16.5. The Other Side of Me: Dylan's Pov
~cover made by me~
QOTC- Taco Bell or Chipotle?
Twenty-seven days.
That blinded bastard has kept me in this cell for twenty-seven days. He doesn't even realize that the whore is playing him, he doesn't realize that she's pretending to be his mate. The ten years I've spent with it, I've made to teach her a lesson about mates and how it doesn't have one. The moment Maddison gets me out of this place, my men and I will take back our property and give it the punishment that it deserves.
This time I won't let the bitch fall into a coma or lose consciousness, it will feel everything. Charlotte will get the punishment she deserves.
**One week later** Charlotte's Pov
I slowly nod as Xander tells me about the report that Dr. Kale give him about my weight. I'm both happy and saddened that I'm gaining; the notes that the girls gave me said that I was fat and horrifying to look at, trying to gain weight isn't something that I want to be doing; that's why I try to skip meals. Alpha Jones and everyone else made sure that I knew how bad my appearance is. If the girls here in Lunar Shadow are saying the same thing, then it must be true.
"Sweetheart, what's wrong? I can feel your emotions." Xander frowns and uses his finger to lift up my chin, but I look back at the ground to hide the red mark on my face. "Tell me. I can't make you happy unless I know what's wrong."
For some reason, it's always men who do the most physical damage to me. The females of both Red Stone and Lunar Shadow usually call me names and make me feel even worse for being an Alpha's mate. Excluding the slaps I received from the girls at Red Stone and Lunar Shadow for being stupid, the only real times that I was hit by females was when some of the female guards taught me a lesson about taking up too much room in the packhouse.
'I want orange juice.' my wolf snaps me out of my thoughts with a random demand. 'Mate can make us happy with some Sunny D or something.'
'Sunny D isn't orange juice.' I argue. 'It's punch.'
'But mate could make us happy with some Sunny D.' she says. 'Extra sunny.'
"Baby, you keep zoning out. Are you okay?" Xander asks, gently putting his arms around my waist. "Just tell me if you want something. I don't like it when you aren't happy."
'I want orange juice.' my wolf repeats.
"Everything's fine." I answer. Speaking is just something that I don't feel like doing anymore. The notes said that I'm better off as a mute.
"Okay then..." Xander trails off. "But I'm expecting you to tell me later."
I nod and follow him into the bathroom and towards the scale. I'm glad that he and Brody shifted their attention from my self harm to my weight, but I'm also confused on how Xander hasn't noticed that I never stopped cutting. He marked me already, so he should be able to feel it when I inflict pain on myself. Sometimes I think that he knows, but just doesn't say anything about it. 'Orange juice. Orange juice. Orange juice!' my wolf chants. 'How does mate not hear this? He hears everything else going on in our mind!'
"Sweetheart," I flinch away as a hand rests on my shoulder.
"S-Sorry." I apologize, realizing what I did.
"I thought we were past that? You haven't flinched away from me for a month, did I hurt you in my sleep again? Tell me if I did."
Xander's Pov (a lot of switching I know)
I look down at Charlotte, trying to figure out what's going on in her pretty little head. 'Something is bothering mate.' my wolf states.
'I know.' I agree with him. Charlotte started flinching away from me and she hasn't been talking as much as she usually does. I haven't seen her smile or heard her laugh since Thanksgiving a week ago. 'She won't tell me what's wrong.' I can read her thoughts and feel her emotions, but I can't figure out what stresses her out or anything like that.
"You're gaining." I announce with a smile as we stare down at the scale. "You're still underweight, but it's better than you were at before."
"Yeah." she breathes, no joy in her voice at all. She stopped cutting, there are no marks on her wrists or arms. Now we just have to get her to a healthy weight. Skipping meals will only result in another hospital visit, seeing her on the plain white bed with machines keeping her alive is a sight that I'll never forget. I was afraid that one of the beeps on the heart monitor would last too long, that her body would shut down because of the lack of nutrients.
"It's later." I say. "You wanna tell me what's bothering you?"
"N-Nothing's bothering me."
I lean in closer, looking into her soft blue orbs. "Did I do something? You haven't been happy since Thanksgiving, I want to know why." She shakes her and turns away from me, walking off the scale and out of the bathroom. "Is it my breath?" I ask myself.
