Chapter 44: Get Up

It feels like it's been hours since the doctor left, and I did exactly as I was told. I ate the food and I
dressed in the grey sweats, and sweater, put on the socks, and oversized boots, which baffled me
completely as to why I needed them and all the undergarments in the bag, and now I'm pacing my cell
wondering if I imagined they had any importance. Maybe he really was just being thoughtful and giving
me items to aid comfort, and I was looking for something that was not there because I am so desperate
for an out. I rummaged the bag, and food, wondering if maybe he left some sort of something, like a
key card for me, and came up with nothing except confusion, convincing myself I imagined it
completely.

I can't stay here like this, watching her sleep the day away, and if all he is going to do is take tests and
fill me in with stories that screw up my head, then this is hopeless. I'm trying to process all of it, and I
can't swallow it right now, doing what I do best and pushing it to one section of my brain for a later date.
When I can handle how awful it makes me feel. Right now, I need to stay focused and find a way out of
here on my own.

When Juan gets here, I'm all but useless against him and his men and can't do crap about anything,
especially not him, as long as this damn building holds my ability to turn captive. And Sierra over there
'hey thanks for rendering my gifts useless at a time in my life that I could actually really be using them,
and then getting yourself knocked out so I can't access them. Stellar planning!'

A seer who doesn't predict the possibility of not being able to give a girl back what's hers if your
beloved mate comatoses you! What kind of seer is that? And what kind of witch binds her own child
and leaves them motherless for ten years if she saw it all coming? If Colton had the ability to see
things, and not been bound, maybe he could have found her a long time ago and avoided all of this.
None of this was smart planning on her part. It's really messed up.



I stop my erratic mind brewing and moving around, only to watch that same female come and tend to
Sierra's machines, pausing my manic foot stomping around my small space as she disappears just as
quickly without looking my way. I can sense her apprehension the whole time she's in there, keeping
her eyes averted, obviously uncomfortable they have a prisoner down here and I watch closely at what
she does before scampering off, acting like I wasn't over here staring. Not that she did much to watch.
Pressed some buttons, check some fluids, move Sierra's bed up and down, and rearrange her position
to avoid sores. Prop her pillows, and turn her on her side, before pressing some more buttons,
changing her bed sheet, and leaving her alone again. Basic care, and nothing too exciting. I guess I'm
thankful they do at least show her some compassion and tend to her frequently, turning her and such.

No matter how much I stand and glare like some kind of creepy psychopath at Sierra, nothing is waking
that woman up, let alone will power. I can't imagine what eight years in an induced coma has done to
her to be honest. What state her mind and body would be if we did wake her up and now, I'm starting to
doubt if that is plausible at all. For all I know, the drugs over the years have wasted her mind to mush
anyway. Her body has been inactive for so long that I'm assuming instant recovery is not going to
happen, and if she's even capable of being woken after so long. In a building where her powers have
been bound, then she's mortal and susceptible to all the damage and harm an induced coma would do
to a human in eight years.

Not to mention the fact she's lost almost a decade of her life, and what would coming to do to her now?
Last time she saw Colton he was a nine-year-old boy, and now he's a stocky, arrogantly handsome
man … or the making of one anyway. That is bound to mess her up and disorientate her if she wakes
up, and ten years ago was just yesterday in her mental timeframe. The world has changed so much,
and her mate has brought our mountain to ruin in that time. Our people are divided by class, and worth,
and the Santos rule with fear.

Maybe I was never supposed to wake her up. Maybe she left some other way for me to get back my
gifts and I just had to find her?



My train of thought is interrupted as a lunch trolley is pushed down from the elevator, and left outside
my door shortly after the woman exits, but the guard, another Santo looking asshole, shrugs at me with
a distasteful smug expression, butts up against the glass with his shoulder and let's his eyes lazily walk
over me. Pure creep oozing from every pore. It's the idiot who was sat at the desk upstairs, when
Deacon informed him I was to be fed the same mealtimes as the rest of the facility.

"I was told to give you lunch, but the doc stopped me and said you can't eat anything until he's taken
some sort of sample….so, I guess I leave it here and it gets cold. Enjoy. Not that I would advise eating
it later." He smirks, clearly happy with his sad position of power. A total omega wolf, low pecking order,
and looking for any kind of upper hand to scrape him from the bottom.

I scowl at him, the smell of steak and soup wafting through the glass and even though he thinks he's
getting some sort of power kick by leaving it out of reach, I don't even want it. I ate the food earlier, and
it does confuse me that the doc would insist I ate that, and not this, it's not really been long enough to
even feel hungry yet. I don't get the sudden urge to tell me not to eat now.

I guess Deacon has briefed his sub pack on who, and what, Juan says I am, and they are all part of the
Alora fan club right now, given the way this asshole is acting. I can almost taste his dislike, and the
creepy way he's eyeing me up like a main course on his dinner menu, giving me bad vibes. He reminds
me of that jerk Damon, who used to watch me, all through school and tried to get at me in a hallway for
a grope and forced kiss. He was a perverted creep who liked control over girls, much like this idiot.

