Good Girl by Sam Hall
Chapter 28
He contacted me, Brendan, a day later. I was on my computer going through emails, sorting out stuff for the ball, making sure my registration was submitted. It was right as I was tackling the mated or unmated section of the form when my phone rang. I froze, saw the unknown number, and just watched my screen until the call ended, going to voicemail. My heart pounded. Sometimes weirdos got my number, sending me heavy breathing messages or weird sprawling fantasies about what they wanted to do to an omega, and then I’d have to change it again. I waited, waited, and then sure enough, a voicemail notification popped up.
My finger hovered over the voicemail, a tiny executioner’s axe, ready to kill this communication or spare it. I should’ve deleted it unseen or got Mum to listen to it first. It was what we’d discussed doing when I spoke to my therapist. But in the silence and solitude of my room, there was only me, the voicemail, and that fucking gnawing need for them. I clicked on it.
“Cyn, love.” His voice was almost unrecognisable, gone from pleasantly husky to positively gravelly. “Mum came and saw me yesterday. Damn near kicked my arse. It was well and truly needed, but… She told me about your conversation. She shouldn’t have, I told her that, but she was too bloody angry to keep your confidence. It came out in a big garbled mess, like it does with Mum. Just a big screed of accusations and then…I sat her down at the bar and got it out of her. The truth.” A long, ragged sigh.
“It probably wouldn’t shock you to know that that was the first time I heard about most of it. I knew where I fit in the hierarchy here, I thought, but… They haven’t spoken to me about it once, not since that day. Not since you…” A low growl, the sound of a man teetering on an edge. “I watched you leave in so much pain, knowing somehow we were the cause of it, and just wanted to sweep in and make it all better. But we couldn’t. We were only hurting you more.”
A few rough gasps, the words coming out in a rush now.
“I saw that, when you came out of the house and shouted at us. I saw how fucking wrecked you looked. You were so thin, your skin so pale, but your eyes… Fuck, Cyn, they told us all about how careful you need to be with omegas at school during sex ed, made us look at case studies of how badly handled matings can affect you, but I’d always told myself I’d never be that fucking guy. That I’d treasure any omega I was lucky enough to get close to and then…”
Silence followed, one that stretched on and on, making me think the call was over but he’d forgotten to end it.
“I’m sorry, love, so fucking sorry. I’ll remember your face, your words, your scent for the rest of my days. I’m tossing up about leaving the pack. There’s nothing here anymore. We don’t talk to each other, don’t sleep near each other, don’t… Fuck, that doesn’t matter. Look, I promised Mum I’d try to make amends. I know you don’t want to see me, want nothing to do with me, but I said I would. I would’ve days ago if I thought it’d help. If now’s too soon, I understand, but…”
An unintelligible mutter.
“Give the pain to me, love. It’s mine, I caused it, and I don’t want you carrying it anymore. You’re beautiful and smart, and any alpha would step over his own grandmother to get to you. Give it to me. Yell at me, scream, call me every fucking name under the sun. Smash your fists into me, anything that’ll take the pain away, because it’s not yours to bear.”
He went silent again, and when he finally spoke, the words came out so fast, I had to focus hard to understand them.
“I’ll be in the forest in an hour. You know the spot. If you come, that’s fine. If you don’t get this message until later, just text me when and I’ll be there, no matter what time, though maybe not at night. Fuck, don’t go walking in that forest at night. I’ll have a fucking coronary. Anyway, I’m gonna jump in the car. I know there’s no point, that I should just leave you alone, but I guess this way, you choose. It was always your choice, love, we just tried to take that away from you.” One last sigh. “You were always the best thing to happen to us, and we fucked it up. I’ll be sorry for that for the rest of my days.”
The phone felt like one of Kai’s weights in my hand, dropping to the floor from my lax fingers. I didn’t check to see if it was smashed or not, things like that unable to get my attention while he had it, because they’d been living rent free in my head since the day I revealed. Every moment of my adult life had been tainted by them, and with only a few words, it all came back.