'When was the last time we shaved?' my wolf and I start thinking off all the things that we could've done to make Charlotte feel this way.
'We conditioned our hair yesterday. Mate is sad, we need to figure out why.'
I head down to the kitchen and taken out a plastic cup, filling it withorange juice. If she won't let me in, the least I can do is try to cheer her up. I see her eyes light up whenever she sees juice. 'Like my juice.' my wolf chimes in.
I look inside all of the rooms for Charlotte, hoping that she isn't trying to sleep in any of them. If she is mad at me, then she'll either take a pillow and try to sleep in a different room or at Brody's house. What's killing me is that she's upset and I don't know why. I'm still getting used to feeling her emotions as she experiences them, so many bad thoughts and memories fly through her head.
I spend at least fifteen minutes walking around the house and making sure that she doesn't want to sleep in a different bed than me.
"I got you juice, sweethear- Why is your hand bleeding?" I set the cup of orange juice on the nightstand and walk up to my mate. Her cheeks are flushed and her hair is slightly ruffled, part of her shirt is ripped. She tries to retreat back into the bathroom where she just emerged from, but I hold her where she is.
She holds her left hand against her body and doesn't let me look at it. "I'm not bleeding." she mumbles, her eyes widening with fear.
"Baby, I can smell the blood. It's not a lot, but I can still smell it on you." I step closer to her and reach out for her wrist, knowing that the wound is either on her finger or palm. "Just let me see."
She shakes her head and continues taking steps backwards until her back is against a wall. "You know that I'm not going to hurt you, I need to make sure that the cut isn't deep." I try to reach out for her again, but she flinches away.
"It's n-not." she whispers, still not revealing her hand. She cradles it against her body and takes a step to the side every time I try to get closer.
"Why are you moving away from me, baby?" I try my best to not look hurt by her movements. I stand there, not knowing what to do. Charlotte stares at me with teary eyes and I still can't figure out what's bothering her. She's been constantly zoning out, but I just thought that it was another side-effect from the new medicine that she's been having to take. "You know I won't hurt you." I hold my hands up to let her know that I won't cause her any harm. "I'll hold you, you can cry it all out."
She still doesn't move, she doesn't even look at me. "I-I can't." she glances at the window, at me, then starts looking at the ground again.
"Why? I'm your mate, you let me hold you all the time." I take a few steps closer to her and cautiously place my hand on the small of her back. She flinches at first, her breaths starting to come out in short pants and puffs. I won't forcefully yank her arms away from her body or do anything like that, I just want her to talk to me about this. "Come here," I try to wrap my arms her like I always do, but she twists her body out of my embrace.
'Mate doesn't want us.' my wolf whines. 'She won't let us hold her.'
"No." Charlotte shakes her head and takes a couple more steps away from me. "Th-They don't like th-that."
"Who? Who's they?" I ask. She can't be talking about Red Stone this time, they aren't a threat to her anymore. Besides certain rogues and enemy packs, I don't know who else would want to hurt her; rogues and other packs can't even threaten my mate, they know what I would do if they did. "Sweetheart, don't lie to me. It won't do anybody any good if you lie."
"No." Charlotte shakes her head again and moves closer to the bed. She won't look me in the eyes, she either stares at her hands or at the ground. She won't even respond through our mindlink; u know that she hears me loud and clear, she just don't reply. She's trying to build her walls up again and push me out. All I know right now is that people are doing/saying things to her that's making her do this. I have a strong feeling that I'm partially the cause of her problems, but I need to hear the full story before I jump to conclusions.
'We need to calm mate down. She's hyperventilating.' my wolf instructs.
'I know that. I don't know if I should hug her or walk away, I think that we're the reason why she's worried.' I tell him. Charlotte sits down on the bed and I take the opportunity to rush and sit next to her. Just in case something triggers a panic attack, I want to be by her side to make sure that nothing happens.
"No." Charlotte shakes her head again and scoots to the opposite side of the bed. "They don't like it."
