Has she seen anyone following her? Does she feel safe?
They try to convince her to take their money, giving her theirbanking details and telling her that she can use whatever she needs, telling her who to call to wire her more cash, anything she needs, as long as she is safe and comfortable and warm and fed.
She can't take their money though. She's sure they've already paid an exorbitant amount for her lawyer's fees. She can't take any more from them. She can never repay them even as it is. No one has ever offered to pay for things for her before, and the idea makes her feel weirdly cheap.
Tenor and Luke tell her to go see their families. They tell her they'd take care of her. Luke's family is a few states south, but Tenor's is nearby. Just two bus trips away.