Part of me exulted in how fucking destroyed Brendan sounded, and maybe it was that which had me grabbing my jacket and walking down the stairs. Mum had worked from home for a while after I got back, but she was reassured enough by my progress to leave me here on my own. So there was no one to notify, no one to tell me no when I walked out the backdoor. I walked and I walked until there it was, there he was, leaning against the bonnet of the car, hair a ruffled mess, thick stubble grazing his chin, arms crossed, a silent figure, waiting.
I couldn’t help but compare the two. Teenage Brendan versus adult Brendan was not a good example of a glow up right now. Back then, he’d been filled with what looked like a ferocious lust for life, but that wasn’t present now. I deliberately let my foot step on a branch, the crack jerking his head my way. He pushed himself away from the car, went to move closer, but I shook my head. He nodded in response, settling back, holding himself very still as I approached, and this time, he struggled to meet my eyes. Instead, he seemed to stare at me—my shoes, my legs in worn jeans that sagged more than they used to at the waist, my fingers twitching, just me.
“I…I didn’t think you’d come.”
“I shouldn’t have,” I replied. “Mum, Kai, my therapist, they’re all gonna kick my arse over this.”
“You look good,” he said, finally looking into my eyes. “Like you always fucking did, but… You’re not hurting anymore.” I was, I just wasn’t going to show it. “That’s good, Cyn, because it fucked me up, seeing you like that. You shouldn’t hurt like that. Anyone else that did that to you, I’d put in the fucking ground, but…” His smile was completely mirthless and full of pain. “But it was me that did it.”
“It was Benson who did most of it,” I corrected coolly. “He’s the one with the diabolical plans to maintain a stranglehold on our country’s energy market. Pity he couldn’t do that by sending omega rent boys to politicians to enjoy like they usually do.” My teeth worried my lips, then released them. “You guys… Maybe you had a plan to counter Benson’s bullshit, maybe you were in on it. I’ll never know, that’s been made clear to me.”
“We weren’t, Cyn, I can tell you that.” He was all passion then, wanting desperately to get his truth out, but that wasn’t what this was about. “We’d never—”
“You never told me what you planned? You never included me in them? You never thought enough of me to give me a heads-up? You never had any respect for me as a human being outside of being an omega? You never thought to make sure I had all the facts when I made the momentous decision to let someone bite me?”
I’d optimistically thought I could hold my shit together, but it was no surprise that I didn’t. But I was steady now, even as tears ran down my face. I could get through this. So why didn’t I flinch back when he cursed and surged forward, wrapping me in those fucking huge alpha arms and tugging me close?
People low-key hated those suffering from heartbreak. The wounded communicated in every gesture, every sigh, every tear, every cry, all of their pain. If you were a bystander, it looked ridiculous. You saw someone go through an agony so intense, they could barely stand it, but when the object of their affection crooked a finger? They went running back, into their arms, into the situation that caused the pain in the first place, but it was only now I realised why. Brendan, his pack, they had hurt me so much, but only they could ease it. For the first time since I stumbled out of their club, I felt it, that rush of intense sweetness that came from being near them. I breathed in Brendan’s scent greedily, the musky wood having deepened, only partially masked by the chemical blast of deodorant.
“Fuck, Cyn, don’t scent me,” he said, drawing back. “I haven’t fucking showered in days. I just about emptied a can of Lynx on me before I came.”
But his hand on the back of my neck was gentle, rubbing small circles there, not wanting to pull me away.
“I know.”
“I’m a mess, love. I’ve been getting fucked up every day because I can’t work out a way forward. I can’t fix this! We fucked it up, but there’s no going back. We should’ve treated you like a woman, not an omega. We should’ve… I just need you to not hurt anymore, because I see it and I feel it and when I walk away from you, that’s all I can think about.”
