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Shivering, I watch as he walks over to me.

“Miss Nina,” he says with a nod. “How are you feeling? Did you have a good nap?”

He acts as if I’m a lazy teen who just chose to wake up after sleeping away days. That’s not what happened, he drugged me. Keeping my eyes on him, I stay silent.

“So much stubborn will,” he murmurs, picking up a folder and jotting something down. It could be performative, a tactic to make it seem as if these are bad things to exhibit.

I know they’re not. My mother wants to strip my will from me, taming me into something I’m not. Taking a deep breath, I notice the air feels clinical and sterile, and the doctor in front of me doesn’t seem to have any scent.

Working at a bar, I got used to using my alpha scent blockers because it’s a bartender hack to keep from getting overwhelmed. The downside is that the effects would last long after I washed it off. I should be able to smell the doctor now though, and it’s creeping me out that I can’t.

“Well, Miss Nina,” he says pleasantly. “Welcome to Weeping Willow Institute. I am Dr. Brunes. I would wish you a pleasant stay, but that would be a lie. You’re here because your mother deems you a danger to her plans. The next few weeks and months are going to be difficult, and how much so all depends on you.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. “The other doctor said I was a danger to myself. You can’t keep me here.”

“Oh, but the law says I can,” he croons. “Omegas have such sensitive dispositions. They’re often prone to panic disorders and suicidal ideation. In fact, yours started at the tender age of nine, didn’t it?”

“I fell,” I growl angrily. “You can’t use falling out of a tree because I lost my grip as a suicide attempt.”

“Oh, but your mother doesn’t remember it like that,” he shrugs. “Her opinion is the only one that matters, since you were a child when it happened. I can’t use your memory of the event as it’s not accurate. You’re to stay here until the psychosis is gone. We have a money back guarantee here at Weeping Willow, and I don’t like to refund people.”

“This is insane,” I say, still feeling ill at ease about my hair. I need to feel my head, maybe it’s an illusion and simply the way I’m laying down.

“No, I’m afraid that’s you,” he says. “Although, we don’t enjoy using terminology like that. You have an independence psychosis due to your school teaching you that you have choices. I don’t know how far the brain rot has developed, so we are going to be taking a very aggressive approach.”

Someone knocks on the door, and he turns. “Ah, it’s my nurse,” Dr. Brunes says. “Now, your mother told me when youcame in that she dislikes the pink streaks in your hair. While this may seem trivial, and an innocent act of rebellion, I see it as the seeds of your psychosis deepening. You thrashed a lot during your heat, and your hair became very tangled, so we chose to cut it.”

Fuck.I had a really bad feeling that was the case. Not the bullshit excuse he’s giving me, but that my hair was no longer intact. I’ve had long hair my entire life. At first, it was annoying because of having to untangle it so often, but I figured out how to embrace its length. And now… gone.

The doctor lifts a heavy leather strap, ignoring my gasp as he threads it through a buckle and cinches it across my chest. I’m completely immobile, and absolutely fucked. The certainty that I may not get out of this is sinking deep into my bones, my breaths heaving gasps that aren’t helping my feeling of being a prisoner.

“The treatment plan is simple,” Dr. Brunes says over my overly loud thoughts. “We are going to cut out the poison in and around you until there’s an empty vessel for us to refill. Your desires will all align with the ones your mother wants for you. While we cut your hair short, there are some very stubborn streaks of pink still here.”

The doctor’s cold touch moves over my scalp, forcing me to flinch away. In response he pulls hard on my hair, sniffing at my cry. I hate that I’m so tender headed. I can feel the beginnings of tears burning in my eyes again and struggle to not allow them to fall. I hate being weak, yet I am.

The one time that I allowed myself to rise up to run away and save myself is probably the only time I’ve shown any kind of bravery. I despise pain, even though I’ve toughed out harsh weather conditions in my car and long work hours on my feet.

I went from a soft life to carving out a life I was proud of for myself. All that effort, only to be strapped to a table beneath the harsh lights and gaze of medical professionals.

“Now, I suggest you don’t move. Nurse Naylor doesn’t have much patience, I’m afraid,” he says.

The sound of an electric razor raises goosebumps along my skin, and despite his words, Dr. Brunes’ hand wraps around my throat and pins me down to the table.

“Please,” I rasp, eyes wide and frantic as his hand tightens around my throat until I can barely get a breath. I can’t move any part of my body, not with the extra pressure from the strap across my chest.

Hair falls into my face as the nurse shaves my head, tears I didn’t realize I’d begun to cry making it stick to my skin. And still, the doctor holds me down as he watches the nurse work.

“This is the start of your treatment,” he says. “We examined as much of your body as possible while you were sedated for the past three days for bite marks, but the nurses are going to clean you up after this. Your heat has made the entire room smell like honeysuckle, so none of the alphas on staff can come in here. No matter how well they can control themselves, it’s not safe.”

My mind is racing from thought to thought as I swallow down a sob. They’re not fucking around.

Three days. I’ve been unconscious for three fucking days, and I’m still here. The seventy-two hour mandate was bullshit, an excuse to get me here and throw away the key.

“My pack will pay to have me back,” I say, or at least I think I do. Dr. Brunes steals my voice as well as he cuts off my oxygen completely. There’s no noise, not even a whisper.

I don’t know if my step-brother and step-father would actually pay to have me back.

Cooper has never failed me, not once. As I hang in the balance between darkness and consciousness, I can tell myself that he didn’t want to leave, Mom threw him out. The conversation between Cooper and my mother faded into the background when the orderlies grabbed me.