"Who? Who is they?" I run a hand through my hair as I repeat my question and let out a frustrated groan. Who the hell is Charlotte talking about? Who ever 'they' are, I already dislike them. Brody tries to keep us apart, but it's only PDA-wise, these people are making my mate not want to be near me at all.
Reaching out and pulling her towards me, I repeat my question one more time, "Who is they?"
Like before, she doesn't answer. All she does is try to wriggle out of my embrace and avoid making eye contact with me. "What's that on your face?" I use my finger to lift up her chin and notice a red mark covering the left side of her face. "Did I do this to you? Is that why you don't like me right now?"
"No." she answers. "I-It wasn't y-you."
"Who hit you?" I continue to inspect the mark on her cheek then look over her for any more. There's a dark purple bruise near her collarbone and another one on the bottom of her jaw. "How did I not notice this?" I mutter out loud. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"They said not to." Charlotte whispers. She wraps her arms around me and finally lets me hold her. For the past week, she wouldn't even lay next to me at night; we slept on the same bed, but she grabbed her own blanket and laid on the opposite side of the bed, not the middle like she usually does. This is the closest that we've been.
"Who?" I look down and press a kiss to her temple. "Tell me, sweetheart. I know that someone in the pack did this, Red Stone and rogues can't hurt you when you're with me."
"B-But they said-"
"Who put their hands on you?"
"You, Brody, Ashton-"
"I mean who hit you." I stop her from counting on her fingers of all the people who have ever touched her.
"One of th-the guards near the c-cells. The one who d-does patrol."
I wait thirty seconds for her to continue, but let out another sigh when she doesn't. "Baby, I have two-hundred guards who work in the cell sectors who also do patrol. Give me more information."
"I can't." Charlotte turns away from me and shakes her head. "H-He'll find out."
"So? You have me to protect you. If he touched you-"
It's her who cuts me off when I begin growling, "He didn't. Y-You would've felt if I-I did."
"Good." I shift her on my lap and hold her a little bit tighter. No one is allowed to touch my mate like that, no one is allowed to think of her like that, and no one is even allowed to look at those parts of her except for me... Whenever I get permission to. "Remember, if anyone tries to do that to you, then you tell me immediately. I couldn't protect you during those years with Red Stone, but I can now."
"Now who hit you?" I slowly reach out for her hand, not forgetting about the reason I smelled blood in the first place. "I know that you remember how he looks like, I can sense it."
"W-What if he d-does it again?" she wipes her eyes of the tears that were forming. The images flying through her mind let me know that the bruises remind her too much of Red Stone. I keep my hands around her, not planning on letting go anytime soon.
"Sweetheart, I try my best to keep people from hurting you, but you never tell me when someone or something first threatens you."I caress her cheek, still hoping that my touch will make the mark disappear. I'm not sure what hurts more; the fact that I wasn't able to prevent one of my own pack members from striking my mate, or the fact that she didn't tell me when it happened. The mark that the two of us share is supposed to make it easier to know when she's hurt. I should've felt it when she got hit. "I don't understand why one of our pack members would lay a hand on you in the first place, they're all ecstatic that you're back."
"A lot of people don't like me." Charlotte says with a frown. "Some of the girls say that y-you're their mate, th-their p-parents say the s-same thing. The boys just don't like m-me."
'I'm perfectly fine with boys not liking mate. It should always be that way.' my wolf states. 'We should be the only men who mate loves. Only us.'
"I love you, don't forget that." I gently kiss Charlotte's forehead. "You know that I'm yours just like you're mine, I told you that before. I'll handle the girls, they shouldn't disrespect their Luna like that... But you still need to tell me who hit you."
"I-I love you t-too." she wipes away a stray tear, not trying to hide her bruises anymore.
"Who hit you?" I try my best to keep the hurt out of my voice. Charlotte is supposed to be under my protection, that means that it's my responsibility to keep her safe and out of harm's way. I thought that she would tell me if anything like this happened; but I also thought that my pack members would know better than to lay a hand on her.
*** QOTC- Taco Bell or Chipotle?
"What?" I look around the room and try to find out why Charlotte is covering her eyes shouting random injuries. She lays on her stomach, faced down on the bed and holds a pillow to shield her eyes from seeing whatever she saw a few seconds ago. "Why are you doing that? I'm a man, morning wood can't be prevented."
