Page 36 of Two For the Show (Trapped On The Tightrope Duet #2)

The prison guard pats me down after I empty everything from my pockets into the gray bin. My hands are shaking, and bile rises in my throat.

Maybe this was a mistake. I shouldn’t be here, not without Dario.

“Right this way, Mr. Reynolds,” the guard says after I pass through the metal detector.

Too late to back out. Here goes nothing.

I follow him down a bare hallway and into a brightly lit room that has a few tables and vending machines on the side.

“I’ll be right back with your father.”

Slowly, as if it will delay his arrival if I don’t rush, I pick out a table and sit down.

Dad is in a minimum security prison exclusively for Omegas. On average, Omegas are less likely to break the law than any other designation. However, when they do, they must be kept separate from all other designations, resulting in only a few Omega prisons nationwide.

Luckily, or not, depending on how you look at it, there’s one right outside of Chicago, only a three-hour bus ride away .

The door opens, and I look up, locking eyes with my father for the first time in nine years.

There wasn’t a trial after my mom’s death, so Dario and I didn’t need to testify. We were swept away and deposited on the steps of a relative who didn’t want us.

“Dexter?” my Dad says softly. “Look how big you are. Oh my God.”

“Hi, Dad.”

He sits down in front of me, and the guard gives me a curt nod. “I’ll be in the corner over there. Let me know if you need anything.”

Dad looks mostly the same. Maybe a little older, but that’s only obvious in the few wrinkles in the corner of his eyes, and the shiny silver streaks in his dark hair.

It’s like looking into a mirror into the future.

Dario and I look just like him. It’s a little eerie.

But I’m not here to get a peek at what I’m going to look like when I grow older.

“Why did you do it?” My voice is small, and for a moment, I feel like that seven-year-old boy again. It’s hard to hold back the tears as I stare him down.

My father drops his gaze to the tabletop. “I… Your mother and I had our problems, Dex. We kept them from you two as best as we could.” I don’t say anything, afraid that if I do, he’ll stop talking.

I missed his voice, and it makes me sick to admit that.

“I had several heats where I was left on my own for large parts of it. She was taking care of you two, or had to run into work for a few hours. She never made alternative plans. I begged her for another Alpha, to try to find someone to join our pack because I couldn’t go through another heat like that. ”

“That’s not a reason to kill her!” I shout, slamming my hand on the table. The guard takes a step forward, and I shake my head at him, taking a deep, calming breath. “You could’ve found another Alpha and presented them as an option to Mom. ”

“I tried!” he insists. “I introduced her to several Alphas that had scents that attracted me. She shot me down every time. The only reason she gave me was that she didn’t trust anyone else around you two.”

“This is all sounding very premeditated, Dad,” I sneer. “But Storm can’t be premeditated, can it?”

He scrubs his hand down his face. “I don’t expect you to understand, Dexter.

Maybe one day, when you find your own Omega, you will.

But I was miserable. Everything that makes me an Omega was neglected.

I’m not saying I was perfect. I have my faults, and I struggled the first few years after you two were born.

That put a lot of pressure on her. I thought that if I went off my suppressants and went into heat unexpectedly, she’d be forced to bring in another Alpha to help me while she made plans at work and with you two. ”

He was trying to manipulate her to get his way. I push back from the table, about to stand up and walk away, when his hand darts out and grabs mine.

“Please, Dexter.”

The raw pain in his words has me sitting down slowly, unable to break eye contact or shake his grip away.

“That day, I felt like I was a rubber band in danger of snapping. I had a terrible heat spike, and in the middle of it, I was called to pick you two up from school. I had to keep it together to care for you two, and I know I didn’t do a very good job.

I let the pain get to my head. Then your mom came home and said she was going to leave with you two.

She had threatened before, when I wouldn’t drop the subject of getting another Alpha. ”

He rubs his chest at the spot where we were taught in school that bonds manifest. I wonder what a bond feels like after your partner dies.

They never talk about that in health class.

“It still doesn’t explain why you killed her. Why were you calming down and then suddenly kill her? In front of us!” I know I sound hysterical, but I can’t help it .

