Page 120 of My Unhinged Alphas
No one interrupts.
So I keep going. “I remember one house with yellow curtains. One with a dog that hated me. A woman who smoked in thekitchen and said my hair was too wild. A man who always called me kid instead of my name.” I shake my head. “It’s all like that.”
Knox says, “Before that?”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
At first there’s nothing. Just black and pressure and the stupid, humiliating awareness of three men standing there waiting for me to reach into parts of myself I haven’t touched in years.
Then something flickers.
Small. Pale.
Not a scene. More like a flashbulb going off in the dark.
A woman. Blonde.
That’s the first thing I know about her. Blonde hair, bright even in whatever dim place this is. Not pretty in the memory. Not calm. Terrified.
My breath catches. The room around me seems to thin.
I can’t see her clearly. Not all at once. Pieces. Her face too close to mine. Her hands on my shoulders. Her eyes wide in a way that makes my stomach turn before I even understand why.
And her voice. Urgent. Shaking.
Hide, hide yourself, Lenny. Don’t let them find you.
The words hit me so hard I jerk.
My eyes fly open, and for a second, I don’t know where I am.
Motel room. Lamp. Bedspread under my hands. My own heartbeat pounding too fast in my ears. I shudder once, sharp and involuntary, like something cold just moved through me.
Vale takes a half-step forward before stopping himself.
“What?” Knox says immediately. “What did you remember?”
I stare at the floor.
Not because I don’t want to answer. Because I’m trying not to throw up. “No,” I say. “I told you. I don’t remember.”
Knox’s eyes narrow. “Lena.”
I’m already shaking my head. “I said no.”
The room feels wrong all at once. Too close. Too warm. My skin is cold. There’s something rising fast in me, panic and nausea and the sick, awful feeling of having reached into myself and pulled up something rotten and alive.
Havoc straightens off the wall.
Vale takes a step toward me. “Lena.”
That only makes it worse.
I’m off the bed before I really know I’ve moved. The room tilts. My shoulder clips the side table. Somebody says my name again, maybe Knox this time, maybe Vale, but I don’t stop long enough to care. I get to the bathroom, barely make it to the toilet, and then I’m on my knees with my hair falling into my face, throwing up hard enough it hurts.
It’s mostly acid and nerves and whatever stale fear has been sitting in my stomach all night. My eyes water. My throat burns. I grip the edge of the toilet and stay there, breathing through my mouth, waiting to see if my body is done humiliating me.
It isn’t.