"You can poke an eye out w-with that th-thing." her muffled voice calls out. "But I saw something else."
"What did you see?" I look over myself and still don't see anything out of the ordinary. I've been sleeping shirtless for a while already, my pits are clean, I don't smell right now; there isn't anything wrong!
"I-I saw t-two black holes. My face w-was right next to them when I-I woke u-up. So dark." she shivers and pulls the comforter over her body. I try to climb under them too so that we can lay on the bed in peace, but she keeps it wrapped around herself. I just flop down on the bed and put my arms around the entire blanket, it's the closest that I can get to holding my mate right now. "I saw you're nipples."
"My nipples aren't that dark!" I immediately move my hands over my my chest. I hear Charlotte's joyful giggles that she was trying to hold in earlier. She pokes her head out from an opening in the blanket and stares at the position that I'm in; laying on the bed and covering my nipples with my index fingers. Her smile slowly fades and is replaced with a look of concern. "My nipples are the perfect shade, they aren't dark." I grumble.
"You have man-boobs." she whispers in awe. I can imagine her saying, 'I wanna touch them.' as I look into her eyes. Her eyes are wide and seem a little bit brighter than they usually are.
"I don't have boobs, or man-boobs. It's muscle." I start popping my pecks and watch for Charlotte's reaction as I flex. She never notices when I do it around the house, but she has to see my muscles some time, right? All of the men who shamelessly check her out when we go out in public only make me feel like I need to show off to impress my own mate.
"Your nipples are darker than your hair." Charlotte giggles. I was expecting for her to feel my bicep or something like that, but instead she continues to laugh hysterically. I wish that she paid attention to my flexing, I didn't do it all for nothing. "Y-You can fit i-into a B-cup!" she rolls out of the blanket laughing and I can't help but stare at the look of happiness on her face. This is the first real time that she's laughed in the past week. It doesn't seem like very long for most people, but one week without smiling is pretty long for Charlotte since she has Brody and I around.
'I think I have a small bra somewhere.' I listen in on Charlotte's thoughts as she wobbles over to the closet. She literally wobbles over there, dragging most of the covers with her. "Y-You know... My brain is b-basically a mar-marshmallow." I shake my head as I listen to her shuffle about inside the closet.
'Does that mean that mate is bigger than a B-cup?' my wolf asks with excitement.
'Shut up.' I growl at him. 'I'm not taking another shower because of you.'
"X-Xander." my mate hops back out of the closet and closer to me, her left foot stuck in a hanger. She puts her leg over my lap and shows me the hanger. "It's st-stuck." Usually it isn't her foot that gets stuck in things, it's her finger. The Operation board, a pillow, the waistband of her jeans... one time she "lost" her middle finger in her fist while she was under medication in the hospital. "W-Will this stop my f-foot from growing?" she asks, leaning in closer to me.
"You're a special one." I shake my head, chuckling at her current situation.
'Of course I'm special. I'm Charlotte.'
I hear all of the ridiculous thoughts that race through her mind, most of them make me wonder why she doesn't express her bubbly personality out loud. "Tell me if this hurts." I try to pull her foot out of the hanger as quickly as possible so that I don't hurt her. "How'd you get it stuck anyways?"
She shrugs and takes the hanger when I remove it from her foot. "Wait, why do your legs feel like that?" I stop her from moving her leg, trying to figure out why the skin of her thighs and ankles are bumpy. She's wearing leggings that cover the entire length of her legs, but the fabric is thin enough to tell that something is wrong. "Stop moving." Charlotte immediately stops trying to wriggle out of my grip and plops down on the bed, both of her legs laying across my lap.
"Sweetheart, I'm not going to ask the same question multiple times like last night. What happened to your legs?" I look into her eyes and make sure that she knows that I'm serious right now. All I'm hoping for is that she doesn't tell me that someone did something to her legs. "If somebody did this to you, don't try to lie and cover up. Tell me the truth."
"N-No." she shakes her head for what seems like the hundredth time in the last twelve hours.
"No to what?"
"Nobody else did anything." she whispers slowly. "I did it to my-myself."
