Because I was fighting for my life during those missing days. I didn’t need to remember that.

I remember coming to… I felt a little better, but weak as hell. My body was still burning in pain. It was hard to keep my eyes open. I was cold and smoldering hot at the same time. Sweating and shivering. The pain got worse if I tried to move.

The lights were dim in the basement, and behind my raspy breathing, I couldn’t hear any sounds. But the omega was there… I wasn’t sure how I knew that. I couldn’t smell anything, and yet, I knew he was somewhere close. He’d been there the entire time.

After moving my head a little, I found him. He was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall next to the door. He was… Not fast asleep, but getting there. As I watched, his head fell, waking him up. He looked around, his face pale and dark circles surrounding his eyes. He was disoriented when he stopped to stare at me.

A second later, he shook himself and got up, stumbling a little.

“You’re awake…” he said, his voice hoarse, and came to sit next to me. “How are you feeling?”

Like shit… He didn’t wait for my reply, and touched my forehead. His fingers were almost cold against my skin. His touch was… soothing.

“I think it’s calming down now,” he muttered, grabbing his thermometer. “You’ve slept for… Three and a half hours now…”

He pointed his thermometer at my forehead, waited for a few seconds, then brought it closer to see the screen. “One hundred… It’s coming down now…”

“I feel like shit…” I groaned, but started coughing.

“No, no, no, no, no… Let’s not do that again… Slow breaths,” he muttered, hushing at me calmly. “Carefully now… Good boy… Good boy…”

I managed to force my lungs to calm down while I listened to his soothing mutters. I closed my eyes to focus on breathing and soon felt his cool fingers caressing my head.

“You’ll be fine soon… The fever is already coming down… I got your medicine right here… You’ll be fine… Just try to rest now…”

He sounded exhausted… Had he not slept at all…? I couldn’t remember him leaving my side even once.

“Good boy… You’re all right now… The worst is behind us now…”

I guess I fell asleep again. The next time I woke up, I felt a little bit better again. This time, the room was completely dark, and I knew the omega wasn’t there anymore. Probably went to sleep. He’d looked so goddamn exhausted…

The fuck I cared? I didn’t care.

I wondered if I was back on pain medication because my body wasn’t aching so bad anymore. The wound didn’t feel like my entire stomach was on fire anymore. Breathing seemed easier, too, but there was still a shit ton of snot coming out of my every hole.

I was strong enough to grab some tissues and clear my airways a bit. The omega had left a bottle of water and a couple of bananas next to my bed, so I ate as well. And fuck, I was actually feeling better after that. I peered at the clean bandages covering my stomach but left them be. There was no blood, and I wanted to keep it that way, no matter how badly I wanted to see the wound to make sure it was fine.

After that I just rested. Or tried to…

My alpha… I could feel it lurking close by. It still wasn’t fully awake, and I fucking hoped it would disappear again. It was just as big of a traitor to me as Glen was. Hell, it was even worse since it did nothing to stop us from getting shot. And the fucking reason it was waking up was that fucking omega? That st–

I took in a deep breath, trying to calm down. My thoughts were angering it again… Its presence became a little bit stronger again. It had been so empty… This past year… I had felt empty, and now that the alpha was waking up again, all it still had for me was hate.

My own alpha hated me… It hated me enough to let us both die, but it cared about some random-ass omega?

“Well fuck you too…” I whispered.

“Your alpha is gone because of your beliefs, boy. How is that natural?”

I heard footsteps outside the door and chose to act like I was asleep. I couldn’t stand the omega’s face at that moment. I wanted him to leave me the fuck alone.

I just wanted to be alone again…

The omega entered the basement and walked to me. I stayed still when he sat down and checked my temperature. I guess I’d managed to fool him, since he wasn’t saying anything. I kind of wanted to know if I still had a fever, but it must’ve come down since I was feeling better.

I tried to be patient and stay still while he did his job, but when he started removing the bandages, I flinched hard at the sudden pain.

“Fuck! Careful!” I hissed at him.

