Song of the Chapter: Darkside by Kelly Clarkson
Time merges into one big jumbled hallucination where helicopter blades tears me to shreds and plane engines gobbles me up to spit me out, burned to a char and on fire.
A jolt wakes me and I moan with the terrible pain in stomach. Someone, please help me. I can't stand the excruciation anymore.
"Get him inside the jeep," someone shouts. "I've already called the healer."
I can't focus on anything. I can't escape the prison my brain has become.
"Learn, Omega. Retaliation equals pain. Next time, I won't be so kind." Simon mummers darkly inside my mind. The memory of being hurt takes centre place in my stupor, replaying, hitting me around the head with the hard-learned lessons over and over until I become afraid of my inner thoughts. I can't speak. I can't even think. What if I speak out of turn? Sienna would be killed and I would be hurt.
Slowly, the fog turns into tremors and pinpricks of agony. The itch from before creeps back under my skin and I moan. I can't go through withdrawal. It'll be used against me. They'll withhold the drug until I do whatever they want. And I'll do whatever they want, as I'm weak. So fucking weak.
"He's convulsing. Hurry!" Someone yells. I blink and though my dazed state look up at a very panicked and frantic Gabriel.
I'm bounced and jiggled in some weird sort of transport. The bruises scream and my lungs sloshes with liquid. I cough hard, tearing my throat up with phlegm. I don't know what is happening, but my body doesn't like it.
My skin temperature develops schizophrenia. One second is chilling me to deep Antarctica, the next turning me into a bubbling volcano.
The bugs are back; their little feelers and legs tickling my insides, making me wish I could scratch my brain out. "No!" I thrash and someone slams to a halt, tightening their grip on me.
"Tony, baby. Stay with me. Please. Help is here. You'll be fine soon." Gabriel's voice cut through the beetle-laden fog and I latch on to it.
"Alpha Gabriel, I told you to leave the room." A stranger says. I press my face under Gabriel's chin and take a deep breath, trying to calm myself. I feel his scent in the pit of his gut. In the thunderous roar of my pulse in my head. In the hungry tremble of of body. I moan out wicked delight. And despair.
One, two three. One, two, three.
Gabriel growls and tosses the stranger a fierce scowl. "My mate and cubs are in this room and the only way you're going to stop me from seeing to them is if I'm dead." He squeezes me harder, hurting my ribs, flaring my bruises. I don't move away, but I don't move to console him either. His large body presses hard against mine and all I can focus on is the vacuum my soul is in. The vacancy deep inside. No longer do I suffer.
You deserve to be in pain. I have no right to forget what I did. Pain is my life-long affliction.
Pain.
"Pain is bad, sweet boy. Run from pain." Cynthia blazes into my mind, stealing me from Gabriel's arms and the safety of his home and dumping me back into the rank dungeon.
The vacuum suddenly reverses and spews every splinter of pain into me. The trauma of the drugs, the nightmare of doing their bidding—all comes back with hammers, impaling me with stakes. Numbness slowly seeps through my body. I can't move, can't think, can't bear to pull my eyes