I don't even have to ask to know what she's talking about. "I thought you stopped." I roll up the ends of the leggings a little bit so that I can see the cuts that she made on her body. "Baby, why didn't you tell me? Why do you always keep things like this hidden from me?" I run my fingers over her skin, not applying pressure onto her wounds. I can't lie; it hurts to know that it isn't just others who hurt my mate without me knowing, she hurts herself too.
"Y-You never a-asked." she murmurs.
"Where." I don't ask a question this time. Charlotte and I have had this conversation too many times, I am going to make sure that we don't again. First it was only her wrists, then she started opening those cuts up, and now she found a new spot to inflict pain on herself; one that's easier to hide. "Is this the only place you cut?"
Without hesitation, Charlotte shakes her head and hangs it low in shame. "On m-my st-stomach." she raises her shirt a little bit to reveal her abdomen to me. There are little marks scattered all across her skin, all of them either red, pink, or a shade lighter than her natural skin tone. None of the marks look deep, they actually just look like scratches from far away. "I'm sorry f-for not t-telling you."
"I thought you were clean? I should've felt it if you kept doing this to yourself." It's partially my fault since I was the one who's supposed to protect her; four months of officially being together and I couldn't even stop my own pack members from harming her, I didn't even know the effect that the girls had on my mate. I knew that it made Charlotte uncomfortable when they give her looks every time we go out in public and hold hands, but I didn't think that she would be this influenced by them.
"Baby, you have people who will listen to you. You have my mom, Brody... me. I told you to talk to me whenever you feel like cutting or whenever you have a panic attack. I was being serious, just let me in."
"It's not that easy, Xander." Charlotte mumbles. She pulls her shirt back down and moves her legs off of my lap. "Y-You always get mad w-whenever I talk a-about it. That's why I don't."
"Sweetheart, I need the answer to this; Why do you keep doing this to yourself?" I pull her body back onto my lap and take hold of her hands. I've read articles about self harm and I've talked to my dad since he had to help my mom get through it too. I know that Charlotte had been clean for a short amount of time, but I know that she wouldn't start again unless someone gave a her a reason to.
"Because I d-deserve it."
"No you don't, I ever want to hear you say that again. Baby, you were kidnapped when you a little kid and were abused for nearly ten years. You don't deserve to be in anymore pain." I move her hair to her opposite shoulder so that I can see our mark. "Who's making you want to cut?"
"I've been getting notes..." she trails off. "From th-the girls." Knowing that I'm going to ask to see the papers, she gets up motions for me to follow her. "That's why I always check the m-mail." Charlotte points to a stack of envelopes on across the room and hands them to me.
"How long has this been going on?" I ask as I rip one of the perfume-reeking envelopes open. The crumpled piece of paper inside doesn't even start with "Dear Luna" or anything, it's straight up insults from the very beginning.
'You have one weak until I tAke my mate back. I still can't believe that Xander thinks your his mate... I cant beleeve that you thought that yoyu had one in the first plAce. You better watch out "LUNA". My title, my mate.'
"That person d-doesn't know how to u-use spell check." Charlotte comments. I look over the words carefully, not believing how this wolf is disrespecting my mate. At first I only expected one-word insults, not poorly written paragraphs. "S-She printed her IP address t-too." She points at the display of numbers and letters in the corner of the paper, even the printer number is there.
"Is this where you put the letters?"
Charlotte shakes her head and tells me, "I-I throw them away, b-but more come in everyday."
I'm not going to ask her anymore questions about the letters, all I know now is that I'm going to track each one down. Giving her dirty looks when we took walks around the territory was something that they thought that they could get away with, the letters will be my primary tracking source from now on. "I don't want you to read these anymore, sweetheart. The things in these letters aren't true and I don't want you to feel worse about yourself." I grab the stack and envelopes and put them in my drawer so that I can pick them up later. "When someone tries to harm or disrespect you,you come straight to me or Brody. People tried to do this when you were younger too, but you need to tell us this time. I'm your mate and I love you, don't forget that."
"I love you too." she stands on her tip-toes and leans in to kiss me; she aims for my lips, but ends up kissing my chin. "Prickly."