I can’t get the image of our tan carpet turning dark with her blood out of my head.

“I can’t explain it, Dexter. I wish I could, but I can’t. All I can do is tell you what happened before.”

I don’t know what I expected when I came here. I was seeking closure, and, deep down, a way to forgive him.

But that was pointless.

There is nothing he can say that will let me excuse what he did.

Some things can’t be forgiven.

“Come back to me, Dexter!” Hands grip my shoulders, and burnt cake fills my nostrils. “Please, Alpha, it’s okay, it’s okay. I’m here.”

I open my eyes, my Omega hovering over me.

I flinch back.

The hurt in her eyes as she takes her hands off of me will live forever in my mind, but it was instinctual.

After reliving the trauma of what Dad did and dreaming about visiting him in prison, I struggle to catch my breath in her presence.

Unsafe. Omegas aren’t safe.

Every bit of my nervous system is screaming that, and I’m trying to push the thoughts away, but it’s not working.

Alex is safe. She is. She has shown me that. She isn’t like my father.

But I can’t slow my breathing. I can’t bring myself to go to her.

“I’m going to get Dario,” she says softly, squeezing my foot under the blankets of her nest. “It’ll be okay. I’m going to get your brother. ”

I can see my father’s image hanging on the edge of the room like a sleep paralysis demon. No matter how many times I blink, how hard I squeeze my eyes shut, when I open them, he’s still there, with that contrite look on his face.

Dario comes barrelling into the room, looking harried and rumpled, with Jude and Alex hanging out in the doorway.

“Dex,” he says softly, climbing into the bed with me. We often shared a bed when we were children, and feeling him wrap around me settles my rapidly beating heart. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m here.”

Nightmares are common for me. When Alex first joined us, they ramped up to the point where Dario forced me to get medicine for them since I wasn’t sleeping. I haven’t had one since I lost my virginity.

“Dad,” I say softly, blinking past the tears and trying to calm my shaking hands. “I went to see him in prison and I never told you.”

I’m vaguely aware of Jude and Alex pulling back from the doorway and leaving us alone, but I can’t look away from my brother.

“Why?” He sounds hurt. I don’t blame him.

“I needed closure. I wanted to find a way to forgive him.”

“Did you? Find it, I mean?”

I shake my head sadly. “No.”

When I tell him about the visit, the things Dad said, sadness overtakes his features. “So you think he planned it? Planned going into Storm?”

I lace my fingers with his. “Maybe? But I’m not convinced he even went into Storm, Dario. How can we even know? He seemed apologetic, but he made a ton of excuses. Almost like he was blaming her. ”

“I mean, we were kids, but it seemed like they loved each other, didn’t it?” Dario rolls over onto his back and stares at the metal ceiling of Alex’s trailer. “But maybe we missed some of it.”

“I don’t think we’ll ever really know,” I admit. “I want to think we can. I thought I needed to know so I could move on.”

“And now?”

Sighing, I try to collect my thoughts. I’m still struggling with the adrenaline rush of the nightmare. “Now, I feel like the answer doesn’t matter. I feel like I wasted years of my life being fearful and hateful. I wish I could’ve moved on like you did.”

Dario snorts. “You think I just moved on? Skipped off on my merry way?”

“It seemed like that,” I admit.

“Yeah, it would have. I tried to shield you from it. There’s a reason why I never had any serious relationships until now. I held everyone but you at arm’s length, fearing what could happen. The one time I got close to someone other than you, I watched as they set a house on fire.”

He tells me about his involvement in the house fire in our neighborhood that made the news when we were teenagers. My heart aches.

Why couldn’t he come to me with these worries?

Right. Because he was so busy protecting me from everything.

“Fuck, we need therapy,” I say with a laugh. “I’m regretting not taking it seriously when we were kids.”

“Hey Jude,” Dario shouts. “Does our insurance cover therapy?”

I can hear the snort of our showrunner in the other room. “Hell no. But we can find you one of those app therapists. ”

Dario laughs and turns to me. “What do you say? Internet therapy for us both?”

He holds up his fist and I pound it with mine. “Internet therapy it is.”