Inhumane

036

PAIGE

I wake up angry. The first thing I know is that someone is pounding on our front door. The second thing I know is that my anger isn't subtle, it's consuming. Outside the sky is inky black, so I know it must be late, but after falling asleep I'm not sure how late or even what day it is.

Sitting up, I realize I'm still in the clothes Rhia put me in and Damon is warm and silently sleeping to my right. I take his hand and squeeze it between my fingers. Then I lean over and kiss his lips softly, afraid of hurting him. I drag myself out of bed and stalk to the front door feeling tense and hot. I swing open the heavy door with a growl only to be cut short by Arlo standing on the other side of it. I know I'm not ready to see him. My stomach drops.

He stirs up something inside of me that I don't know if I'm ready to face. When I see him, I think about what Tye told me. And thinking about Tye brings back everything from that night. Everything I had been so desperately trying to block out. I need Damon before I can even begin to process. 

Arlo's smile falls slightly as he reads my face. "I'm glad you're okay," he says kindly. My face must look horrible.

I can't respond to that and it's completely rude. Instead, when my mouth opens the words tumble out. "Did you change her? The day you last saw her. Was that what the fight was about?"

The Alpha's face completely falls as he recalls that day. His own expression relays his devastation, either by what I know or the history that occurred that night. Arlo stands there, tall and strong and solemn. He looks old and unbearably tired in that moment. "Yes, Paige. I changed her the last day I saw her."

I slam the door in his face.

I stumble into the kitchen without any ability to stop crying. My sobs are so violent that I am screaming out in agony. My cries are choked by the hitching of my breath as I collapse on the hardwood flooring. When I close my eyes I see the picture of my mother with the bullet hole in her chest. I see my father closing over me with his hands locked around my throat. I see his eyes roll back in his head as I put a bullet through his body. I see Damon tied to the pole, Damon in the conibear trap, Damon bleeding to death. I see Tye over me and under me and his fists turning my skin black and blue and red. When I close my eyes, the things I try so hard to put away refuse to leave me. They cling to my skin like grime, guilt so thick that I writhe on the hardwoods until I can no longer sob. My pain is so severe, I know a hole has opened up in my chest. I am swallowed whole by my grief.

Curling into the fetal position, I silently shake with heaving sobs that squeeze my lungs tight. Closing my eyes leads me away from the house and deep into my thoughts. I don't want to think about the pain and the trauma that took hold of my life. But I do.

And slowly, it all comes back to me.

It takes me hours to pick myself up off the floor. But I do.

Without understanding what I am doing, I make my way to Damon and pull the armchair up to the side of our bed. Before I sit, I check his IV fluids and the insertion site like Alkaline showed me. I feel unbearably numb, as if my mind is trapped deep inside a body that runs on autopilot. The feeling reminds me of when I was first brought into this pack, how angry and cruel I had been. I recall the feeling of that inner part of myself- the part my mother took with her when she died- that was kind, understanding, and sweet trapped beneath my cold exterior. I locked that girl up and buried her alive, so deep I feared I would never see her again.

"I'm going to take care of you." I promise him, sniffling. "Just like you took care of me."

In Damon's presence, I am reminded of the guilt I felt when I initially recognized what he meant by mates. It was a feeling I squashed down so small that I managed to ignore it for a long time. But looking down at his face, I recall the relationship I once had with Tye. Knowing what I do now, after seeing his dead body crumpled and unrecognizable in the snow, I wanted to wretch. I swallow down the urge. Bending over, I check the amount of urine on his collection bag from the catheter Alkaline had put in for him. It looks fine, like he said.