“Sorry, sorry…” he only said, his voice soft and small.

I bared my teeth at him, but he didn’t look in my direction. And for a moment… I stopped to stare at him. He still looked like crap. His long, black hair was in a messy bun, revealing his delicate features and pale skin. He looked… fragile… Especially when he tried to smother his yawns and focus on inspecting my stitches.

I forced my eyes off him and turned my attention to the wound instead. It looked even nastier than before. I wasn’t sure how the omega had managed to sow it all shut since it all was pretty much minced meat. Just looking at it made me nauseated.

“So?” I finally said in annoyance when he stayed silent. “How bad is it?”

He tilted his head as he stared at the wound. “It… It makes me want meatballs for dinner.”

“Fuck you,” I said as he chuckled at his own words. “You’re disgusting.”

He laughed a little bit longer, most likely because of how tired he was. At first, I wasn’t going to say anything, but his silence was getting on my nerves.

“You look like crap,” I said.

“Thanks,” he muttered.

“It wasn’t a compliment,” I said with a snort.

“It is for us medical personnel,” he said as he took a close look at my wound. “It means I’m doing my job.”

Again, I was supposed to keep my mouth shut, but…

“Why are you bothering with a terrorist? You could just let me die and dump me in the river.”

“Because saving lives is what I do,” he said.

“Well call that fucking ambulance and watch my ass get thrown in jail. If they bother to keep me alive,” I said.

He didn’t reply to me.

“How about Boss, then? You were so happily going to surrender me to him. How’s that going for you?”

Again, no reply.

“Are you actually going to keep me as your pet stud? Eye for an eye, huh? Is that what this equality bullshit has come to? Omegas taking alphas as their slaves?”

“Why aren’t you just happy I’m trying to save your ass, huh?” he asked.

“So I’m your slave now?” I guessed. “You’re putting way too much effort into saving my ass just to give me to Mercer so he can kill me. And if you actually cared about just saving a life, you would’ve called the army cunts and had them take me to a hospital.”

“Yeah, let’s go with that,” he said without paying much attention to it.

I rolled my eyes at him and stared at the ceiling. Whatever. Once I was strong enough, I’d break free from this fucking place…

“Well, it looks relatively all right,” the omega concluded, and grabbed a new set of bandages. “If you can keep yourself from coughing, I’m sure it’ll start healing again.”

Before he could start patching me up, his baby started crying upstairs. I rolled my eyes in annoyance. The doors were wide open, and the baby was somewhere close to the top of the stairs, so his voice was loud and clear. And it was getting louder and clearer.

But the baby itself wasn’t the worst part. It was my alpha. It got really fucking restless.

“Just fucking go put a pacifier in it,” I told the omega in annoyance.

“He’s just cranky. We’ve had a rough few nights…” he muttered. “I’ll quickly wrap up your wound and leave you alone.”

I bared my teeth at him, but that was a bit of a mistake. My already agitated alpha got mad at me and tried to surface. In my shock and surprise, I was too slow to stop it from taking control of our body, and it sat up to stare at the staircase.

“Hey! Get back down!” the omega told me, and together, he and I managed to get my body down.

I shoved the alpha out of the way, but fuck, it was mad. I struggled to stay in control of the body.

What the actual fuck…?

“Just chill,” the omega told me. “Don’t move, or I can’t do my job.”

“Just do something about that damn baby,” I grunted at him. “It’s driving me nuts.”

My alpha, more precise…

“Just hold still for one minute and I will,” he told me.

I tried to. I really did, but as the baby kept crying, the harder it was to keep my alpha under control. I wasn’t used to fighting it, and its anger was giving it strength I didn’t have. I quickly lost again, and again, it sat up, growling lightly.

“Come on,” the omega groaned. “Just one fucking–”

My alpha turned to glare at him, teeth bared. The omega fell silent and stared at me until my alpha turned its attention back to the baby. Silence fell into the basement as we listened quietly, but not to the baby’s cry. My alpha tried to hear if there was someone else upstairs with the baby.