*** (a few days later)
Brody's Pov
"What do you want for Christmas?" I ask my baby sister. The two main days that I'm looking forward to are Christmas and Charlotte's birthday... both of them are days that I've spent grieving because almost everyone thought that she was dead.
"Nothing. I-I don't n-need anything."
"I didn't ask if you need anything, I asked if you want something for Christmas." Once again, she shakes her head. I expected her to not want anything for the holidays, that's why I'm taking her to the mall. She probably won't let me buy her anything today, but I'll look to see what catches her eye. I'll get her anything for Christmas, anything that isn't in Victoria's Secret.
"What do you want for Christmas?" Charlotte asks as I turn off the engine. "I m-made some money."
"I want you to make chocolate chip cookies with whipped cream on top." I immediately answer. "Like, straight out of the oven. You're really good at making cookies."
"Th-That's such a fish thing to s-say." she mutters under her breath.
"Bear." I call her. Halloween was two months ago, but that doesn't mean that the nicknames were only for that night. Because of Charlotte, I even rented the Minions and Despicable Me movies on Red Box. I couldn't understand a word those creatures were saying, so I classified them as bears; just like how I categorized my sister.
#&*(%$!#&$()$^#*&!)#*$^!*$##!#*((%$
"BOOM SHAKA
-Charlotte's wolf
QOTC- Taco Bell or Chipotle?
As far as weekly/bi-weekly updates goes, I have decided to try to maintain a bi-weekly update system. I tried one more time with this chapter to do a weekly update, but I was late... again. It usually takes me about a week and a half to write a decent chapter, so bi-weekly updates are best for the time being.
This chapter is a continuation of Chapter 16. The Other Side of Me since there is so much time-lapsing/skipping going on in this chapter. It's a little bit shorter, but it's still goodenough to upload.
(I am working on making a book trailer for My Broken Luna which will be attached to one of the chapter as well as the prologue when it's done)
I have also decided to go back and add some more details to the beginning chapters to make them longer and to add "end of chapter scenes" like Adventures with Brody. The short at the end of this chapter will be featuring Xander/Charlotte's wolf.
Inside the Marshmallow: Charlotte's Wolf's Pov (beginning of Chapter 16.5)
'I want orange juice.' I demand Charlotte. 'Mate can make us happy with some Sunny D or something.'
I hear Xander's wolf make a comment about wanting his "not-so-sunny D", but I ignore it. It's always him that listens in on Charlotte and I's conversations, not Xander. I bet that if we were permanently living in wolf-form, I would've been begging for a new mate because of his dirty mind. I mean... Charlotte and I don't exactly think innocently all the time, but we're nowhere near as corrupted as Xander's wolf.
'Sunny D isn't orange juice.' my human side denies. 'It's punch.'
'Who's your friend who likes to play? BING-BONG! BING-BONG!' I start to chant every single Disney movie song that I know in hopes of getting Xander's wolf to stop listening in on our conversation. 'But mate could make us happy with some Sunny D. Extra sunny.'
'What about the D?' he asks. 'You can't forget the D.'
'If it's hard to find, then I can.' I roll my eyes, but start to feel bad when I hear him whimper.
"Everything's fine." Charlotte whispers as I snap back into reality. We both try to ignore the intense stare that Xander is giving us. I can feel both him and his wolf trying to figure out what's bothering us, but I keep that information hidden. Charlotte spent years pushing me back so that I wouldn't be hurt as much from Alpha Jones, now it's my turn to return the favor. Escaping was just the beginning.
'I want orange juice.' I repeat, trying to make her feel less pressured. We both know that Xander just wants us to be happy, we just don't feel comfortable with telling him certain things like self-harm and eating habits. He and his wolf think that they can fix all of our problems, Charlotte and I wish that that was true. Things would be so much simpler if love was the solution to everything,
'Don't be sad.' Xander's wolf tells me. 'I don't like it when you're sad. You get sad, then Charlotte gets sad, you both start crying, I get sad, and then Xander gets annoying.'
Instead of replying to his message, Charlotte and I walk out of the bathroom. Cutting off our link in the process. 'Orange juice?' I ask in hopes of cheering up my human side. I'm feeling the exact same way she is, but I need to try to get some nutrients into her system. Our body won't last much longer until we start eating again.
xoxo Priscilla