Page 7 of Two For the Show (Trapped On The Tightrope Duet #2)
“Teo,” I say softly, trying to keep my voice quiet and soothing. “It’s okay, baby, let it out.” He’s curled over the toilet, hurling his guts out, again. “You gotta get better. I’m supposed to be the sick one. I know how to be taken care of, not how to take care of you.”
He laughs, but it’s without any real humor. “Jealous of the attention I’m getting?” he says weakly.
“Of course I am!” I say, stroking down his spine. “The whole pack is worried.”
It’s not a lie. Dario, Dexter, and Jude are in Matteo’s sitting room, probably asleep, like they have been every night for the past two months.
We all want to be close to Matteo, to catch a whiff of Alex’s scent within his.
It’s smothering him, I know, but he hasn’t been a dick and pushed everyone away.
But recently, he’s been getting sick at night, and we all know it’s because somewhere out there, our Omega is sick, too. And we can’t help her. She’s sick and hurting, and all I want is to wrap her in my arms and let her know that we’ve got her .
That we’re going to take care of her.
I wasn’t aware that a bond works the way it seems to between Matteo and Alex.
It’s strange, the way he is not only feeling her emotions but her physical illness, too.
Matteo says it feels almost like carsickness.
Like it’s not really an illness and you know it’ll go away fairly quickly, but it still sucks when you’re in it.
The door to the bathroom cracks open a little. “You two good?” Dario asks sleepily. “Need some ginger ale?”
Every night for weeks, Teo’s been sick, and every night, Dario wakes up from the noise and tries to give him water or ginger ale. It’s like a reflex now, and I’m not sure he even remembers doing it when he wakes up in the morning.
Matteo shakes his head and waves the other Alpha off. “No, I think it’s passed.” He sits up and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
Ew.
Still love him, though.
“She must be in a bad place,” Teo says, moving to the sink to wash his hands and brush his teeth. “If she’s getting this sick, this often, I mean.”
“It’s the FOS,” I tell him. “It’s gotta be. We need to find her.”
“Well, first we have to exterminate the rats in our midst,” my Beta reminds me. “Hopefully, Dexter’s plan to let her know it’s safe to return works.”
“And if it doesn’t?” I ask for what has to be the thirtieth time.
“It has to.”
Matteo tosses his blade up in the air and deftly catches it. He’s feeling better today, which I am so grateful for. With him being so sick due to the bond with Alex, I have been hiding some of the worst symptoms of my Alpha Rot from him.
I don’t know what I did in a prior life to deserve the degenerative Alpha disease. Still, here I am, falling apart from something that primarily affects elderly Alphas whose Omegas have died.
The symptoms, on the surface, don’t sound too terrible until you’re the one living with them day in and day out.
It starts benign. Headaches, body aches, and sometimes the chills. Like the start of the flu. But anyone would be driven a little crazy after a week with a pounding headache, so I started trying to chase the pain with meds.
And that’s when I really started fucking up my body.
Because the Rot doesn’t play well with medicine, it somehow sped up the process since I was treating it like the flu. My body began attacking itself at a faster rate as I kept swallowing down more and more pills, thinking this was just some regular illness.
I ended up in the hospital, bleeding internally, diagnosed with an ulcer from overuse of acetaminophen.
After that, I stopped with the over-the-counter meds, and my symptoms lessened. To a degree, at least. I was still tired, achy, and in general slightly miserable all the time, but hey.
At least I wasn’t shitting blood.
Everyone knew I was sick and struggling, but we didn’t know with what. A vague diagnosis of chronic pain was all I would get. The other doctors never realised that it was Rot that was running me down and causing my pain, but of course, my Omega did.
I had my suspicions, after several nights where I fell into a hole searching the internet while in too much pain to sleep, but I didn’t voice them to Jude or Matteo. No one’s brain went there because it was so unlikely to be the case.
How could a handsome Alpha like me, with his whole life ahead of him, be Rotting from the inside out?
Surprise, motherfuckers. I’ve been hiding it under a plume of smoke and my razor-sharp wit.
When Alex went off the suppressants, I felt like I was coming up for air for the first time in ages. And it got better. My headache was nearly gone, and I felt like strength was returning to my limbs. I saw the light at the end of the crumbling, rotten tunnel.
Of course, it couldn’t last, so I’m back to managing my disease however possible.
I’ve done my best to switch almost entirely to edible cannabis now, hoping that I can hide the increase in use from my Beta.
The clothing and linens we rescued from Alex’s trailer have long lost her scent, and Matteo’s transformed one can only go so far, so I find myself chewing gummies nearly nonstop, except when it’s time to perform.
Everyone knowing how much I am aching for her, and how I keep getting sicker, and sicker, helps no one. So I push it down. Hide it from my pack.
I think it’s working. I don’t think they’ve noticed.
Matteo looks dashing, as always, in his performance outfit. The silly old school ringmaster hat hangs sideways on his head, and I tap the brim of it, laughing as it falls to the ground.
“Q!” he snarls, catching the blade he had just released. But there is no heat in his voice. “What if that had distracted me? I could lose a treasured body part.”
I swoop in, bending down to kiss him gently on the lips. “I know you better than that.” I hear Jude’s announcement of the next act from the ring and the thunderous applause of the audience. My back stiffens. “It’s time, huh?”
My partner shoves off the side of the dress tent with a nod. “You know what you have to do?”
We’ve been over the plan a dozen times, but I still don’t know if it’s the right call. We don’t know if it will work. But goddamn, I want it to. I want it to work so badly that I can hardly see straight. “And we’re sure this is the best way to do it? The only way?”
“What other option do we have?” he hisses.
“We need her back. You think I haven’t noticed how listless you’ve become?
How you wince when you roll over? The Rot is getting worse, and you think you’re so fucking clever, masking it as pure sadness.
You forget, Quinton Black, that no one knows you like I do.
” He takes several steps toward me, yanking me closer by the collar of my black t-shirt.
“I have tasted every part of you. I have heard every noise you could ever make. We may not be able to claim each other, but we don’t need that, do we, Alpha? ”
“No,” I murmur, leaning into his touch, enjoying the way his scent is spiking, making the tent smell like a French pastry shop.
“No, we don’t. Because you are a part of me, just as I am a part of you. I’ve been dealing with this bond sickness, but that doesn’t mean I’m blind and stupid, Quinton. Quit trying to hide your pain from me.”
My eyes drop to the grassy ‘floor’ of the tent. I’m embarrassed that I thought I was getting something by on my Beta. Of course, he knew I was getting sicker. He’s taken care of me for years now. If anyone would notice, it’d be him.
I hate it. I hate that there have been times when he feels more like a nurse than a lover. I hate that he looks at me like something to fix .
But I can’t blame him.
Because I am broken. I am not the Alpha he deserves. I am falling apart, and it’s only gotten worse since Alex left us.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him emphatically. “I’m sorry that I tried to hide this from you. I hate having to ask more of you. It always feels like I need more and more and more.”
“Your illness is not your fault, and you can’t keep beating yourself up over it.”
“But you didn’t sign up for this!” I nearly shout. “I wasn’t like this when we met.”
“I signed up for you, Quinton!” he responds, grabbing me by the face.
“I didn’t sign up for a perfect version of you.
A you that is flawless. I signed up for you .
Every self-destructive habit, every ache and pain, every wrinkle that you gain, and eventually, how your balls are going to sag into the fucking toilet.
I signed up for forever.” He presses a searing kiss to my lips, and when he pulls away, we’re both panting.
“Now, let’s play our parts and get our girl back. ”