Page 10 of Petals and Strings (Broken Melodies #1)

When that didn’t work, they started shoving me into programs that couldn’t handle me. I wasn’t diagnosed with mental health issues that most therapists were taught to manage.

Too broken. Sick. Delusional.

Mom and my two dads’ faces looked pained when I saw them in my memories. Frustrated and weary. Acting like I was some sort of cornered animal that was going to lash out if pushed too far.

Maybe things had gotten that bad.

No matter the case. I couldn’t come to terms with how little they tried to get through to me.

Surely, if anyone could talk me down it would be the family I was taken from far too early? All I was begging for was someone to listen. At least, at first.

I was just relieved to be out of that hellscape.

My stomach churned at the thought of my cell. The memories that had started to surface before Theo tried to sedate me now coming back, flooding through and chasing away the ones of my family.

Now that they were unleashed, they refused to be ignored.

Rough hands gripped at my skin, touching me, taking. My legs were wrenched apart and teeth sank into my chest .

My hand tightened around a weed, and I pulled hard enough to pop it out of the dirt and tossed it aside, using the task to ground me as the feelings washed over me. It kept me present as they hit, showing me what my brain had tried to protect me from.

The cell was cold and hard, no luxury outside a dirty, thin mattress that wasn’t fit for a dog. I wasn’t given showers, simply hosed down in my cell and having to scrub at the grime in the few seconds I had to wash them away.

It was also the only time my one dress was cleaned.

No undergarments… they’d only get in the way of our purpose. To be bred, taken, to produce children they whisked away.

Another weed, another tug, and a deep, desperate breath of fresh soil and air. The warm sunshine kept me here, the feeling of the slight breeze making me feel like my mind was split between reality and the past.

My cell creaked open but I was too weak to move. The last forced mating was brutal and not long enough had passed to heal.

Someone scoffed. Disgusted.

“This is the alpha who will command you, omega,” the stale coffee and cigar scented alpha said. His voice was even and calm, like he felt no shame for his actions. So, it was the other alpha who was disgusted.

Yet, he had paid to be here. To use me.

“She’ll be good for you,” my captor promised. To him, we were objects, possessions, ones that made him plenty of money.

His footsteps retreated, the cell door closing with a bang. It wasn’t locked, there was no need when I couldn’t fight back or escape.

“I paid a lot for you, I’m going to enjoy this, omega,” the alpha said as he waved off my warden. “Present.”

The last was a barked command, one my exhausted omega couldn’t fight. We did as we were asked, the dress shoved up with rough hands before I was forced to give my body away with no fight.

He was the last of the alphas who didn’t bite me. Another failed attempt at breeding me during a forced heat. One I didn’t even feel the effects of.

He’d spent days trying. I was only conscious for half.

Then I had a stretch of time where I was left alone outside of being hosed down and fed. Time that I didn’t have to be touched or abused. Didn’t have to listen to my captor tell me what was going to happen.

The next time he came I was forced to take a bite. The half-bond was like poison in my veins. It drowned out the heat drug they’d injected. My screams were loud but they loved that.

The memories of those times were blurry. Small, shattered pieces of the pain and desperation I felt when the drugs took over. I needed what the alphas had, but I hated every second of it.

Hated myself. Hated them more.

My body wasn’t my own for years, as they cut through the bond, forced us to break it as the alphas bonded to new omegas. More alphas bit me, overlapping, never-ending bites that tore my flesh.

They didn’t care. When I presented they didn’t have to see that aftermath.

We were playthings, tools, used over and over for selfish alphas.

I heard the other omegas, but never saw them. Screams, moans, sobs. The constant background noise during every waking hour.

My omega retreated after the first bite, terrified and desperate to hide from the perverse mocking of what a true bond should be.

More came and went when I showed no signs of pregnancy. After that it was like a challenge to them.

The moment I realized my omega was gone, that my heats weren’t true heats, I let their words fall off of me, too grateful that no child was ripped away from me and forced into whatever life they saw fit.

We were there for breeding, selling our babies to the highest bidders, and never to be seen again. If I couldn’t make it out alive, at least I wasn’t bringing a life into this hell.

The time in between alphas was almost calm for me. They fed me, hosed me down, but didn’t let anyone touch me.

I was useless until I was healed and fertile again.

Then it was more insults, anger, and beatings when I failed to produce what they wanted.

Their bruising hands became sharp smacks, bone-breaking punches, and kicks from steel-toed boots.

Nothing healed right, especially my mind. I stayed retreated the best I could, fracturing a little more each time I was bonded and broken until only shreds of myself remained.

I couldn’t remember my family’s faces. Who I was. My entire being was gone. I didn’t have a favorite color, favorite movie or show, favorite food. I didn’t know my friends growing up or places I visited.

I was a shell. Dissociating out of self-preservation.

My only real, coherent thought was the satisfaction I felt each time I failed them. My unintentional victory.

Eventually, my captors gave up. I was ordered to be killed, but they were careless and assumed my frail body had no strength left.

But someone found my discarded body.

They saw me as trash, left me in a ditch in the middle of nowhere, like I never mattered. The cold water seeped into my bones but the will to survive had me dragging myself to the edge of the road.

I needed to know there was more out there for me.

That’s where a trucker found me. His rumbling voice promising help was on its way. Soothing words as I curled in on myself.

Then it was a whirlwind of doctors and beeping hospital machines. People asking questions I had no answers for.

My family’s frantic voices were next, trying to find the girl they once knew and not understanding that she had been killed over and over in that prison.

I’d left her body behind in that cell.

Or maybe it was the ditch.

The memories after were even more distant than the blurred heats. I couldn't remember much other than the flashes of my pack and the truth Theo had laid out in front of me.

That my mind found a way to give me what I longed for, even if it was fake and temporary.

When the final weeds were pulled and the last of my memories faded until I was fully in the present, the sun had dipped down beyond the trees. I probably missed dinner but I couldn’t find it in me to care.

My body needed this more than I needed food.

I tossed my gloves aside and stretched out in the grass. Right there in the fading sun I mourned for the life I never got to live and the girl who had to endure so much hell at the hands of twisted alphas.

My chest ached as the tears fell, dripping onto the grass below as I stared up at the passing clouds.

Val had been right. There was healing here in this garden, a way to strip out the pain and lay a fresh foundation for growth.

Now, I knew the truth.

I was broken, yes, but I was also coming out of the fog.

They weren’t my pack. I didn’t even know them. She really did belong with them.

My mind tried to revolt that thought, to cling to them, but the longer I was on meds, the less prominent they were.

Regret was sharp and painful. I’d scared that pack. Brief flashes of the knife in my hand and the terrified looks on their faces haunted me.

One day I’d be brave enough to tell them how sorry I was.

But I had to find my own peace first.

Until then, I would be fighting to find myself again.