"Why don't you have it … you could obviously use some extra energy boosts. I mean, if the chase in
the forest was anything to go by." I give him the same friendly passive aggressive attitude that I give
Deacon, and he grins, ear to ear, as though he's too stupid to realize it was a dig. Annoyingly smug,
and if he wasn't such a jerk, he would be kind of cute, in the whole Colton way.

Damn, I really need to stop doing that. Comparing every hot Latino to him, then finding fault because
it's not him. I get it. I still give a rat's ass and I still miss him constantly, and every dark haired, dimpled,



and dreamy eyed, hot Colombian, brings him back to the forefront, but god…. timing. If he was Colton,
he would let me out in a heartbeat, and he would never throw such a smug look at me for something so
absurd. If Colton was here, he would know what to do about this whole mess, he always seems wiser,
like he has the answers and he probably would be handing this idiot his genitals back about now.

I can't fault that part of Colton, even when he was a jerk in our youth. Apart from that one time he
shoved me out of his way for epically tripping in front of him and his entire rabid crew, he never really
went out of his way to be any kind of ass to people for no reason. He was always so effortlessly
superior and seemed aloof, and quiet, like he was better than us. It was all in the looks he gave, rather
than the verbal content, but I guess he does have a sort of intimidating way about him, even when he
doesn't mean it.

A proper bro type, who hung with his pack, and played sports, and walked around like Danny from the
movie Greece. Everyone looking up to him and kissing his ass when he waltzed by. I guess maybe he
was not very sociable with those outside of his sub pack, because that's not who I know now and his
memories, they don't show an asshole like that either. Colton doesn't like to get close to people outside
his own circle, and I guess it's because he lost so many in the war, and then his own mother.

He has a wall up, and he keeps everyone outside his pack on the other side of it. I guess that's why he
tries so hard to make his father proud, because he loves him, even if he's not worthy of being loved,
and that's not Colton's fault, that's Juan's. Colton's flaw is trying to be this perfect Santo wolf, with a
weight of responsibility on his shoulders that one day he will lead. He follows the rules, the laws, and
the word of the Alpha without conflict, as he's meant to, and even puts all of that over his own desires. I
guess a leader does have to be that way, ingrained greatness, where his heart can't always lead and it
only further cements the fact that he'll be the best for his people one day, but for us, not so much.

I get back to my previous activity when smug smiley guard walks off, getting bored with my disinterest
in him and go back to pacing the room and looking for any kind of tool, or helpful item to get out. It



didn't last long and enforces the fact he's an omega and low in the scale of things. Used to being
ignored and dismissed and quietly slinks off. Thankfully, as I have no mind space for asshats. I'm
uptight, worn thin, and agitated about my current predicament, with so many warring emotions coming
at me from my own mind.

The cupboards are full of medical crap, bandages, and nothing even sharp or useful. It's practically an
empty room and anything with real weight is bolted down into concrete floors with steel pins. There's
nothing at all that could be of any real use, let alone as a weapon of sorts, and I end up throwing my
cushions against the glass in frustration when my anger piques and I can't contain it anymore.

I have so many swirling emotions that I don't know what to do with. A vibrating energy pulsing through
my core, and I'm mentally up and down and all over the place. One second, I want to cry and lie down
and sob, then the next I'm angry, furious, boiling over, and want to slash Juan into a thousand, tiny,
bloody pieces, for everything that brought me here, and my entire life since they went to war. Just when
it feels like it reaches overwhelming levels and I can't breathe for the suffocating need to expel this
hatred physically, in the next breath, I'm calm, and logical, and trying to plan a way out. I can't keep up
and it's exhausting.

Time alone to think and let it sink in has done nothing except get me riled and upset, and yes, I've cried
buckets. I sat in a huddle in the corner for a good twenty minutes and sobbed my heart out, while it felt
like it was breaking all over again. Much like when I left Colton, and found myself alone without him,
and no choice but to keep going. Soon as the doctor left it's all I could do … for me, my mother, my
brother and father, my family, my pack. For the mate I can never have.

I cried until my nose ran, and I couldn't breathe, and I drenched the upper part of my gown, because I
was still wearing it at that point and the cold wet spreading across my chest on thin fabric was strangely
comforting. Mirroring how my soul felt and how it was seeping into every pore. I felt hopeless, and
weak, and broken, and I have no idea how to get past that.



It was for Colton and Sierra too, for their pain, their loss, and this whole god damn mess. For the life I
should have had, the family I should have still been with, and the mate I would have imprinted on in
another life and been allowed to be with. It would have still been Colton, that's what the fates decided a
long time ago, but I would never have had to leave him, and I would be with him now, safe in his arms
and calmed by his touch. Guided by that wise part of him that always seems to have an idea about
what's going on. Only it failed him when he needed that gift the most.




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