Page 47 of Stalked By the Alphas
46
ZACH
I pace restlessly in Carter’s living room, like a caged tiger, growing more frustrated by the second. My mind keeps replaying Hazel’s horrified expression over and over. The disgust and betrayal in her eyes as she realised the truth about us is seared into my memory.
“We fucked up,” I growl, running a hand through my hair in frustration. “We should have told her the truth from the beginning.”
Noah sighs heavily from his spot on the couch. “Maybe. But it’s too late for that now.”
Carter stands by the window, staring out at the darkening sky. “We need to give her space,” he says quietly. “Let her process everything.”
I whirl on him, anger flaring. “Space? Are you fucking kidding me? After everything that’s happened, you want to leave her alone?”
“What choice do we have?” Carter snaps back. “She doesn’t want us near her right now. Pushing her will only make things worse.”
“He’s right,” Noah interjects in that calm way before I can argue further. “We need to respect her wishes for now.”
I clench my fists, fighting the urge to punch something. The alpha in me is screaming to go to Hazel, to protect her, to make her understand. But I know they’re right. We’ve done enough damage.
“This is all your fucking fault!” I growl at Carter. “You did this by telling her everything.”
Carter whirls around, his eyes flashing dangerously. “My fault? We all agreed to come clean eventually. I just sped up the timeline.”
“Well, you certainly fucked that up royally,” I snarl, taking a step towards him.
Noah stands quickly, moving between us. “Enough,” he says firmly. “Fighting amongst ourselves won’t help Hazel.”
I back down reluctantly, my hands still clenched at my sides. “So what do we do now?”
“We wait,” Carter says, his voice tight with frustration. “And we hope that Hazel will give us a chance to explain everything properly.”
“And if she doesn’t?” I ask, voicing the fear we’re all feeling.
Noah sighs heavily. “Then we have to respect her decision. No matter how much it hurts us.”
The thought of losing Hazel for good makes my chest ache. After everything we’ve done, everything we’ve been through, it can’t end like this.
“I can’t accept that,” I say quietly. “I won’t.”
Carter turns to me, his expression grim. “We might not have a choice, Zach. We’ve manipulated her life enough. If she wants us gone, we have to honour that. We are through with this bullshit. None of it makes sense anymore.”
I shake my head stubbornly. “No. There has to be another way.”
Noah rubs his temples, looking exhausted. “What other way is there, Zach? We can’t force her to forgive us or be with us. We’ve seen how that plays out. We were deluded. Obsessed with getting our revenge. We forgot.”
“I’m not talking about forcing anything,” I snap. “But we can’t just give up either. We need to find a way to make her understand.”
“Understand what?” Carter asks bitterly. “That we’ve been controlling her life for years? That we broke into her house during her heat?”
I flinch at the reminder. That particular decision weighs heavily on all of us now after what we saw in the school cellar.
“We did it to protect her,” I argue weakly. “To keep her safe for us.”
“Did we?” Noah asks quietly. “Or did we do it for ourselves?”
His words hang in the air like a noxious gas. We all fall silent, grappling with our decisions .
Finally, Carter speaks up. “We need to take a step back. Give Hazel space, like we said. But we also need to take a hard look at ourselves and our motivations.”
I nod reluctantly. As much as I hate to admit it, he’s right.
“So what now?” I ask.
“Now, we wait,” Noah says. “And we hope that Hazel will give us a chance to explain everything properly. In the meantime, we need to respect her boundaries.”
“And if she never wants to see us again?” I press.
Carter’s jaw clenches. “We’ve done enough damage. If Hazel decides she wants nothing to do with us, we have to accept that.”
I open my mouth to argue, but Noah cuts me off. “He’s right, Zach. We can’t keep pushing. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place.”
I clench my fists, frustration and anger warring inside me. Part of me wants to storm over to Hazel’s house right now and make her listen. But I know that would only make things worse.
“Fine,” I growl. “But I’m not giving up on her. On us.”
Carter sighs. “None of us are. But we need to do this the right way this time. No more manipulation. No more lies.”
Deep down, I know we’ve ruined any chance we had with Hazel. The thought makes my chest ache.
“I need some air,” I mutter, heading for the door. Neither Carter nor Noah try to stop me as I leave .
Outside, I take deep breaths of the warm night air, trying to calm the storm of emotions inside me. I want to go to Hazel’s house, but the thought of what will greet me when I get there rips my soul into tiny pieces. Instead, I get in my car, and I drive. I keep going until I see the bridge that passes over the motorway. Parking up, I start walking. This isn’t the life I want to live. It never was. My fucked up brain, my shredded soul, has ruined whatever future I could’ve had. Walking up the footpath to the bridge, I only stop when I get to the middle. I stare down at the traffic passing, the headlights bright in the dark. The noise as the cars and trucks go past is just white noise compared to the roaring of the blood in my ears. Taking a deep breath, I haul myself onto the railing, and I sit, my legs hanging over the side, staring down until I feel nothing but numb.