Alpha Bounded (Alpha's Little Secret Universe)

Chapter 21: Fear Within

I wanted to know more, but I didn't want to go digging around when I knew how Malachi felt. I wanted to know more about Dr.Jacobs. Every time that name was mentioned I'd feel this overwhelming pain in my heart that reminded me of a scared little puppy who couldn't trust anyone. I knew it was from Malachi, but getting him to talk about it was a dead end. So I decided to do some research about FinchWood Academy.

I knew it was a bad place to send alphas and that it was known for abusing its students, but I didn't realize the severity until I started reading into it. The amount of stories I read and watched about the mental and sexual abuse. The way they were treated by the teachers. How they were forced to compete for attention from the headmaster, Dr.Jacobs. As I started to put things together in my head, I realized that Dr.Jacobs groomed those boys. He groomed Malachi.

I felt my heart sink at the fact. Within seconds Malachi was in my office, his worried eyes placing an extreme amount of guilt upon me. "What's the matter?" He asked, pulling me into his chest. I began to cry, knowing that if I told him what I found he'd get angry at me. I didn't want him angry at me. I was scared of that. Scared of him. Something I knew he wanted to avoid at all costs, but I couldn't help how it made me feel. He was always so kind and gentle with me and thinking of him being any different scared me. I couldn't exactly get away from him if I wanted to because I was already attached to him.

"Walker, tell me what's wrong," he said a bit more sternly. I trembled in his arms, wishing I would've just listened to him. Ignorance was bliss and I was to blame for snooping into Malachi's past.

Malachi suddenly let go of me as I looked up into his eyes. They were focused on my desktop monitor, reading the article I had pulled up.

"Walker!"

I flinched, dropping to the floor before he could yell at me. I deserved it. He told me he didn't want to talk about it. That implied he didn't want me knowing yet. I didn't have a right to go behind his back to see what happened. Even if I wanted to fix him. Even if I wanted to be the boy he came to when those things in his past would bother him. Why didn't he trust me with that?

"I'm sorry," the alpha said. I peaked up, seeing the tears running down his face. He was hesitant to touch me, not knowing if it was okay anymore. He could feel how scared I was. How scared of him I had become in matter of seconds.

"Malachi...no. I..."

The alpha shook his head, stepping back a little to give me space. Tears flooded down his cheeks without a sound from him. In his mind he was confirming his greatest fears. I could feel it and he made me feel as though I had opened a door I didn't want to.

"You're scared..."

"No!" I shouted at him.

"Yes you are. I can feel it. You're scared of me. I made you scared of me. I just told you that I didn't want to do that to you and I did it anyway," he argued.

"I shouldn't have snooped. You..."

"Walker, you don't understand. I don't want you to feel like how I used to feel. Feeling like you always have to please the man who you fear most. I don't want to be that for you."

I froze, seeming to connect the dots. He didn't want me to be him. Without telling me the entire story he was admitting to the abuse. Admitting that Dr.Jacobs had done all those things I had read about to him and he was still healing from it.

"If you're scared of me then I think we honestly need to..."

"No...the last time I mentioned that you mentally shut down and I can't see you like that again. I have my own issues with alphas and why I fear them sometimes. It's why I'm so heavily protected. When was a little younger I was assaulted on set by one. I know it's minor compared to your story. Like it wasn't anything that big. He tried to get me alone but thankfully someone was there for me. No one was there for you," I explained.

Malachi broke whatever voice in his head that was telling him to keep a distance from me and pulled me into him again. "Don't compare what happened to you to me. Truama is truama. There's no scale that determines how much it affects you. You're scared because of what someone did to you and you have a right to be. I just... I want you to be able to trust that I'll never hurt you," he said, sitting down with me in his lap.

"I'm not angry at you for being curious about me. I know you're doing it from a place of love. I just don't like talking about it because it's a lot for me. I don't like reliving those moments. Everything with my dad, Dr.Jacobs, and FinchWood are all things I've moved on from," he explained.

Sure he had moved on from them, but those things still affected him. They still had a hold on him that determined how he reacted to certain situations. "Malachi, I trust you. So I need you to trust me too. I know it's hard for you, but..."

The alpha began to nod understanding what I meant without me having to say it. "Things got really bad after Etienne left," he admitted. "It was like Dr.Jacobs specifically targeted me. He'd tell me that I'd never be as good as the other boys or that I would never amount to anything in my life. He told me that no one would ever love me or care about me except him. That the things he did to me were for my own good and that I was to obey. For while I thought I had to prove myself to him. I did everything he asked of me. I finished first in my class, I sat with a perfect posture, I made sure I won every time in team sports, I'd even let him..."

Malachi paused, closing his eyes as his tears continued to roll down his face. I could feel a the sudden drop in my stomach as I began to shake with fear. Whatever memory he was experiencing filled him with nothing but fear.

"...some nights he'd come into my room to congratulate me when I did something good. Some nights he'd even make me come to his room and...he'd do things to me. I thought it was normal for a while. That maybe that was what I had to do for someone to love me. He was the closest thing I had to a father at the time and...."

"Fathers don't do that," I stated.

"I know, but you have to imagine how impressionable I was. My mother was gone and my actual dad didn't want me. I thought maybe if I did what he wanted then maybe he'd want me, but I never liked the things he did to me. I spent so much time in therapy wondering why I let him. I know I'm not to blame for what was done to me, but for so long even before I was forced to go to FinchWood, I didn't love myself. That was such a hard thing for me to do, but then I saw you," he admitted, his watery eyes peering down at me. "It was like everything inside of my head knew that for me to even approach you I had to work on me first. You're the reason I took the role for our last project. I wanted to impress you in some way. It wasn't fully intentional, nor did I intend to actually be with you. I was still with my ex at the time, but I wanted to be your friend. Things just have a funny way of changing sometimes."