Page 158 of Caged

Then again, I wasn’t looking.

It’s not like opening my eyes to see what’s around me. Visualizing the Bond is more metaphysical than that. It’s possible I couldn’t see them because I simply didn’t know they existed before now.

I just don’t have enough knowledge about Bonds in general. And something tells me the Beta won’t answer any of my questions, even if I ask.

“Are you paying attention, Omega?” Her annoyed voice demands my attention.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

Her hands move up my body as she continues her unnecessarily cruel exam. I try not to react as she pokes at me, but that fails spectacularly the moment her hand wraps around my neck.

My mind goes blank. My vision darkens into a fuzzy black void. There’s an echo in my ears. A ringing I can’t place. I can hear it, but I’m aware I can also hear nothing at all.

Then memories slam into me, blinding me with too much light and sound at once. One after the other after the other, until they pull me down and suffocate me in fear.

Hands on my neck. Gripping, squeezing, refusing to let go. Not the small hands of a Beta, but the larger, stronger hands of an Alpha.

Of my father.

Flash.

Chains around my wrists. My ankles. The smell of dank mildew and death. My body shakes with a chill that may never leave my bones.

Flash.

My head slams into the wall, the plaster cracks, and the sound is so loud I can’t tell if it’s the wall that broke or my skull.

Flash.

The storm rages outside. My mother screams, the sound so shrill and panicked I hear it over the echo of thunder. I slide my small child’s body under the bed and clap my hands over my ears, praying for the storm to end.

Flash.

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice someone unlocked your door? Who are you protecting?” Father’s shaking me, slamming my head against the wall again and again. Demanding. Furious.

My fingers claw at his arms, his wrists, anything to make him stop. I shake my head frantically.

“I won’t tell you. I won’t.” I choke on the words, forcing past numb lips.

Flash.

My stomach cramps from hunger. My throat aches from thirst.

A drop of condensation slips down the side of the cell’s wall, and I pull my starved, shaking body across the floor, knowing it’s my only chance. But the chains don’t reach. I can’t reach.

Flash.

Father snarls. He’s going to kill me this time. I know it.

But it doesn’t matter. I’ll do anything to protect Caelan. Anything.

He leans closer, his face less than an inch from mine. “That is very, very stupid, Omega.”

“Omega.”

“Omega!”

My eyes snap open.