I shivered as his hand slid down my spine, tentatively first, then more confidently, stroking me over and over.
“Whatever you want, whatever you need, love, I’m here for it. You want me to fall on my sword? It’s done. You need me to patrol the house, make sure Benson’s not lurking around? I’ll make it happen. I fucking… I want to put a bullet in the brain of the man who… The Omega Ball. Fuck! You have to go to that, don’t you? I’ll go, be your security detail. I’ll stay in the shadows. You won’t have to see me at all, I’ll—”
“Apparently, Orion has already organised that,” I replied.
“What?”
I lifted my head reluctantly, wanting to store as much of his warmth and the feel of his body against mine to get me through the long lonely nights, but I pulled back to answer him. Just like with his mother, I filled him in on all the details his mum had missed, and his face transformed.
Misery loves company, I’d heard the aphorism before, but I’d never really seen it. Brendan had looked trashed when I got here, but now he looked broken. Just how little care Marcus had for his mates was evident as I watched Brendan’s heart break. I didn’t know why his mates persisted in treating him like a second-class citizen, but right now, it didn’t matter. I pulled him close, like I’d wanted so badly when I was nursing my own heartbreak, and listened to the ragged sound of his breath as it came in fits and starts.
It was his lips on my hair that let me know he was done, just a small thing, stolen without permission, but when I drew back, something had hardened inside him. He shook his head, anger and pain flashing in his eyes, but that softened when he looked at me. He reached out, smoothing my hair back from my face, moving to brush away the tears and then stopping when he realised how they’d gotten there.
“Thanks for filling me in, love. You helped me see what the fuck kind of situation I’ve put myself in, but this is about you, was always supposed to be about you. What do you need, love? Name it, anything. It’s yours.”
The omega in me wanted this, wanted him, that complete and utter focus, the feeling that he would do what it took to make things up to me. A rusty little purr rose in my chest, making him start, then smile slightly, before it died. But I was done being jerked around by my biology.
“My focus is on the ball, on Mum, on fucking Benson Ratcliffe right now. That’s all I can afford to concentrate on. I’m a pawn for him, one that he thinks is too defenceless to stop him from getting what he wants. Right now, I want to survive.”
“Bringing down Benson fucking Ratcliffe? That’s what you need?” Brendan smiled, some of the boy before bleeding through into the dishevelled adult. “That’d be my pleasure, Cyn.”
Then he brought my hand to his lips, pressing them there for just a second, his eyes fluttering closed before they flicked up to meet mine.
“But jump in the car. I’ll take you home. No more wandering around in the fucking forest on your own, not until this is sorted. I know that’ll piss you off, so find someone you trust to take with you.”
I didn’t askuntil Brendan had brought me back to my front door in a car that still smelled faintly of the both of us. I didn’t want to, shouldn’t have, but the need, it pulsed inside me like an open wound.
“How is he?” I asked, not specifying who, not needing to. Brendan killed the engine so all I could hear was the sound of the suburb and his breaths.
“He’s… Cyn, I wasn’t going to tell you. You don’t need to know. You’ve got enough to deal with. But that’s…that’s what got us here in the first place.”
He studied my face, when I nodded, when I waited him out, and when he finally answered.
“He just stays in his room or goes down to the basement to get fucked up. Orion tried to get him help, but he won’t take it. He just sits there, in the dark, and waits for…I dunno what. I’m his fucking mate, but I can’t get through to him. No one can. It’s like there’s nothing left. He’s just empty, got nothing inside him. He eats, drinks, breathes, and that’s it. But that’s his problem, not yours.”
So people kept telling me. I stared into his eyes as I wondered why that never seemed to feel true. My problems, my feelings, my mate, mine. There was something terribly selfish throbbing inside me as I said what came next, knowing how much hubbub this would cause.
“I want to see him,” I said and waited for him to respond.
Brendan just nodded, then I got out of the car.
“I’ll be in touch.”