Shattered

Chapter 74: Healing

Violet's POV:

"And when I thought I could never be anything but broken, you gave me hope and I know that I must love myself first before I can love you." - Unknown

I was fucking exhausted, and sleep was still a bitch to me.

To be fair, there was a little too much going on for my brain to be able to quiet. Seeing my brother again after all those years, knowing he'd been tormented too... I could feel it. The moment he walked in the room and looked at me, I could feel it. He never meant to hurt me. He never wanted it to turn out the way it did. We hugged for a long time and it brought on more tears of relief.

All the time I spent feeling completely alone, I'd never been alone. We'd just been controlled but not anymore. It was... Over. It was strange to think of it as being over. I spent more of my life running away and being on edge than I had at peace. The lack of tension created a new kind of tension. I felt like it wasn't possible for me to relax because it couldn't actually be over. There had to be something more. Something else lurking.

Except then Kane came in to say hi at one point and we sat in silence. Somehow, silence wasn't awkward with him. Neither of us were good at talking, and yet he spoke the words I couldn't seem to form in my own head.

"It will feel like a trap for a while," he said. He hadn't even asked me if I was anxious, but he didn't have to. He was observant and I couldn't sit still. "The reason it feels wrong is because you've never been able to let your guard down or be in a place of true safety and stability. Peace and safety puts you on edge because it's unfamiliar," he said, looking over at me and conveying words in a different way. With his eyes. He knew because he'd experienced it, too. Not feeling safe even when the danger was gone. "You've lived and thrived under danger and uncertainty. It feels more at home to you than being secure does. It won't always be that way. Just give it time."

People wanted to talk to me, but apparently sleeping for weeks wasn't enough. I was tired. After hours of people filtering in, hours of crying and hugging with Ren and Alek, I could barely keep my eyes open. Kaden talked me into eating only by telling me Ren had barely eaten a thing. Ren reminded me of me when I left the den. Skin and bones. A shell of myself. I told Ren I would eat if he did, and so we both ate, putting Kaden at ease.

There were a lot of things I needed to figure out, answers I needed, but rest was needed more. A woman named Kora came in and checked on me. She was apparently some super powerful and rare witch hybrid, but was almost a doctor before that. As she developed her powers, she was honing her healing skills and so she was my main doctor aside from Anna.

Once Kora was done checking me, she told Kaden I still needed more rest. I would have to work up to walking slowly because my muscles were weak from being in bed so long. So that's what we did. We rested, we walked a little bit more every day, and Ren and I kept each other eating by doing it for each other.

A week passed before Kaden let anyone talk to me about more serious things. Alana came in and discussed training. I would need a lot more training. Apparently people didn't care for empaths, so I wasn't totally out of danger. But Alana was confident I would continue being a quick learner and it wouldn't take long before I could defend myself well enough. She gave me her number and told me to contact her whenever I was up for training.

Thaddeus came after, and we all ended up in the pack house. He asked about a flash drive. I told him what I knew, and it broke my heart because Kane was there to hear it. Some of the names on the flash drive were names he knew, his missing wolves. Their status was unknown. None of the files stated whether or not someone was alive, it was just some of the videos obviously ended in death and others didn't. It answered almost no questions for Kane, but the bright side of it was we had the formula for whatever it was they were injecting in wolves to make them what everyone referred to as 'hounds'. With a formula, we could find an antidote.