“Are you…?” the omega said quietly. “You’re… You’re not in charge anymore.”

I really wasn’t. There was absolutely no way I could take back control from my alpha. Then the baby’s sound grew louder, and my alpha launched up on our feet, ignoring how weak our body was. It completely ignored the pain as well. It could only focus on the baby.

The omega retreated from us as we walked as close to the doorway as the chains would allow. The alpha let out low, threatening growls when it couldn’t get any further. The omega hurried out of the room and stopped to watch us with fear in his eyes, ready to protect his baby. My alpha ignored him and sniffed the air, trying to break the chains. It obviously couldn’t, but it sent the omega flying up the stairs.

Seconds later, I heard him trying to soothe his baby, and little by little, the crying calmed down. My alpha, however, did not. It kept letting out short, low growls while still trying to free our hands from the shackles.

It didn’t stop until the omega appeared at the top of the stairs, holding his baby in his arms. My alpha stopped to stare at them, falling silent. I tried to use that opportunity to get back in control, but it only shoved me out of its way again.

“You don’t…” the omega spoke, taking one careful step down toward us. “You don’t want to hurt my baby, right?”

The alpha sniffed the air again, louder this time, as it tried to determine if the child was all right.

“Are you… worried…?” the omega continued, taking another step closer.

My alpha stayed immobile, sensing the omega’s fear. It softened our posture, but kept our head bowed and shoulders up to show him we were strong. Fucking idiot didn’t realize we were barely staying up on our feet…

The omega found more courage in our silence and continued approaching us.

“He’s… He’s fine,” he said when he reached halfway down. “See? He was just cranky.”

My alpha responded by moving our head from side to side, taking in loud breaths as it studied both of them. It was calming now that it couldn’t detect anything wrong in their scents. No signs of distress, no unfamiliar people.

The omega stopped at the bottom of the stairs. There still were a few feet between us, but he hesitated to come closer.

“You don’t want to harm my child, right…?” he asked carefully. “You just got worried… Right?”

My alpha leaned against the chains as it tried to check the baby. The omega took a step closer, letting us see his child.

“See? He’s all right,” he said again. “Will you now calm down?”

My alpha ignored him. The baby watched us with wide eyes, unsure what to think of us. My alpha could see that, so it let out a small purr.

Great… Just fucking great…

The kid suddenly smiled and clapped his hands in excitement. His dad chuckled lightly and closed the distance between us, but still making sure we couldn’t touch the child.

“His name is Ares,” he said. “He’s a baby omega.”

My alpha purred a bit louder, and the kid giggled. I wanted to gag… And then, the alpha suddenly turned its focus to the daddy omega. He had a soft smile on his lips when he watched us, his fear gone now.

My alpha bowed harder at him, but kept our head turned away from him a little while it studied his scent. Fuck me, it was flirting with the fucking omega, hoping he would want to study our scent in return… The omega hesitated to take my alpha’s invitation, but then sniffed the air a bit while keeping a safe distance.

My alpha purred at him, but now it was I who was angry enough to get control of the body.

“Don’t you… fucking… dare…!” I groaned, forcing the alpha out of the way.

“Great. Here comes the dickhead…” the omega muttered with a sigh.

“Don’t fucking flirt with my alpha!” I said angrily. “That fucking traitorous bastard doesn’t know what it’s doing!”

“I think it knows exactly what it’s doing,” the omega said. “And I like it so much better than you. At least it has manners.”

I snorted at him. “It’s nothing but a traitorous bitch.”

He shook his head at me and turned to smile at his baby. “That was a very nice alpha, wasn’t it?”

The baby smiled back at him and babbled something incoherent for a bit.

“Yes, we liked the alpha. It was nice and friendly,” the omega continued as he walked up the stairs. “It was so worried about us… Thought something was wrong with you. Yes, he thought you were in danger, my little one… That was such a good alpha…”

I rolled my eyes, then almost fell to my knees when the pain hit me.

Fuck this shit… Fuck everything about this shit…