Status Quo

Chapter Three

[Picture of Caleb above]

Caleb's POV

There's one thing I've never understood about the books I've read before. Books where the main character is snatched on their way home and forced against their will to an unknown place. What I've yet to understand is why they sit back and relax like they haven't been taken by a complete stranger. Why they end up sleeping in the car or why they sprawl themselves across the back seats to get themselves comfy. No, fuck that.

What reason could I possibly have to relax at this moment? I'm being kidnapped, I'm not being taken on a fun day out with the family. The last thing that is on my mind is being comfy when at any moment I could be murdered in cold blood. So fuck being on my best behaviour and complying with this utter bullshit. Instead, I've screamed until my voice is barely audible. I've struck my fists so hard against the screen and windows that my hands are purple and black with bruises. I've slammed my feet so hard into the back of the seats that my knees feel like they're going to dislocate. Fuck going out quietly.

Relaxing would make them think I'm accepting my fate. There's no fucking way I would ever do that. I don't want to be here. I don't want him. Mate or not, he can go fuck himself. Why would I want to be surrounded by the people who oppress me? Who oppresses my family? Yes, ok, I live in a shithole, and being with an Alpha could only mean the best treatment and life you could imagine, but Abaddon is my shithole. It's where my family is.

Yet, I can't help but be infuriated with myself, because somewhere deep down, there's this nagging that wants to be selfish. It craves the basic necessities of life so badly it's willing to give in. I can't let it win. I can't give in like that.

I won't deny that if I was given the opportunity to get out of here with my family, I'd take it, but to take that sort of help from the cruel bastards who put us in this position in the first place? It would be letting them win. It would be giving them power. To let them believe that I accept this would be like handing over my free will on a silver platter and telling them that I never owned it in the first place, that they always had control of me. I'd be letting them believe that I accept their shitty hierarchy and their fucked up ideas around who deserves luxury and who doesn't. And I'll be fucked if I ever let someone believe they're better than me because I was born a Delta.

I'm exhausted, my mind is rampant and my body is shaking with anger. Anger that feels so uncontrollable that I fear for the person who opens the door because when I say I'm going to cause a blood bath, I mean it.

I can't settle the intrusive thoughts, like a parasite infesting my brain, I'm constantly reminded of my mate. Constantly fixated on the idea that my mum is on her death bed, alone and without her son. That the person who's taken me from her is meant to be the man I love for eternity. He's pulled me from the only person I have left. From the one person who can even begin to help me in coming to terms with not only having a shifter as a mate, but an Alpha. That's why the blazing inferno inside me is rife and desperate to explode.