Omega (Alpha & Omega #1)

{Chapter Fifty Seven}

Theo's movement brought my father's eyes over to us. He didn't look angry, or worried, nor did he have any other emotion on his face. He just stared at us like he didn't know us for a minute, before his working eye moved to meet mine. I saw the recognition. Felt it. But he didn't make a move.

Disfiguration of an alpha brings that alpha down below omega status. Unless that alpha had a lot of money, they were usually thrown into the slums. But my father had money, and would probably use up that money trying, and failing, to gain control over his limbs again.

I didn't have to ask what they did. I could see it plainly in front of me. A part of me was happy that I didn't stay to witness it.

My father looked at his caretaker, then back at me.

"Come on," Theo said, pulling me away. "We can go somewhere else. Or-"

"No." I kept myself rooted to the ground, my eyes following every movement my father made. The attempted hand gestures, the moving of his lips and the sound that came from between them. Everything else faded away, and all that was left was me and him.

I'd never wanted to see what they did to him. I figured I'd live out my life ignorant to the fact that my father was disfigured by my mates and their friends. That he'd go back to the States and do what he had to do there. But that wasn't what happened. He remained, for some godforsaken reason.

And maybe I knew the reason. Maybe he knew I would see him eventually, and it was one last "fuck you" to the child who ordered his disfigurement. I believed he would do that without even batting his one working eye.

He stood - well, kind of - and turned to me, letting me see his whole self. What they'd done.

He could barely walk, even with the overly expensive cane.

The moment his money ran out, that disfigurement and unhealable broken bones would kill him. He was a walking corpse with money. That's all he was. The people walking around him, giving him at least ten feet of space at all time, knew that too. The only one who would get near him was the person he was paying to get near him.

And me.

He limped over to me. The moment he began moving towards me, Theo grabbed my arm and tried to pull me away, but I turned and looked at him in a way that had his hand dropping away.

"Oo iah," my father hissed when he reached me.

I raised my eyebrows and looked to the caretaker for translation, but her eyebrows were drawn together in confusion.

"Eece o it," he growled.

"Piece of shit," the caretaker translated.

Even in his state, he still continued to act like he was the shit.

I shook my head. "Why did you stay?"

"Oo ake oo eel ab," he said.

I looked at the caretaker.

She shook her head and he snapped out his hand, took a pad and pen from her, and threw it on the table before beginning to write.

It said: To make you feel bad.

The handwriting was terrible. Not what I remembered as my father's. He used to have beautiful handwriting. It swirled beautifully and looked like it was printed from a printer. Always in the lines, always precise and uniform. This handwriting was almost illegible from his shaking and broken hand.

"The way I see it," I looked up, and the moment our eyes met, his eye widened, "you're the only one feeling bad."

The caretaker even took a step away.

This alpha bullshit was getting on my nerves. Maybe it was because I was mostly omega that I couldn't control it.

My father wrote something else and held it up to me.

You're a fucking mix breed?

I closed my eyes, knowing full well that if my father tried to attack me, Theo would stop him.

I needed to calm down. If I got worked up, apparently other things came through.

It was never like this before Teo dug into my brain. What exactly had he done while in there that made it so easy for that side of me to come out? I didn't even think it was there until Teo.

I reopened my eyes. "Apparently so. Anyway, I feel little to no remorse for you. I told them to do what they believed was right. Apparently this is what they thought would suffice you abusing me for years on end."

He wrote something down again and held it up.

I would have NEVER disfigured you.

I stared at it. At the capitalized "never".

"Maybe not outwardly," I said, turning from him. "But if you recall, you took away something from me as well. Get some surgery, father. I hate seeing you look so pathetic."

And I walked away. I didn't turn back to see his reaction, didn't turn to see if Theo was following. If I turned around, I'd lose everything - my mind, my ability to walk correctly, my ability to breathe. Keon and Cayson had utterly fucked him up. He could barely walk, barely write, and he couldn't speak.

Yet I couldn't forget the look on his face as I turned. He was confused and hurt. Like how could I know this whole time and not tell him?

Maybe if he'd re-done the test, back when I asked him to, he would have seen it. But would that really have changed anything? That little fifteen percent, against the other eighty five percent? I was still an omega. I had my heat, I smelled like an omega smells, and have been treated like such since my test. That fifteen percent was nothing.

Theo caught up and looked down at me. "Phoenix, I swear this isn't what I had planned. I didn't think he'd be here."

I continued walking.

He sighed and pulled out his phone, typed a message, and slid it back into his pocket. "Phoenix, please. Say something."

I had nothing to say, other than they should have just killed him if they were going to leave him in that state. I didn't think it would bother me, but it did. It really, truly did.

My cell phone buzzed with a call and I didn't bother looking at it. The only ones who had my cell phone number were Keon and Cayson and their workers, and I didn't want to talk to any of them.

It continued to buzz as I walked out of the mall doors to the car.

We'd been there for maybe twenty minutes, and that was twenty minutes too long.

At the last second, I turned to Theo. "Take me to a hotel."

He blinked. "Why?"

"I need to think," I said. "You know that isn't going to happen if I'm at that house with them."

"How long are you going to need," he asked.

"Just tonight." I pulled out my phone, considered throwing it across the parking lot, and decided to just turn it on silent.

Theo watched as I put the phone back in my pocket. "What do I tell them? They're already pissed off that I took you."

"That I saw daddy dearest and need some time to myself," I said. When he only stared, I sighed. "I'm trying to process what I just saw and what just happened. I can't do that with those two bombarding me with questions and asking if I'm fine."

Finally, thankfully, he nodded and motioned towards the car. He messaged the brothers, telling them that he was going to get two rooms and keep an eye on me, but I needed time to think. They agreed, but told him to get one room and just sleep on the couch.

And so we did. We drove to the nearest Holiday Inn, got a room, and he allowed me time to myself as he went to get us food.